10/14/05 - West Branch State Park, Ravenna Ohio

Having just got back from 3 days of riding/racing in Michigan, I wasn't quite ready to go back to my routine of road and bike path rides, so I decided to head out to West Branch State Park for some "real" mountain biking. I had read about the trails on the Cleveland Area Mountain Bike Assoications (CAMBA) website several months ago, but just never made the trip out there. The park is located about 30-40 minutes east of Akron.

CAMBA's website has a lot of good info on West Branch's trails, including a very nice map and some point to point directions. The trail is very well marked, but I'd still take the map just in case you miss one of the sign posts.

I had planned to ride the entire trail, but instead just did two laps of the trails closest to the water (between the water and Cableline Rd) for a total of about 10 miles. These trails are really nice and CAMBA has done a great job with them. My only gripe is that there are so many roots and rocks. I don't ride this type of terrain very much, and tend to stay away from it for fear of crashing and breaking bones LOL. I just got back from riding the Poto and Boyne Mountain trails in Michigan, and much prefer those types of trails because they have fewer roots and rocks....they still have them, but just not as many, and the trails seem to flow better because of it. If you don't mind roots and rocks, West Branch is a blast.

I didn't get around to riding the trails on the other side of Cableline Rd, but some are labeled "more difficult" and "most difficult", so I can only imagine what they look like. My guess is lots of roots and rocks and steep climbs. I will eventually come back to ride those trail, but didn't really want to ride them alone. Speaking of which, I probably wouldn't recommend riding the trails at West Branch by yourself because there are a few tricky spots that can get you into trouble, and if you take a header when you're by yourself, it might be awhile before somebody comes by to help out.

Did I crash? Yup. And you guessed it, I was riding up a climb on a section of very rooty trail. Luckily I was going pretty slow, but still ended up taking a pretty good fall on my left elbow. Yeoch!

A few more pics...