Real Mountain Biking in North Carolina

Picture taken at Dupont State Forest.

This post should be titled, "Lessons learned about doing real mountain biking." The reason is that last time I went looking for some real mountain biking I ended up doing a lot of fire road in Dupont State Forest. Please don't make the same mistake I did.

I went to Dupont for the first time with a Florida mentality. I thought trails were going to be marked nicely with signs "trail head" or "wrong way" and so on. Things have become more obvious since then.

Signs at Dupont

• Trails flow either way. There are no such thing as one way. All trails can be ridden in either direction. That's not to say that some trails are better suited for downhilling. You'll quickly discover this once you have push your bike for 30 minutes up the mountain trails.
• Trails are independent of each other and do not follow one  another. Picture a city (trail system) where the neighborhood (trails) are at a particular address. You have to go down the road and find that particular trail. There are literally hundred of signs in Dupont State Forest with the name of the fire road you are on.
• All trails are not created equal. There are over 80 miles of trails in Dupont. Make sure you visit the local bike shop for recommendations. Or you can do what i did, follow another group of riders. If not, this is what you will be riding the whole day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1PaAr_faM4

Galen and Rex: first two rider buddies

Now that I got that out of the way, let me tell you about my weekend. I went to Dupont State Forest early Saturday around 9 am. I met Galean and Rex in the first parking lot. I chose to follow them because they seemed to know a lot more than me. I was glad I did it. Within 5 minutes of riding with them I was riding in one of thet best trails i've ever ridden in my life. Nice, fast and flowy trail turning left and right with jumps. I told them at the end of the trail that the trip would have been worth it if it was cut short at that moment. It was, my tire kept losing air pressure.  This part is thing I learn while doing real mountain biking.

The tire I am currently running on my bicycle is an Exiwolf which is not an  optimal for the rear, especially when it's running as a tubeless setup. Taking turns at 18 mph and leaning the bike burps the tires.  I was disappointed to have to let go both of these guy but anyways it was getting quite obvious that they were in way better shape. Rather than risk it, I rode back to the car. The tire pressure was 18 lbs when i measured.  So far the trip was going by excellent. I had finally figured out that Dupont had that technical single track I was looking for.

So out in the car while putting more stans liquid on my rear tire another group of riders rolled in. They weren't wearing cycling jerseys but I was more interested in them knowing where they were going. They had been there the day before and soon I knew their way around. Once again we were hitting some nice trails right away, a big contrast to when i went by myself.

At the top of Big Rocky Trail with the group.

One of the riders told me that they weren't going to go fast as they had beginners with them.  Well good thing that was the case. I couldn't keep up with some of them. The whole day was spent riding up and down some technical trails with fast descents. I got to see a couple of water falls and even cross a river. The new guys were not so far behind all the time. So when we were waiting for them it was actually a good thing, I needed some rest.

What impressed me the most is the idea of adventures and challenges. Every trail you do, you will have to climb. You have to earn that downhill. If you go to see the waterfall from the bottom one needs to climb on the way back. Best of all, I did all this riding on two bottles of Gatorade. I barely broke a sweat. I can say for sure now that I've done mountain biking.