[kwade62]

We live in Dallas but will be spending Christmas in lovely Nevada, MO . Are there any singletrack trails in the Joplin area or anywhere within an hour or so drive from Nevada? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Merry Christmas to all!!!

 

[Flyer]

Sorry, I have no idea but wanted to post to tell you that you may not get a lot of responses on this one. I know the area around KC has a lot fo trails but I bet there are VERY few, if any. Joplin riders here. It will be nice to be proved wrong though.

Too bad Joplin is a bit far from KC. By the way, are there good trails around the Dallas area? I go there a couple of times each year. There is a huge streetbike crowd I used to go hang with when I visited, but I wasn't sure about mountain biking.

 

[kwade62]

Dallas Trails

There is a large and very well organized community of mountain bikers in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. There are also 8 to 10 really good trails in and around the metroplex. If you are willing to venture an hour and a half or so out of town, there are an additional 3 or 4 outstanding trails. You can find information on all of these trails at the web site for the Dallas Off Road Bicycle Assocation (or DORBA) at www.dorba.org. Once you've looked at the web site, if you have any questions about the trails or what part of town they're in, feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] or if you do it in the next few days, just post a reply or send me a pm.

 

[Ken in KC]

A couple of options...

We live in Dallas but will be spending Christmas in lovely Nevada, MO . Are there any singletrack trails in the Joplin area or anywhere within an hour or so drive from Nevada? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Merry Christmas to all!!!

Options that aren't, unfortunately within an hour of Joplin. The closest, epic trails to Joplin are in Eureka Springs, Arkansas at Leatherwood Park (on the Western edge of town). If you head there and stop in at the Booze Brothers liquor store, the owners are mountain bikers and will likely offer to guide you. There's also some new trail in that area but it's not marked and open to the public yet. So riding there would have to be with the trailbuilders (again, Booze Brothers). Eureka Springs is about 1.5 hours from Joplin or about 2.5 hours from Nevada

Further in to Arkansas are several epic trails:

- Womble (Hot Springs)
- Syllamo (Mountain View)

North of Nevada by about 1.5 hours are the trails in Kansas City. You'll find enough trails in KC that you could ride for about a week and never touch the same trail twice. Head to www.earthriders.com and click on the trails links. ER has a local bulletin board that you can solicite guides from if you're interested in heading up.

Ken

 

[kwade62]

Thanks for the information Ken

Looks like we'll head north to KC. Would you recommend the Blue River Parkway Trails?

Thanks again!

 

[npstaehling]

Detour through Tulsa?

Tulsa's Turkey mountain is worth checking out. It is just off of highway 75. 61st street exit, head east to Elwood (just south of 75/I-44 interchange). You could go 75 to I-44 to 71 to get from Dallas to Nevada. Turkey is a spiderweb of trails. You can do a few loops and periodically stop back at the parking lot. There is also a great variety of trails. For December, some of it may have ice, snow, mud, etc., but there is always part of it that is rideable. I highly recommend stopping by.

The Womble would be well worth the time to go check out, but it would be a bit further out of your way than Turkey Mountain. It's also a long non-loop trail in the middle of no where. Not sure I'd take the time to stop there in December. If there is too much snow, ice, mud, downed trees, or whatever in a particular area, you can't just re-route on another trail. Going from Dallas to Nevada, you might choose to go to Mena rather than Hot Springs. Neither are actually on the trail, so you'd have to go toward Mt. Ida or Sims, and find a trailhead. This is a very rural area. Have a map and a plan before you leave Mena or Hot Springs.

Not sure the type of riding you like? Turkey mountain and The Womble are much more demanding than RCP or Erwin or anything else in the metroplex. If you describe the DFW metroplex trails as "really good", maybe you would be interested in crushed limestone rail to trail stuff? I think you could pick up the Katy trail somewhere south of KC. That would be a fun ride - although not really "mountain biking".

My sister used to ride someplace in Warrensburg when she went to college there. Sorry, I don't remember the name and I never rode it with her. I also have run into some riders from Springfield. Don't know what trails they ride, but I'm sure if you stopped in a bikeshop, they could tell you.

 

[kwade62]

Thanks for the information

Weather permitting, I think we'll just head up to KC for a day and try out some of those trails. My trail preference is xc trails with some technical challenge. I have heard great things about Womble and have planned to make it up there for some time. Hopefully this spring. From what I've heard, I think I'll like it. Unfortunately, it's too far out of the way for this trip.

As for the DFW metroplex, Erwin and RCP ARE really good trails for what they are. They certainly aren't Womble or Moab, but they also aren't Katy trail either. But they are close in and they make good use of the available land. There are more aggresive trails in the vicinity of the metroplex. If you haven't ridden Isle du Bois on Lake Ray Roberts, Northshore at Lake Grapevine (especially the west part), Dinosaur Valley in Glenrose or Cleburne State Park (in, you guessed it, Cleburne), you should try them when you make it back down. Also, to the north in Saint Jo, Texas, The Breaks at Bar H has some excellent trails. Again, I'm not trying to say that these trails are challenging like, say Bootleg Canyon outside of Vegas, but they'll give you a work out.

Anyway, thanks again for the information and tips.