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.