Chubb Trail
I am so excited to tell you about the Chubb trailhead. I was blown out of the water after I finally got to try her out. I would have rode it sooner but the fact that it is a little ways a way for me to drive to made it something to look forward to. I heard from a lot of bike shops in the area that the Chubb was the best around. Seeing for myself I have to agree. I also have to agree that I fell a lot. This trail has so much to offer ranging from hills to flat land to amazing technical areas that if you came as a beginner than you will be hurtin. I really enjoyed the trail. The problem was that it was my first time out there. You see I am a jump first look later kind of guy. This is the wrong trail to do that on. Bring your helmet on this trail or you will be seriously messed up. I ran into so many obstacles that I couldn’t see straight. I quite literally ran into everything. I’m not the most graceful biker, but I hit every bump, jump, and rock possible. This trail runs into the Castlewood trailhead which will be my next big adventure. My advice on the Chubb is as follows: take it easy and wear a helmet. I of course wear helmets every time I ride off road. I have a history of breaking them, so I just rather do that than my head. Have fun on the trails and get a little wild, have some fun and break your limits!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Fat Tire and Devil's Ice Box
I like talking about Columbia, Missouri because of the fact that I got my mountain biking start there as well as making it my first Fat Tire race ever. Wondering what Fat Tire is? It is a Missouri racing series for mountain bikers. You can race in it, and it moves around Missouri. It is pretty tough, but sometimes you have to just experience tough to know the easy. The Fat tire race that was in Columbia was located at the Devil’s Ice Box. It is a easy to moderate trail depending on where you start out at. I mean I has to be somewhat good to get me hooked like it did. I love the different terrain it offers. It ranges from rocky to smooth flatlands to rolling through creek beds. You just have so many adventures to choose from here. I’m a year round biker, so the trails are going to change, giving you fun that won’t give you the same ride every day. The reason I wanted to pop this trail into my blog was so people could know that there are trails everywhere, and if you want to take an easy hour and a half drive west, you will find that the Devil’s Ice Box will definitely be worth the drive. If you like caves then you are also in the right place for fun and adventure! Get out and experience what Missouri has to offer.
Mountain Biking Origins of Joshman
To understand why I love mountain biking, I got to take you back to Columbia, Missouri. The year is 2001 and I just moved from Cedar Rapids, Iowa to go to University of Missouri. I decide to try my hand at something I was always curious about; Mountain Biking. All I had to ride was an old Specialized Hard Rock bike that I got when I was 12. Don’t get me wrong, I loved this bike and I knew this bike. It was what you would call a hard tail bike as well as no shocks in the front. A straight up bike with no suspension, but still my prized possession. I found out about Rock Bridge from someone at church and decided to check it out. I am an adventurous guy who needs to experience everything. Here I am with a bike going somewhere I should not even be going without a helmet and I went full throttle. I remember slipping into first gear and driving straight up an incline that was so freaking steep that my bike shot up in the front and I fell straight back on my head. That was my first experience of mountain biking. Most people who experienced something like that would turn around and bike right back to their vehicle. I did the opposite. I tried it again and again, but could not get it. I decided to take one last run at it and made it, barely, but I still made it. I have this problem of not being able to quit what I started. I always have to finish, no matter what I have to do to get there. I was addicted at the point when I made it to the top. I was out there riding 4 or 5 times a week after that doing every trail they had over and over. My prized bike was starting to fall apart and I was becoming broke repairing piece by piece that would bust. My only alternative was to buy a bike that was actually meant to be on these trails. I loved Specialized so I bought another Hard Rock, but this time with front suspension. I got to know the Bike shop people so well that I actually rode with them. The shop was named Cycle Extreme and it has my vote for an amazing shop for everything from advice to parts. I eventually bought old parts from these biking professionals off of their own top end bikes. My point is that you don’t need the best equipment out there to be good at something. You just need the will to do it, and the rest will come along the way.
