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Rate it:
Tags:
Level: Intermediate
Length: 10 mi (16.1 km)
Surface: Singletrack
Configuration: Network
Elevation: +431/ -197 ft
Total: 33 riders
Mountain Biking Matthiessen
#32 of 128 mountain bike trails in Illinois
The folks at BikeIV (Bike Illinois Valley) have done a great job building these trails. There is some smooth singletrack and some amazing elevation changes and beautiful views of the river. Some nice roots and rocks throughout the system.
First added by sociologysal on Mar 29, 2011. Last updated Apr 28, 2020. → add an update
Before you go
- Drinking water: unknown
- Lift service: unknown
- Night riding: unknown
- Pump track: unknown
- Restrooms: unknown
- Fat bike grooming: unknown
- E-bikes allowed: unknown
- Fee required: unknown
This trail information is user-generated. Help improve this information by suggesting a correction.
Enter Mathiessen State Park at the southern entrance off of route 178. It will be the Vermillion River Area entrance. Look for a sign that says Horse and bike trails. It should be the first or second left. There will be an outhouse there. Park and find the trail head at the woods.
A great morning ride. Trails to river bottom were closed.
| ThankRode today was wet in some areas but I figured that from the rain early in the afternoon. A lot of the trails away from the river area are beginning to get overgrown with grass, weeds(watch out for the itch weed and pricker bushes) and some small tree limbs with foliage are hanging into the trail. Other than that it's still a good ride.
| ThankScoured entire area it's in pretty good shape some nice logs roots and rock beds even found a few skinnys. All in all a good place to ride. Has switchbacks and elevation changes some downhill stuff and some more technical areas. Only bad parts are the trails aren't marked very well but the area isn't that vast. The thing that really sucks is the horseback riders you share the area with if you go on the weekend expect to see them though if you can get there during the week it will be pretty dead and you can really ride fast
| ThankThere was some decent singletrack if you can find it. However, the majority of the trail system is a muddy rut through a mowed path in a prarie. Also, the system was really convoluted, the intersections were really close together, it had almost no waypoint markers, and had lots of unofficial trails branching off. These factors together made navigation extremely slow and frustrating. Add to that the fact that all of the trails are popular with equestrians and you can understand why I only gave this place two stars. However, with a little time you could probably figure out a really fun loop of about 3-4 miles that would be worth stopping for when passing through. I will probably do so now that I'm going to be passing through regularly.
There is a race held here, a map of which can be found at http://www.bikeiv.org/uploads/2013_MMM_Race_Course.pdf. This is probably more useful than the system map as the race appears to use most of the better trails and avoids the "prarie trail".
| ThankSeemed like some pretty good trails. Some nice ups and downs with tight turns. Didnt get to ride very long i popped two tires and didnt have two extra inner tubes. Looked like the park recently mowed some thorn trees down which i managed to pop tires on
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