Mableton

I wouldn't usually write anything about a local ride, but one of last week's rides was semi-interesting.

There's a whole network of local trails that can all be sort-of accessed from the Silver Comet. They have been known by many names over the years, but these days are often referred to as the Comet Vomet.

They were recently disrupted pretty severely by logging along the edge of the railroad tracks. It's not even clear what the objective was, other than maybe just to clear stuff back so it can't fall across the tracks. They didn't even pull the timber out, it's just piled up where it fell. The "roads" they cut to get in and cut lie unimproved, overgrown, and largely blocked by fallen trees as well. Tangles of downed trees blocked some of the existing trails, and the road construction obliterated bits of others.

That was a while ago though, and since then, strategic fallen trees have been cut, and many of the trails are either reopened, or have been realigned.

In addition, it used to be that if you wanted to get to the Camp Highland Trails from the north side of the tracks, you had to ride down to the tracks, then ride down the tracks, then finally enter the camp where the old road used to cross the tracks. It was a crapshoot though, as you would often find trains parked on the tracks there.

There has always been a tunnel under the tracks though. I've walked through it before, exploring, but there was never a proper trail to or from it. At least not in modern times.

Well, now there is.

It looks like you're meant to ride through it north-to-south, then scramble down off the ledge, ideally with a buddy.

I, of course, went the wrong way, and had to use some light OCR skills to get up that ledge without getting soaked, and then also get my bike up it.

The ledge is about 5 feet tall, and the creek is about 3 feet deep. So, it's not trivial in either direction.

But, yeah, tunnel...

Yay, tunnel!

Goat Island

No trip to Dallas would be complete without riding Goat Island.

It had rained on Monday, but by Saturday, it was finally dry enough to risk putting tires on natural surfaces. It was an especially safe risk in the floodplain of the Trinity, where there is plenty of sand to help counteract the clay, and as fate would have it, Goat Island is located in one such floodplain.

All right, lets ride.

As that afternoon/evening, we intended to help my brother Daniel move into his new place, my Dad and I made it over reasonably early in the day.

The trails were in fine shape, only a little bit of mud here and there, but in this photo, if you zoom in, you can see how even sandy blackland clay wants to cake up on your tires.

That was about the equilibrium amount for his tires. It didn't cake up any more than that. My Dad rides Maxxis Aspens, which have fewer and more spread-out knobs than the Ikons that I tend to ride. His are the superior tire for that area. Mine caked up slightly more than his. It didn't affect grip, but I could feel the weight.

I want to say we just did one big lap, and it was kind-of all business - we didn't stop and see the sights. We were a bit pressed for time as it was, and didn't want to introduce additional delays.

It was still a lot of fun. Ripping through the woods with my Dad is still one of my favorite things. I just didn't get much in the way of photos, and it was a fairly uneventful ride.

We did get home in good time, grabbed some food, and made our way up to Daniel's new place. There, we assembled beds and furniture, hung TVs, and moved stuff around in the house for the next 8 hours. Despite the effort, it was great to see Daniel again, and I hope, a few months on now, their new house feels like a home.

Trinity Forest

Just south of Dallas there's a big tract of land called Trinity Forest. I've seen it on gravelmap, and always been curious. The exact location always had me concerned though. It's alleged to be gravel, but sometimes gravel just means natural surface, and you're rolling the dice down there. It could be glorious decomposed limestone, impervious to rain, or it could be that afwul Blackland Clay. It seems like it's always rained right before I think about going over there too, so I'm always on the fence about it.

With no more attractive option available, I took the gamble and drove over, mid-day.

There were several trailheads, but the most attractive appeared to be Eco Park. There was a big lot, and some building adjacent to it...

...and a traik kiosk.

Seemed like a good spot. There were several cars in the lot when I got there, but I didn't notice any other bike racks.

Popular place?

I got dressed and ready, making sure to wear appropriately warm clothes, as I had on the last ride.

Ok, lets go...

I crossed the street and took a look at the you-are-here map.

Off to the left, I noticed this wierd, unfamiliar oak.

No idea what that is. I wouldn't even have known that it was an oak, except for the acorns. Odds are that it's some oak that I do know, but the leaves are different in Texas, or something.

There were also these walking sticks making sweet, sweet love. Woohoo, procreation!

It looked like I needed to head down a closed road for a bit, and then it would just become the trail. This turned out to be true, but the trail it became was paved.

Ha! All that worry about gravel or clay, and it was paved all along.

Damn you, gravelmap!

In their defence, it may have been unpaved at one point. I'm sure my maps of the Atlanta Beltline are inaccurate at this point, too.

There were a few side trails, but they looked wet and a bit overgrown. No more overgrown that bits of the East Texas Trail, mind you, but they were definitely swampy. More suited for future exploration in the dry season.

