Hurricane Creek???

[locustdreams]

This place looks fun.

Hurricane Creek (http://youtu.be/1qTYQYoeXXw)

[locustdreams]

Looks I'm making a trip to Hurricane Creek this weekend. Misty found a van she wants to buy up that way, so we're going to get it Friday & while we're up there, might as well ride...

[scratchndent]

Man that place looks like alot of fun. Where is it exactly?

[locustdreams]

Between BHam & Huntsville on I-65.
Hurricane Creek Bike Park (http://hurricanecreek.homestead.com/MTB.html)

[Grody]

This place looks killer.

[locustdreams]

We're (Me, Misty & Paul) leaving early on Saturday, taking care of the car business & then heading back to HCP around noonish, staying the night & coming back sometime Sunday.

[Grody]

It's ironic, I had read your post the other night and yesterday when I was hanging out at my LBS one of the guys that was working there from Mobile (who was standing in for someone away at a Specialized training course) was talking that place up pretty well. He's going up there this weekend as well I believe.

I hope it's a blast. I watched some vids off their site and it looks crazy with all the options to choose as you're going down the trail.

[locustdreams]

The whole way up, I was starring out the window, drooling at the terrain & elevation changes w/ visions of fun, flowy trails down each hill, mixed w/ the colors of the coming fall.

Aside from the 200 yd. hike up some crazy, terrain elevations to the top of this place, just to get to the freeride area, the place was in serious need of some TM & updating. Erosion & lack of love made the majority of the FR area unsafe. The pump track was a joke & more of a novice/ maybe intermediate jump trail (to inclined to pump or flow around) leading to what they called The Beast (which was a huge 12' tall, corkscrew ladder thing that made everything around it seemed like an after-thought). The down hill jump trail was badly eroded, adding new element of injury to every berm or jump. Not to mention if you got hurt in this place, there would be no place to land the med-evac chopper to get you out.

Next, after I put the shovel down I just found, w/ hopes of fixing a ridable line on the dh jump trail, Paul suggested we not waste time creating a ridable line & ride the so-called DH trail.

Yet another mistake & the biggest one of the day next to eating at KFC afterward.

That so-called DH trail was nothing short of suicide for anyone. The trail was entirely covered in Hickory leaves & hiding below them some seriously nasty pointed rocks, bowling balls & prehistoric roots on every inch, weaving up, down & around the edges of cliffs w/ occasional, short downhill bursts. One wrong tire, in a well leaf covered rock patch & you could possibly break something or worse, be sent flying off a cliff or bouncing down a 80' tree & rock filled small mountain side, imitating a pinball. It was literally almost 2 miles of the most brutal terrain I've ever ridden. An entire, precarious rock garden w/ bad, worn skinnys over a few caverns. Worse than any garden patch I've ever seen in any pro DH race vid. Maybe a trials rider could do something there. There was no continuous dh factor at all, no flow. In my view, the whole place needs some serious TM to be safe. I'd love to see someone ride that thing at a good pace. If you could stay on your bike on this trail, during these conditions, you'd be one bad ass mofo. It was a beautiful place, but they need to hire me & a 10 man crew of illegals w/ an account at the local lumber yard to make that place any kind of safe & fun.

Coming from a freeride guy, this place is nothing short of dangerous.

We went w/ hopes of a fun weekend w/ a 100% riding. We left w/ injuries, trashed tubes, gashed tires, 7% riding time & 93% hiking w/ a 30 lbs slopestyle bike over my shoulder. Not to mention, climbing out from the bottom, up a 40 degree incline about 300 yds. That was the coup-de-gras. What a waste of time that adventure turned out to be... No wonder all the vids I've seen from that place are so short.

We stopped by the Oak Mtn BMX track before heading home...

[scratchndent]

thats too bad to hear about your "adventure". I always have that fear when riding a new trail that one of my friends hasnt already ridden before or there has been a long time in between when they rode it and the time I am supposed to. Maybe we, you, should send the review to the local club and let them know what they are exposing people to? It looked really fun and i would have loved to ride it, but not now considering the review.

Maybe next time.

[kleinguy]

I remember oak mountain being covered with leaves so bad,this time of year, that you couldn't see the trail, rocks, roots, etc. Give it until the first frost.