Ride Report - Delta Ridge Trails

95% of my riding over the last few years is done on weekdays during my lunch "hour". There is a good crew of about ten riders at my work that share my passion for moutain biking. A subset of them head out at lunch time just about every day.

We've heard about some new trail relatively close by and have wanted to sample them, but the weather hasn't been very cooperative. The Southeast has had a wonderful break in the Winter weather this week, so today was the day we tried out the Delta Ridge trails.

We knew where to find the trailhead and understood that it was a pretty good distance from work. Slghtly further than our usual trail systems. After having ridden five days in a row this week, it turned out to be a long haul to get to the trailhead for me. I felt exactly like Ben Stiller describes in his account of a night mountain bike ride. After biking for 30 minutes, I was tired, ready to turn around and declare the ride a successful workout. That’s when we got to the trailhead.

The trail itself was great. It’s a varied trail system - flowy in some sections; technical in others. I remembered riding parts of this trail 10 years ago. We were surprised to find a lot of new trail. Some of it a few months old, and one or two sections that must have been cleared within the last few days. I’m not sure how much trail there is – 6 miles? There were lots of spur trails off of spur trails. At one point, it felt a bit like our Behind the Rocks epic adventure at Moab – the trail kept going and going; getting further and further from where the trailhead was.

It’s definitely a challenging trail system. Of the four riders today, three of us had some really hard falls. When we finally emerged from the trailhead having completed the ride, we were left with a very hilly ride back to work. Long, grinding climbs are not my strength. This was reinforced as I watched Eric and Jon pull away from me fast on the first climb. We regrouped at the top of that climb, but they were gone again once we started the grind up the next big hill. I believe they beat me back to work by a good 15 minutes.

Overall, I had a lot of fun on these trails. We’ll definitely incorporate them in our normal routine, but we’ll need to find a better route there and back.