Lost Valley
Lost Valley
Weldon Spring has a really cool trail named Lost Valley. It is about half the distance of what Klondike is for me, because I live in Weldon Spring. It is located right off of highway 94 on the right kind of hidden so really look for it after the big pile of rocks. Pull into the parking lot and get ready for a decent ride. I just want to warn you right now that the trail starts out really slow and catches you off guard after a long ride up a hill. I went out to Lost Valley with a friend of mine who had been there before and we ended up going against all flow that was on the trail that day. There are no signs so I don’t really know if there was a wrong or right way to go, but who cares, right? This trail is actually more fun than hard. I can’t say much more than that for when we got to the top there was just a lot of squiggly paths to follow. It makes it more fun when you bypass the actual trail and ride straight down the steep hills, which I always end up doing. My ADD kicks in and I get to thinking that little hills are no fun. Bigger is always better when biking off road. Lost Valley is actually similar to the Devil’s Ice Box trail head in Columbia, Missouri. I’ll get to that trail later in my upcoming posts. This Lost Valley is fun for beginners and semi-intermediate riders. While traveling over ant hills and single track, you stumble across rock and streams that really makes this trail fun and scenic for anyone who can peddle up a hill. At the end of this trail is an old driveway that can give you some awesome speed if you peddle hard. Just make sure your wheels are tight, or you’ll end up eating the asphalt. That small road turns back into grassland and back to the parking lot. It is a short trail, but worth the ride because of the location and distance. Check Lost Valley out!
Weldon Spring has a really cool trail named Lost Valley. It is about half the distance of what Klondike is for me, because I live in Weldon Spring. It is located right off of highway 94 on the right kind of hidden so really look for it after the big pile of rocks. Pull into the parking lot and get ready for a decent ride. I just want to warn you right now that the trail starts out really slow and catches you off guard after a long ride up a hill. I went out to Lost Valley with a friend of mine who had been there before and we ended up going against all flow that was on the trail that day. There are no signs so I don’t really know if there was a wrong or right way to go, but who cares, right? This trail is actually more fun than hard. I can’t say much more than that for when we got to the top there was just a lot of squiggly paths to follow. It makes it more fun when you bypass the actual trail and ride straight down the steep hills, which I always end up doing. My ADD kicks in and I get to thinking that little hills are no fun. Bigger is always better when biking off road. Lost Valley is actually similar to the Devil’s Ice Box trail head in Columbia, Missouri. I’ll get to that trail later in my upcoming posts. This Lost Valley is fun for beginners and semi-intermediate riders. While traveling over ant hills and single track, you stumble across rock and streams that really makes this trail fun and scenic for anyone who can peddle up a hill. At the end of this trail is an old driveway that can give you some awesome speed if you peddle hard. Just make sure your wheels are tight, or you’ll end up eating the asphalt. That small road turns back into grassland and back to the parking lot. It is a short trail, but worth the ride because of the location and distance. Check Lost Valley out!
Klondike Park
Klondike Park
Klondike Park is a very large county park. It is often confused as a state park because of the massiveness of it. I don’t necessarily want to turn this into a commentary about trails, because others have already done that. I want to make this into a first person’s journey through my favorite trails in the area of Eastern Missouri. I started at Klondike so the first journey recorded will be Klondike. I started up this hill when I got out of the parking lot and it just plain sucks. You really want to stop no matter what your athletic level is, but don’t. It is a total trip when you get to the top. Now you can go left or right. Right will take you to a beautiful ledge over the Katy Trail and left will take you to the Hogsback Trail. There are a lot of people there on nice days so really be careful about going fast on this first section. It gets a lot less foot traffic when you start descending down the awesome maze of single track down the side of rock and mud. I tend to leap first, and then look later. My first descent was right off a rock wall. My bike flew down while I grabbed on to a small tree. I ended up just letting go and dropping down a steep decline almost to the end of the whole Hogsback trail. I did end up bending my derailleur pretty good so I had to stop and fix that for a few minutes. I got back on and continued to the next obstacle. Once you get done with that, you have to bike on the roadway till you find the hidden Powerline trail. This trail rocks, for the fact that you can fly through it. They have the more difficult technical aspects back here. There is a small log ride where you can try out your control, as well as some other man made ramps that will trash you up if you know very little about riding. Heck, it will trash me up too, because I go big or go home. If you have a nice bike, have fun back here, but if you are new and have a cheaper bike, don’t try out these ramps. YOU WILL BREAK YOUR BIKE! Here is where the fun starts and ends. It is called the Donkey Kong. Bike through a maze of forest and end up looking down a small cliff. Guess where you got to go. The answer is down, and I welcome it. The first time I tried the jump I didn’t see it. The place where you land is a sand pit, so it just grabs your tires, followed by a rock wall you ride straight down. My recommendation is for you to ride through it and not stop. You will fall. There it is, the Klondike trail in a nutshell. I recommend it, as well as love riding it!
