My brother Josh and I trekked out to Busiek State Park (from our lodgings at Table Rock Lake) for a ride this afternoon. I had read reviews indicating 1) that the trails were kind of busy and that 2) the trails were very technical. Half of that was true.
The trail we rode (the red trail) started out with a nasty technical climb (made nasty by bread loaf boulder and tons of loose rock - presumably from horse riding) and after a while turned into some real nice winding singletrack along a beautiful forested ridge. It was great riding - except we kept having to back track and "explore" the many spurs that came off the main trail because the trail was so poorly marked that it was not immediately apparent which were the spurs and what was the main trail. In fact, at one point, we decided to jump onto the silver trail and thought we had done so. But after riding for probably a mile or so, the trail just kind of petered out and we ended up bushwacking around until we got back on the main trail and backtracked back to the red trail.
I'm sure if we were to ride it again, we could follow the main trail, but for a first timer to this area, the trails simply were not marked well enough and there were too many well-worn spurs.
The horseflies weren't too bad, the scenery was great, the single track rocked and the downhills were intense (again - due to the many boulders and loose rocks covering the trails.)
We had a great time and probably rode somewhere around 4-6 miles (including all the diversions.)
PS - with the sale of the house scheduled to go through on Aug 31, plans for the HH100 have been (lamentably) aborted. Why is it that I can never seem to get geared up for that race?
This here's the only shot we got of me:
Posts
