Spring MTB Pt. 2 - Tanglewood Park

Spring MTB Pt. 2 - Tanglewood Park


I went out on Thursday morning last week on a challenging 9+ mile mountain bike ride at local Tanglewood Park. The area experienced fairly bad weather the day prior with lots of wind and rain leaving a difficult muddy and slippery ride through the forest. The morning was gorgeous and the day was shaping up to be too good to stay indoors. Typically, any mountain bike enthusiast would look forward to getting down and dirty on a forest trail, but after a few minutes into my ride and one solid smack onto a rooted trail, I quickly became humble and toned down my typical aggressive riding style.

Roots, mostly smooth and covered in some kind of algae, are perfectly slick and "channel" the front and rear tires of a mountain bike much like the rails on a train track direct the wheels of a train. I had just coasted down a slope and made an attempt to bank a righthand turn when out of nowhere the front wheel pulled hard to the left and my body flew off the bike to the right. Setting my right foot down to catch the fall did no good as I lost footing and slipped right along. Momentum carried me forward, a right knee impacted the ground, and not even could the glove on my hand slow me enough to soften a full body flop. A system of roots of varied sizes broke my fall to the ground. The bruise on the outside of my right thigh is still going through the changing colors of a healing injury. Luckily no other bones made contact. The rest of the ride was slow and cautious. I look forward to days when the trails are dried and the mud hard packed. I enjoy a good lung busting aerobic workout on the bike and the local trails seem to be the best way to enjoy getting in some exercise.

Being that the trail made for a nasty surprise around every corner, I decided to stop every so often and seek out anything of interest to photograph. Of course, the forest looked the same through most of the ride. Every so often the trees filtered the sunlight into interesting patterns. I even managed to find a fallen log decaying in fungus which made for interesting subject matter. I saw plenty of squirrels and a few chipmunks - which are way to fast for a photo - but no deer on this day's ride.

Tanglewood trails offer a nice mixture of small bridge crossings, log pyramids, and a few fallen log obstacles to challenge the off-road enthusiast. Every so often there are hints of what may have been at one time large rock gardens to bike through. Most of them are worn down baseball sized rocks mixed with loose gravel. Overall, I would definitely recommend Tanglewood to the beginning mountain biker. Just be ready to feel the leg burn. Oh yeah, and avoid riding after the rain or be prepared to take home a bruise or two and a muddy bike.

Stay tuned as I will soon be venturing out to some exotic mountain biking locations such as the Uwharrie National Forest on one of my days off.

All the best -

Eugenio