tallahasseemountainbike.com trails

• Mountain Biking in East Tennessee
• East Tennessee Mountain Bike Rides Good maps to lots of trails with GPS info for trailheads.
• SORBA-Chattanooga is now SORBAs official website for trail info in Tennessee. This site contains a very detailed on-line trail guide, listing over 100 trails in the Southeastern states.
• Appalachian Mountain Bike Club - The AMBC is a Knoxville based group providing race and events calendar, trail guides and maps, news, links and social interaction to its members.
• Mountain Biking in South Fork
• Northeast Tennessee Mountain Bike Association
• The Northeast Tennessee Mountain Bike Association
• SOR: Mountain Biking in the Southeast
• Spoke Junkies
• Tennessee Bicycle Racing Association
• The SORBA Chattanooga (Southeastern Off-Road Bicycle Association) has a nice and complete local trails list
• Tennessee's Wild Side: Mountain Biking
• River City Wheelmen (Memphis)
• Mountain Biking in Tri-Cities

Clemmer/Clear Creek loop, Tennessee

Location: Chilhowee Mountain Recreation Area near the Ocoee River

Configuration: Singletrack Difficulty: Moderate
The Good: Beautiful scenery, new trails being developed, nearby Ocoee River.
The Bad: Some loose gravel.
More Info: Contact the Ocoee Whitewater Center at 423-338-5201

The Clemmer/Clear Creek Loop is part of the Chilhowee Mountain Trail System and is within spitting distance of the Ocoee River and the Ocoee Whitewater Center. The Chilhowee area is one of the fastest growing trail systems in the Southeast, with numerous new trails open suitable for all skill levels. The trails offers easy to moderate climbs and smooth, well-constructed singletrack. The scenic views abound on this trail; you'll pass Lake Ocoee, broad overlooks and a large waterfall. Don't forget to stop by the Ocoee River on your way out to check out the whitewater hotdogs. Camping is available at the Chilhowee Campground for $12 a night.

http://www.cs.utk.edu/~dunigan/mtnbike/
good site with lots of trail descriptions

http://web.archive.org/web/20040430041811/www.tigerlair.com/trails/south...
http://www.chattbike.com/
http://www.bikezoo.com/mapstrails.html
http://www.sorbachattanooga.org/trails/trails.php?state=8

Wheels for the Outback Take Bikers Away

By Brad Lifford

It’s a common vision shared by many first-time mountain bikers, Chad Mensch is willing to admit: A neophyte meets up with a crew of veteran riders, who immediately subject the first-timer to a hellish version of the X Games, complete with all the manic stunts, the non-stop thrills and the occasional and incidental pain.

Slowly but steadily, Mensch and his friends chip away at the myth, in hopes they can reduce it to rubble.

“We’re trying to get more novices interested in riding,” said Mensch, a member of the Northeast Tennessee Mountain Bike Association. “We’re trying to make sure people realize that we’re not focused on the hard-core riding. People have this misconception that we’re in this hard-core, extreme sport, and that’s what people have come to expect.

“But it’s not just a hard-core sport, and it’s not a tearing-the-woods-up activity. We can’t stress enough that this is a sport and a family recreational activity.”

For Kevin Mitchell, it’s a combination of things that leads him to the trails at least once a week. Living in Kingsport, he has plenty from which to choose.

Kingsport has two popular destinations in Warriors’ Path State Park and Bays Mountain Park, while near to Johnson City are trails on Buffalo Mountain. Steele Creek Park in Bristol, Tenn., features trails that range from smooth to rugged, and riders who are more interested in scenery than a workout can opt for the Virginia Creeper Trail near Damascus.

“It’s a good workout, and you get to be outside, too,” said Mitchell, a Kingsport firefighter. “Most of the time you have several friends to ride with, so it’s also a good social workout.

“It’s a challenge, too, because on some of the trails you have to ride it’s challenging to make it all the way through without getting off your bike or wrecking. And some of the downhills are an adrenaline rush.”

Just the mere sight of an informational sign at the trailhead at Warriors’ Path is enough to quicken the pulse. “Lake Valley Road” and “White Tail Loop” sound comforting, even inviting.

But “Zip Line” doesn’t conjure up any pastoral images, and “Darwin’s Revenge,” well, there just isn’t any doubt where that’s headed.

