We were planning to go over to Griffin Park Bike Park in Terre Haute Indiana, but it got rained out the night before. Instead we ended up going to Castlewood State Park a little west of St. Louis.
There are four trail systems in the area:
Sadly we didn’t have the time to do more than one park, so we only saw Castlewood today.
We did luck out and there happened to be a demo day for Niner Bikes, due to this I got to take a Rip 9 RDO out for a spin through the trails. It’s the first time I’ve gotten to take a full suspension bike off road. The bike was very nice & handled well going up or down hill with ease. Unfortunately its $6600 price tag puts it a little outside my budget.
A good portion of the trails we rode where covered in rock which made traction difficult @ times. There were a lot of trails which just seemed too difficult to ride, so we ended up walking a couple like Cardiac Hill & the beginning of River Scene, although in River Scene we were going the wrong way so we had to walk up the first stretch. Also I felt like some of the trails aren’t rated properly. The first section of River Scene when going down seems like it should be a black diamond as it’s a very steep shale covered hill, with a lot of larger rocks.
Overall it was a great place to ride and I’m sure there will be other (better planned) trips out there in the future where we will ride more of the trails and get to the other parks in the area.
Trail Maps
Castlewood State Park on Trailforks.com