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| A view of Grapevine Lake from the mountain bike trail |
North Shore Trail Grapevine, Texas
A preview to mountain biking on North Shore and other North Texas trails
North Shore trail is situated between the cities of Grapevine and Flowermound, Texas. This 21 mile trail is among the best trails if not the best mountain bike trail in North Texas. This trail hugs around the sand stone cliffs on Grapevine Lake and has everything from fast descents and tight switchbacks to sketchy rock gardens, bridges and even some trials riding! The trail breaks off into three parks; Rockledge Park to the east, Murrell Park in the Middle and Twin Coves Park in the far side of the trail. This trail is actually a system of two trails running parallel to each other to direct coming and going traffic. I recently visited this trail with by riding buddy Alex, and rode about half the distance of this trail in a few hours. Here's a video of a few sections of trail that I recorded on that day.
Some of the most sketchiest riding came just before I reached Rockledge Park. There was a 12 foot high rock garden descent that I cleared just before the end of this video below.
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| A map of North Shore trail, courtesy of Trail Jogger |
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| Riding with my friend Alex. |
There are many fun mountain biking trails in North Texas, many which I will probably write a few articles about. North Shore trail in my humble opinion is the funnest. I grew up riding on this trail, so maybe my opinion is biased. But I believe that that North Shore challenged me to hone my mountain bike skills so that nowadays I can ride on any trail in Texas. There will be more articles to come as I document riding the other half of this trail, which has more boulder gardens, as well as other trails in the North Texas area.
I rode the North Shore trail this morning (10Jul2012). Murrell Park was my start/finish line and I ended up with 14.4 miles on the GPS. The maps show that there's a spur that heads to Twin Coves Park but I followed the signs and stayed on the loop. I never had a problem with navigation.
ReplyDeleteWhile in Texas (visiting from Arizona this week) I have ridden Cleburne State Park, Sansom Park and River Legacy Park. North Shore is my favorite but River Legacy is a very close second.
Sansom Park is a much more technical trail than North Shore. There has clearly been some effort put in to marking the trail and although it's not perfect, the East side is far better than the West. The terrain varies quite a bit too, which makes for an interesting ride. You'll get your fill of climbing, rocks and some twisty singletrack under the trees. I think that after riding this trail a few times and getting familiar with the layout, it would be a blast. Sansom Park is not for the faint of heart. In my opinion, beginners should stay away, novice riders can have some fun but might be off the bike in some places. Experts will be in singletrack heaven.
Cleburne State Park is similar to Sansom Park in that the terrain is varied (are all trails in North Texas like this?) from rocky climbs to tree covered, twisty trails. There are enough obstacles to keep the advanced riders happy but it's not so tough that a novice can't enjoy it. If you're looking for hard packed dirt trails with not much elevation change, this is not the trail for you.
River Legacy Park is a great place to ride. There are some more advanced loops there but the good news is that you never have to go on them if you don't want to! You can stick to the flat singletrack and have a great time. Because of the design of a main loop with other loops attached (think of a daisy - each of the petals is an optional loop) you can make the ride long or short, easy or difficult. This is a great place for novice riders to hone their skills and get more confident. Expert riders will struggle to have fun after a while and will likely stick to the EKG loop and Fun Town. The rest of the trail probably won't appeal to them much aside from some practice going super fast between the trees.
I hope that gives you an idea of why I too think that North Shore is the best trail in North Texas. I hope to ride it again soon.
Thanks for sharing! I'm currently covering articles on trails in North Texas. One of my favorite local growing up that got me into riding was River Legacy. I'll admit nowadays I stick to mostly to the trails in Dallas, but I'll have to venture out towards Ft. Worth sometime and try out Sansom Park.
ReplyDeleteIf you're looking for a purely scenic and all around great trail, North Shore is the best out of the bunch here in North Texas. Tyler State National Park in East Texas has a similar trail in wooded pine forest. I'll have to cover that one too someday. Subscribe and stay tuned for more articles on the different trails here locally.
Wow, Your post was simply amazing and I had a great time with your worthy blog. The place was so wonderful and really perfect for mountain biking I've also watched the video and it was great. Big thanks.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post Zumi, and I'll keep the link to your mountain biking website up for others to see. You commented on my video so I know you are not robot spam.
ReplyDeleteReally Sir Jonathan? you will keep my link? about mountain biking?
ReplyDeleteI am very thankful for that and it was my pleasure for me to hear those good things from you. Of course I am not a robot spam ^_^
Zumi,
ReplyDeleteThere are better ways of doing SEOs and if more traffic is what you are looking for you need to link my page to some of your websites. This article doesn't recieve many daily views in comparison to other articles on my blog. I appreciate your contribution. Link to my blog and I'll add a link to yours.
Best wishes,
Jonathan