The fact that “Darwin’s Revenge” leads to “the Boneyard’’ — something not divulged on the sign — is downright ominous for the novice.

The long and short of choosing a trail to ride, particularly if you’re inexperienced, is this: Ask someone who knows.

Mensch said the Northeast Tennessee Mountain Bike Association is a good place to start.

The club maintains a Web site — www.ntmba.org —that is well-stocked with all sorts of information related to the activity, from club-sponsored rides to club projects.

The Warriors’ Path trail system is so far the club’s biggest project. Forty-five acres of park land sat fallow until two years ago when Warriors’ Path officials and the NTMBA agreed upon a plan for the club to develop bike trails to meet a growing number of requests from park visitors who wanted an off-road place to ride.

“We basically started from scratch,” Mensch said.

What was once essentially untouched wilderness now has four main trails thatprovide six miles of riding. They range from the relatively easy 2.5-mile “White Tail Loop” to the more rigorous and technically-demanding “Darwin’s Revenge.”

It’s mostly single-track riding, with flora pressing in on the trail on either side. The Warriors’ Path trails are a good example of the need to seek out information before you set out, as even the “White Trail Loop” has features that make it something other than a Sunday ride.

There are hills which will challenge even a fit rider, rocks which will demand some controlled riding technique.

“Even the easier routes take a reasonable amount of fitness,” Mensch said, “and they do require a mountain bike. There are areas where knobby tires are a must.”

Mensch said the NTMBA has gotten high marks from out-of-town experts who came to Kingsport to offer instruction and advice on trail building and maintenance. He hopes the 150-member NTMBA can add a picnic pavilion at the trailhead in the near future.

“To have gotten six miles in 45 acres, that’s really making the most of the space you have,” Mensch said. “As far as the quality, I’ve had people say that if we had 20 or 30 miles of that type of trail, there wouldn’t be a need to go anywhere else to ride.

“And it’s close in, even though we still run into a majority of people who don’t know it’s there. Since it’s close to the city, if riders get tired or run out of time or have mechanical problems, it’s not like they’ve got to hike 20 miles to get to their cars. It makes people feel safe. It’s very convenient.”

Of course, nothing is more important than picking the right bike. There is such a variety of bikes available today that it’s possible to spend anywhere from $100 to $200 and upwards of $1,000, depending on what you want.Mensch, who works at a Piney Flats bike shop, said that in his opinion it’s smart to at least start looking at rides at a bike shop, where the employees are almost certain to be mountain bikers themselves.

“I would tell anyone to come up with a budget, determine how much you want to spend, then go to a bike shop,” Mensch said. “That’s where you find out about area clubs.”

Following is brief information about some of the better trail areas in the Tri-Cities, along with the Creeper Trail.

Bays Mountain

A different experience than the Warriors’ Path trails, with fewer single-track trails. “It’s got a little bit of everything,” Mensch said. “It’s more open road riding.” There’s a lot of riding to be had with 12 miles, and one of the road trails, Azalea, had so little traffic in recent years that Bays Mountain naturalist Dave Taylor said it’s ideal for mountain biking. “It’s almost like a single-track trail it’s been used so little,” Taylor said. “The mountain bikers love it.” First-time bikers at Bays Mountain must register at the park office, and there’s a $2 lifetime fee. For more information, call 229-9447.

Buffalo Mountain

A fire road trail is one feature, and a 12.5 mile all-terrain vehicle trail is also used by mountain bikers. For more information, call Johnson City Parks & Recreation at 283-5815.

Steele Creek

A two-mile walking and riding path around the park’s lake is almost totally flat. But there are challenges elsewhere: “They have everything from [the lake trail] to some nasty trails,” Mensch said. “The trails are probably a little rougher than what most people are used to. It’s a little rockier and probably a little more advance riding.”

Virginia Creeper Trail

Some of the best scenery in all of the area, with many riders starting near Whitetop Mountain then coasting the 17 miles downhill to Damascus, where a handful of shuttle services take riders and their bikes to the top. This part of the Creeper Trail is an easy ride, and it’s so popular that on pretty weekends the crowds can get thick. “There’s a few little bumps and rocks here and there,” Mensch said, “but you’ll see anything from kids on training wheels to retirees on three-wheelers.”For more information on trail and shuttle services, visit www.damascus.org