http://www.trailsheaven.com/We just got back from a nice 4 day weekend trip down to southern WV. An official trip report (or a link to one on the blog) will likely follow after pictures have been processed and thoughts have been organized. But until then, I'll simply say that we had a freakin' blast!!! We stayed at Twin Falls Resort State Park in Mullens, WV. We arrived early PM on Friday, got the camper settled and hopped on the bikes to meet friends at the closest trailhead. We did about 4 or so hours of riding in the Pinnacle Creek system. Good times. Hardly anybody out and the weather was fantastic for a while. Then we got NAILED. This corresponded nicely with the road ride back to the campground so we were nice and cold and thoroughly saturated, but clean upon arrival back. Saturday was a full day of riding with about 40 or so miles of trail riding then another 30some on the road to get back the easy way while our friends on the quad had to backtrack on the trail. 40 miles of somewhat serious off road riding is actually quite a day on dual sport bikes, even small ones. I have the blisters on my hands to prove it. Sunday, we trucked the bikes to a different trail system and had another banner day zipping around, often in a LOT of mud.
Some of these trails, although designated blue (more difficult), seemed like they should have been black (most difficult). But I guess that's the difference between being on 4 wheels instead of 2. I imagine they would have been notsobad on a 4WD quad or SxS. I was taxed on several of the climbs and in most of the mud. Kim took her skills to a WHOLE new level on this trip. She was doing stuff that she would NEVER have tried a year ago and she was climbing the hills and riding the same stuff that was taxing me. There were several times I got to the top of a particularly gnarly climb expecting that there might be some reason for me to go back down the hill. Then suddenly her headlight would bob into view and I would zip out of the way and go on to the next thing.
One or two of the climbs I didn't think I was going to make.
Nobody crashed. Her bike fell over once but that was a product of being in a place where she couldn't balance or reach the ground but at a standstill. Not a crash.
If you've been on the fence about going to this place, just do it. I would say anything less than a 650 would be appropriate for most of the easy trails. I would go full knobbie tires or at least pretty heavily biased toward dirt. Or if you have a bigger bike and some friends and want to find out where your skill are, this would be a really good way to do that.
And fun to watch.
We already have another trip down scheduled for soon and another in the fall that's pending.
