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Mountain biking in Waco
Ever eager to have my butt kicked, I drove up to Cameron Park in Waco this week to check out the mountain biking trails I’ve heard so much about.
It’s part of the legwork for a story I’m writing on things to do in Waco (now that we can’t afford to travel to far-flung places.)
I was pleasantly surprised.
Cameron Park has more than 20 miles of mountain biking trails spread across 416 acres of heavily wooded, hilly terrain along the Bosque and Brazos rivers.
I dragged along pal Marcy Stellfox to share in the adventure. We’re not hard-core cyclists. I do ride my bike to work once a week, but the Shoal Creek hike-and-bike trail doesn’t exactly qualify as technical terrain. (Unless you count that patch just up from Lady Bird Lake, where you have to wobble across a streambed and a bunch of gravel.)
We met Park Ranger Kim Jennings, who was decked out in what looked like professional mountain racing garb with a nice Cannondale bike underfoot. Then two of her fellow rangers showed up, ready to tear through the thickets on two knobby wheels.
The trails are mostly single-track. They cut up and down a 100-foot bluff and wind their way through clumps of bamboo (where’s the panda bear?), groves of oaks and cedar, and across hand-made wooden bridges. Gorgeous!
Temperatures were in the 30s, but we were bundled up. As Kim and the other rangers charged ahead, Marcy and I paused (rather frequently) to dismount and walk our bikes up and down some of the sketchy stretches.
A nice thing about Cameron Park is that the trails are all color-coded, just like a ski resort. The easiest trails are marked in green, the intermediate ones are blue, and the expert ones are black.
We stuck mostly to green trails on the way out, cruising through drifting leaves and autumn colors. Then we jumped on a trail called California 65 — a black trail. I got a good workout pumping up inclines, hopping off my bike and walking down the steep and windy parts.
Yahoo! It reminded me a little bit of Walnut Creek Park in Austin, another great place to ride.
The photo above is the aftermath — me wearing red, Marcy in gray.
I’m bringing my husband to Waco to check this place out. He’ll love it, and I want to try a trail called Root Canal.
When you’re done riding, you can stop by the Dr Pepper Museum for a float from the soda fountain. Just rewards!
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