After a while, I crossed...

...the Trinity River.

That seems to be a theme these days. I'd crossed it on the Denton Greenbelt too.

A bit further up, there were a series of lakes.

It looked like there might have once been a campground, or picnic area, and maybe some trails off to the left, among the lakes, but it was all fenced off and overgrown now.

I eventually ended up in the AT&T Lot...

...on the AT&T trail.

Which was much like the Trinity River Trail.

I eventually discovered another lake.

This one, complete with a busted old boat near the shore.

There was also a good bit of unfamiliar vegetation nearby. What are these weird things?

I should probably learn Texas foliage, if I'm going to be running around out there.

After winding around through the woods for ages, I eventually popped out into a neighborhood. Ahead of me, the trail was in the process of being constructed. And, by that, I mean that there was literally a construction crew there, at that moment, pouring concrete. It looked as if the trail used to end abruptly there, but they'd just built a trail running perpendicular to it, and were filling in the last bit of the intersection between the two trails.

I wasn't sure which way to go, and consulting the map didn't really help. The map showed that I should have been able to turn left earlier, jog across some marshland, then head either north to another lot, or south back to my car. I'd seen the turn off though. There was no trail. It looked like there was intent to eventually build one, but none currently existed, paved, gravel, dirt, or otherwise.

Hmm... I ended up consulting the map on my phone for a while, trying to figure out what to do next. It looked like if I headed north, I could finagle my way up above the highway, head west a bit, come back down to the next exit, jog over to a park, and pick up a levee trail over to where I wanted to be.

This took a lot more time and effort than I expected. The scale of Texas is bigger than you think. Stuff is spread out. If you zoom the map so that you can see 2 exits, you're at the next zoom level down from being able to see 2 exits in Atlanta. Those exits are twice as far apart as you might expect. Or, at least, as I might expect.

On the upside, the roads were relatively quiet for a weekday. There was one awkward situation where a school bus was parked on the shoulder, with its hazards on. I went around it in the grass, only for it to get going again right as I was passing. Do I keep passing? Do I let it go? It's going pretty slowly. Does he want me to pass? He'll just have to pass me again...

After riding through some fairly low income nighborhoods and light industrial areas, I found my intended destination: William Blair Park.

I could even see the levee running along the back edge of the park. Score!

So, I rode over to where the road crossed the levee, and, great...

No trespassing on the levee.

Maybe.

Hard to say, actually. The sign specifically says that "Operation of Motor Vehicles is Prohibited on the Levees." However, then lower down it says "Damaging a levee by using an off-road or other vehicle..." Is a bicycle a vehicle in Texas? I'm not sure. It's not in Georgia, but it is in Tennessee. Then there's the less obvious, fine-print sign to the upper left that says "NOTICE: This property is owned or controlled by the city of Dallas and is closed to the public. Any persons entering or remaining on this property is in violation of... some statute..." Goodness. I'm not a lawyer. I didn't have time to look up the statues and determine whether they really applied to me on a bike. Sometimes you see signs like that, but then also see a dozen people walking their dogs up on the levee or something. There wasn't anyone on the levee though. I couldn't just be like: "Hey, do they care if I ride my bike here?"

The last thing I needed was to get arrested. The second to last thing that I needed was to get a few miles down and get told that I couldn't be there, and would have to turn around and go back. My general rule is: If it says don't, I won't, but if it doesn't say don't, I might. This appeared to say "don't" and there wasn't anyone around to ask.

Fine.

I ended up figuring out that I'd have to get up on some 4-lane highway, cross the river, get off at the next exit, and pick up the trail there.

This was also more involved than I expected, both because of the scale of Texas, and also because they were doing construction on the entrance to the highway. The shoulder was the full width of a lane, but it was completely occupied by construction equipment. I had to wait for a big enough space between cars that I could book it past. Of course, this was on the entrance ramp, which was a climb.

Adventure!

Oh, it was also semi interesting just heading in the direction of the entrance ramp. I passed a row of junkyards, a local convenience store, and what might have been a local bar. It was quitting time, and the streets were full of people. Some were walking around, but others appeared to be getting comfy for spending the evening right there out in the street. People were pulling out folding chairs and listening to music. Burn barrels were lighting up. One guy was burning a big ass tree stump in between a couple of big blocks of concrete. Everybody was a character. They were all shouting at each other, but it was mostly good natured. It's funny... I've ridden through a lot of low-income neighborhoods, and consistently, nobody seems to have any idea what to make of me. I've thought about it a lot, actually. I guess it's kind of an uncanny valley thing? Local guys ride bikes around low income areas all the time, but I don't look like a local guy on a local bike. My bike and clothes might look expensive, except that they, and I, are often way more beat up, worn, and filthier than the folks around me. I'm usually moving pretty fast too, but I'm not on the rivet, so maybe I don't look like I'm making an effort to get out of the area. It's got to be confusing. Whatever quick assumption one might make is just as quickly countered. People tend to look at me then look away before I do, or they just never look at all. It's a lot different than walking through a low income area.

