Yesterday was a rare “trail day” here at singletracks and despite the overcast and cool weather I managed to get out to two new trails in a single afternoon. One of the trails, Garner Recreation Park, wasn’t even listed on singletracks yet – shame on us! The other trail at Legend Park in Clayton, NC had been on our to-do list for some time and last week we read a blurb about the park in IMBA‘s 4th Annual Freeride Guide. (Oh yeah – singletracks is now an IMBA corporate sponsor)
Anyway, Legend Park certainly lives up to the hype. At the trailhead parking area there’s a sweet skills course with a couple skinnys, some ramps, and a gnarly air bridge with various drop options. Heading onto the trail itself you’re immediately presented with options – beginner, intermediate, or advanced. In the end all the trails go to the same place but each option presents a different set of challenges. The first intermediate drop-in was a steep washed out section that got my heart pumping before I really even started pedaling. The trail quickly wrapped to a monster airbridge structure that I believe is called “Hucksville.”
The rest of the trail is VERY well constructed despite the fact that much of it covers pretty challenging topography (ravines, creeks, swamps, etc.). There must be at least 2 dozen bridges on the trail and the flow is really amazing. The trails use pretty much every square inch of the park area and fun touches like banked turns allow you to seriously fly through the trails.
The pi√©ce de resistance at Legend has to be the enormous cliff area where gutsy mountain bikers make the leap off 20-30 foot drops. Ositoking has posted some good pics of jumpers out here, unfortunately on Tuesday I was the only one on the trails (no one to take my photo – shoot 😉 )
I also got some good maps of Garner and Legend using my trusty Garmin Edge 205 and I’m pretty impresed with the reception given the cloud cover AND full leaf cover on the trails. I’m not as stoked about transferring and cleaning data FROM the Edge 205 though – it’s a huge pain in the ass. Those maps were numbers 198 and 199 in our GPS map collection – and number 200 was posted today!
