England-Idlewild Review

Just across the Ohio River in Burlington (KY) is England-Idlewild Park. This is a beautiful setting with a picturesque creek, mature woods and lots of interesting terrain. The park consists of a .5-.75 mile beginners loop - wide single track with nice elevation changes that follows the scenic creek and back to the bridge; a 2.5 mile intermediate loop -single track with interesting terrain, elevation changes, tree underpasses, and tree and gully crossings - that follows the creek on the opposite side of the beginners loop; a 3 mile highly technical expert loop and a 5 plus mile advance loop. Over ten miles of mountain bike trails! The trails here are marked very well with signs letting you know which trail your on. Actually one of the better marked trail I have ever ridden.


There are several Teeter-totters through out the trail. At the entrance to the trail is a nice skills park with a decent size rock garden, several good jumps and a Teeter-totter for practice. Off the advance trail is a free ride area as well.
Right now the conditions are dry , very dusty and fast.

Skills Park at Trail Head

Hueston Woods State Park

Heuston Woods, located just north of Oxford and Miami University, has a maze of trails on the north end of the Park. I had no luck tracking down a trail map online so you find yourself having to remember as much of the map at the Trail Head as you can. I did snap a photo of it, hope this helps other riders in the future. If you have a Garmin GPS then your good to go and wouldn't be wondering where you are like we were. And the one in, Mountain Biking Ohio book by James Buratti is also very accurate.

There are two sets of trails, one across the street from the parking lot (bulk of the ride able trails) and a shorter but more fun and challenging section just off the parking lot . The green trails are the connector trails on the map, blue being the easy and red being the 'more difficult'. Total between the two is about 12 miles if you hit everything. We covered about 10 miles of them.

Our ride started out nice, weather wise, in the upper 70's and partly cloudy skies. We did find the riding there a bit confusing due to poorly marked trails and intersections to other trails everywhere. Bring plenty of bug repellent, we encountered tons of spiders (big and small) and found ourselves being chased by horsefly's from time to time. And many sections of trail were overgrown by pricker bushes, so expect to have a few scratches on the arms and legs after riding. And we notice a good bit of poison ivy as well. And do yourself a favor and avoid the trail near and around the 'Sludge Pond' , which must be a not so fancy term for where all the Park's waste water ends up.

About 7 miles into our ride the weather changed quickly on us bringing in a thunderstorm with heavy rain. Once that started the trail conditions rapidly became very slick and every log crossing was like go over icy train tracks on a road bike in the winter. It was a bit nerve racking with the lightening and having part of the blue and red trail crossing under high voltage power lines in several sections. And the closest shelter was back in the parking lot.

The trail here does have some potential, if it gets marked better, identifying a longer loop to follow so you can have some flow to your riding instead of having to stop every mile or so to choose between all the intersecting trails.

Harbin Park Reviewed

Ok , now that have got situated, so-to-speak, with my new position with Trek Bicycle Store of Cincinnati (our third store located in West Chester). And got moved and finally unpacked - I actually am now able to get back with my blog.

And after moving down from Columbus and having never ridden any of the trails in the Cincinnati area, I must say I am very impressed. Not only with the number of trails with-in 45min -1 hr of the metro area. Most being 30 min or less. You have Harbin Park, Landen-Deerfield, England-Idlewild, Tower Park, Keener Park , Caesar Creek, East Fork, Hueston Woods, Doin' it Outdoors and John Bryan isn't to far either. The best part is only having to drive 20 min to a trail with decent climbing and one mother of a hill - Mt. Mother, as it is called down here.

Harbin Park has a nice trail system with just over a five mile loop. The trail drops in from the parking lot through a grassy field with some nice roller hills, on a clear day the view is a must see. And one part of the park is the highest point in Hamilton County.

While the start of the trail seems tame you'll soon come to respect the hills and love the speed of some areas. The trails do cut in and out of the brushy hillside in a criss-cross and I did find it a bit confusing the first few rides but after a few trips to the trail you can put together a nice loop with a lung busting climb. The trails are fast with some roots, tight turns, short off camber drops and quick steep off camber climbs. There are a few logs to cross and a bridge or two. Just shy of the half way point lies Mt Mother. As you approach the climb there is a nice down hill section to the climb, forget going for the speed on the down hill cause if you don't get your gears in position for the quickly approaching climb then you'll be walking the first step (of three) on Mt Mother.

The downhill to Mt. Mother

Each of the three steps level out briefly and there is two different trails to bail into if the climbing has got to you. Overall, I would say that the distance of the climb is about a 1/2 mile or so if you ride it all the way up . With a trail range that Harbin Park has this single-track is deceptively challenging.

The start of the climb- half way up the first step you'll be riding a 30% grade.


Almost up the first step.

Heading to step two

Step two

Yeah, 30 % grade again on step three


The final leg of step three - light at the end of the tunnel