I managed to scoot past the construction equipment, get on the shoulder, and ride up over the river. I could see the trail that I needed to be on below me, and it was pretty reassuring.

Except that it was false reassurance!

I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to get onto the actual trail. After riding around for like 10 minutes, I finally figured out that there was a parking lot under part of the bridge, and maybe if I went to the far back of the lot, then the trail might emerge from it. However there were also all kinds of signs like the ones on the levee, and newly erected fences... It looked like nobody wanted me riding around back there either.

I could head east, then south a bit (on another 4 lane highway), then pick up the Great Trinity Forest Way (also a 4 lane highway) and there ought to be another actual parking lot there. If that didn't work, I could keep going south on roads. I didn't have to cross any more major waterways. It was good that I finally had decent options too, because it was getting kind-of late, and I was still a long way from the truck. I gave that a shot.

Aside from having to go around multiple 18-wheelers parked on the shoulder, everything worked out easily.

As I turned on to the Great Trinity Forest Way, I noticed a motel down below me... The Romantic Inn and Suites. Mirror and Jacuzzi Suites available!

Can I get a suite with both?

I pulled off of the highway into what appeared to be a parking area for the trail. In theory, the trail should lead both north and south out of the lot. South would lead back to my truck, but to the north was that section of trail that I was unable to access earlier. I was really curious about it. Did it really just end at that forbidden lot, or did I just not see where I was supposed to pick it up?

As I headed down toward the parking area, I notied that it was gated, and the gate was closed. It's generally ok to go around gates like that on a bike, so I did, but as I made my way over toward where I expected the trail heading north to be, I noticed a police cruiser parked way down by the river. I felt sure he was there to kick people out. I mean, the gate is closed and locked. Again, the last thing I needed was to get arrested, but the second to last thing I needed was to be told to go home some other way. Rather than tempt fate by exploring the northern section of the trail, and risking getting the attention of the cops, I headed immediately south, back toward my truck.

Almost immediately, I passed Little Lemmons Lake, which really caught my attention.

Man, so many beautiful early evening skies on that trip to Texas.

The ride back to the truck was pretty uneventful. I did see one side trail, but the soil conditions didn't make it look too inviting.

Right as I approached the Eco Park lot, I passed like 4 small horse trailers. The horses were out of them, and they looked like they were going out for a ride, rather than coming in. "Ok, if I come by?" "Sure, come on through!" "Thanks!" I want to say the logos on the trailers indicated that the ranch was associated with some film studio, or something. I don't remember exactly. Also, I saw Nope since then, so maybe I'm just confusing it with that.

So, the Trinity River Trail proper wasn't especially interesting, but the overall expereince was a weird sort of sly fun. Definitely memorable.

The trail appears to be under active development. I'll have to keep tabs on it. I'll have to do a little research on the levee trails too. Maybe people ride them all the time, and it's totally fine to do. If so, I'll check them out next time I'm in the area.

Forney

One of the terrible things about the Forney area, is the horrific black clay. It's incredibly sticky. If one drop of rain falls from the sky, and you take two steps through the yard, your shoes will immediately be caked up with an inch of black clay. Ok, that's probably an exaggeration, but the point is, that if it rains, don't touch dirt. If you touch dirt, the dirt is that clay, and it'll cake up on whatever touches it, making your day miserable. If it's warm out, the next day, things usually return to normal, but if it's cold, you've got to wait 3 to 5 days for everything to dry out again.

My Dad and I rode Sunday, but then Sunday night and most of Monday, it rained.

Great. I'd hoped to hit Wildcat Ranch and all kinds of roads to the south, but it just wasn't going to happen this trip.

On the upside, I did wake up that morning to the gentle sound of a bunch of doves sheltering on my windowswill.

And we did get Cowboy Chicken for lunch.

So, it wasn't all bad.

The next day, it wasn't raining any more, and there actually are a few bits of gravel around town that you can ride - the road along the railroad tracks, two cemeteries, and the road leading down to, and back up from the substation. Feeling like at least doing something, I hit those spots, and milled around downtown a bit as well, where there are various sights to be seen.

There's a museum downtown too, that I've never been to, but keep meaning to check out. It's always the same though, I see it when I'm on the bike and can't reasonably go, but then I forget about it later.

