Breaking the rules can be a lot of fun, even when it just feels like you’re breaking them. In February of this year, I found myself riding wet and muddy trails down slopes that were surely too steep to be sustainable in what would turn out to be my most memorable and eye-opening ride of the year.
There’s no greater shame for a mountain biker than to be caught riding muddy trails, and for good reason. Biking on wet trails can cause significant damage that’s unfair to other trail users and also to the folks who build and maintain the trails. On top of that, it’s not great for our bikes either.
Still, there’s something about playing in the mud that makes us feel like kids again. So, when I found myself at Windrock Bike Park in Tennessee on a wet, misty morning, I was conflicted. Surely it would be irresponsible to ride that day, but then again, the privately-managed trails are rarely, if ever, closed. And I wasn’t riding my own bike that day, I was riding a Mullet test bike (thanks Miles!).
So, weather and trail etiquette be damned, I dove right in. The wide-open, groomed Talladega trail was squishy but rideable, but my eyes were truly opened once I ventured onto the steep and natural trails at Windrock, culminating in a tense descent down Golden Oak. It was while riding this narrow, loamy trail that I realized what I had been missing across thousands of miles of trail riding on public land: mountain biking with true reckless abandon.
I had a taste of this the day before, riding at Ride Kanuga and Rock Creek bike parks in North Carolina, and again a few weeks later at Jarrod’s Place. The mountains and forest felt intimately familiar — after all, I had biked trails in the area for decades. But this was a new experience, a lifting of the rules, a relaxing of constraints, that both challenged me and opened my eyes to another style of riding. It felt more raw, more old-school, more renegade.
Riding Golden Oak at Windrock that day, it was as if I had stumbled onto a secret, illegal trail that had been scratched into the side of the mountain just the day before. “How did they get away with building this trail?” I wondered. Well, when it’s private land, you can pretty much do whatever you want to do. That day, I experienced the same excitement and adrenaline rush I’ve felt biking questionable trails in well-known destinations like Bellingham and Santa Cruz, but without the fear and guilt that sometimes tag along for the ride.
To be clear, when it comes to accessible and sustainable (public) mountain bike trails, I don’t think we can ever have too many. We’ll always need more safe, accessible, and sustainable trails that are designed for everyone to enjoy. After all, for every “best” ride, there are dozens of after-work rides and hot laps at the local trail system to be ridden.
And in the end, it’s those everyday trail rides that make a ride like mine at Windrock that day stand out among the best of the year.
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