Klondike Park is a very large county park. It is often confused as a state park because of the massiveness of it. I don’t necessarily want to turn this into a commentary about trails, because others have already done that. I want to make this into a first person’s journey through my favorite trails in the area of Eastern Missouri. I started at Klondike so the first journey recorded will be Klondike. I started up this hill when I got out of the parking lot and it just plain sucks. You really want to stop no matter what your athletic level is, but don’t. It is a total trip when you get to the top. Now you can go left or right. Right will take you to a beautiful ledge over the Katy Trail and left will take you to the Hogsback Trail. There are a lot of people there on nice days so really be careful about going fast on this first section. It gets a lot less foot traffic when you start descending down the awesome maze of single track down the side of rock and mud. I tend to leap first, and then look later. My first descent was right off a rock wall. My bike flew down while I grabbed on to a small tree. I ended up just letting go and dropping down a steep decline almost to the end of the whole Hogsback trail. I did end up bending my derailleur pretty good so I had to stop and fix that for a few minutes. I got back on and continued to the next obstacle. Once you get done with that, you have to bike on the roadway till you find the hidden Powerline trail. This trail rocks, for the fact that you can fly through it. They have the more difficult technical aspects back here. There is a small log ride where you can try out your control, as well as some other man made ramps that will trash you up if you know very little about riding. Heck, it will trash me up too, because I go big or go home. If you have a nice bike, have fun back here, but if you are new and have a cheaper bike, don’t try out these ramps. YOU WILL BREAK YOUR BIKE! Here is where the fun starts and ends. It is called the Donkey Kong. Bike through a maze of forest and end up looking down a small cliff. Guess where you got to go. The answer is down, and I welcome it. The first time I tried the jump I didn’t see it. The place where you land is a sand pit, so it just grabs your tires, followed by a rock wall you ride straight down. My recommendation is for you to ride through it and not stop. You will fall. There it is, the Klondike trail in a nutshell. I recommend it, as well as love riding it!
Extreme!!
I really wanted to express my love for mountain biking in a new blog. I have named it Extreme Mountain Biking in St. Louis. I moved to St. Louis almost two years ago. I was worried that the area wouldn’t support my needs of single track mountain biking. Biking is my passion and I would be so sad if I actually had to give it up. The story behind me finding out about the massive amounts of trails within the distance of 20 miles of my house is kind of quick, but what happened after is what matters. I talked to a bike shop that I literally just picked out of the phone book. I mean I opened the yellow pages to bike shops, closed my eyes, and shoved my finger down onto the page. I then called them up and asked them the question. “I’m new to this area and I want to find some bike trails.” They continued to tell me that I was crazy for not hearing about any of them before. Perhaps all of Missouri’s greatest trails were located here. Missouri’s Mecca of trails here, by my house, what could be better. I threw my bike into my truck drove to a trail named Klondike Park, near Defiance, Missouri. I love writing about these trails, but you can’t write about something you haven’t experienced. I got my bike out and rode out of my mind. The complexity of the trails was intermediate so I enjoyed myself pretty good. I am a pretty decent rider, but I have a trouble of wiping out a lot. I don’t know if it’s a problem because it’s kind of fun coming home with new scrapes and wounds after a bike ride. You might find me a little nuts, but I love the feeling of knowing that I rode as hard as I could. I don’t like being safe. I love extreme. The feeling of being extreme gives you the knowledge that you are indeed alive, and that you could die. I encourage anyone and everyone to experience a little extreme in your life!
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
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