On the way back, I hit the paved trails of the Forney Community Park, then eventually took 1641 back to the house.

I was more appropriately dressed for that ride, and didn't freeze. On paper, it wasn't that great of a day, but I remember enjoying it at the time, and I remember it fondly now... I guess that's what counts.

Denton Greenbelt

This past November (months ago now, I guess...) I went to visit my folks in Texas.

The last time I was in town, my Dad had been having back problems that he just couldn't kick. Since then, he talked to some doctors, had some surgery, and gotten some good recovery. According to Strava, he'd been back on the bike a bit recently, which was great to see, especially since the last time I'd seen him, he could ride, but then he'd have trouble getting around for a few days after.

When I arrived at my folks' house, my Dad looked great. He was not only super mobile, but he'd lost a bunch of weight and looked pretty fit.

The next day, we headed up to Denton to try and ride some bits of the greenbelt that we'd missed the last time.

Last time we drove both cars up, parked at the end, shuttled back to the start, and rode point-to-point. This time, we planned on doing a figure-eight-type thing so we only needed one car, which was a lot easier, but felt less epic. It was also a million degrees outside the last time and we both nearly died of thirst multiple times. This time it was pretty cool, and felt less epic for that reason too.

We planned on heading out on the road, finding part of the trail that we hadn't ridden last time, picking it up there, riding back to the car, then doing a lasso north from there. So, we left the lot, heading east on the road.

There were some interesting chicken houses off to the right, not far from the lot.

At least, I think that's what they were. It was a chicken farm, at least, so we figured that's what they must be.

We rode around, looking for the trail, for like an hour. We even passed several gravel cyclists, coming the other direction, so we figured we must be in the right place. Turned out no. They were apparently just as lost as we were. After ending up at a dead end in one direction (at the bottom of a long, steep hill, of course), and at a T with a road that was definitely well outside of where we wanted to be in the other direction, we ultimately decided that we must have missed the trail earlier. I even resorted to using the maps app on my phone to try to find it.

Yep, we'd missed it. It was like a mile back up the road that we were on.

Goodness.

So, we spun back and looked pretty hard for it. It turned out that we weren't blind, or unobservant. The trail was semi-difficult to find, and worse, fenced off. It wasn't like the fences on the East Texas Trail though, where you're supposed to open and close them. This looked permanent. Like, "don't go here" rather than "remember to close the gate."

When we'd first ridden out there, the parking lot on the south end was closed because the Trinity had flooded and choked it (and the trail) with debris. When we rode, it had all been cleared, but not yet formally reopened. The trail we were looking for had been the alternate entrance while it was closed, but now that the lot was back open, I guess the alternate entrance had been closed.

Dang.

Well, at least it counted as Adventure.

Somewhat discouraged, we headed back to the lot, and crossed the river. The discouragement dissipated pretty quickly as we headed north, though. The trail up there is fast and fun.

We'd ridden that section before though, and knew what to expect - you ride along the edge of various fields, periodically broken up by little belts of trees. It winds a bit, but you still head generally north. The river is off to the right somewhere, and you kind of get farther and farther away from it for a while. Eventually, it bends hard left though, and you end up crossing directly over it. If you keep going straight, you end up at some trailhead below the dam for Ray Roberts Lake. We'd gone that was last time. However, there is a paved trail to the left that we hadn't ridden before, so we went that way.

Turns out it just leads to another trailhead, over by the outlet.

There were various trails leading down to the river, both official-looking, and less-official-looking. All appeared to be fishing trails.

We rolled around the trailhead a bit...

...and I made use of the facilities.

From there, we had a couple of choices... We could head back over to the other lot and take the incredibly sandy trail from there up to Isle du Bois Park, or we could just climb up to the road and take it. Last time, the trail was kind-of fun, except where it super sucked, but it was slow going, we didn't have a ton of daylight left, and it was getting noticeably colder as the sun got lower.

We opted for the road, which, despite the climbing, was definitely the right decision.

The park was just up the road...

Oh! And I forgot about the best part!

Texas state parks, and various trailheads (including the one we were parked at) are free on the first Sunday after Veterans' Day. We didn't have to pay to park earlier, and we didn't have to pay to get into the park. We hadn't planned this, it just worked out, but it was great because I'd forgotten entirely about parking fees and admission fees, and hadn't brought any cash with me. I'd have been digging around in my ashtray trying to find $7 in change, and then trying to cram an overloaded envelope into the fee slot at the trailhead. No idea what we'd have done to get into the park.

Last time we were at that particular park, we'd ridden all of the singletrack - the incredibly rough, rocky, and twisty singletrack. It had been incredibly hot outside, we'd both run out of water well before getting off of the trail, and it had taken like half an hour of sitting on a picnic table and chugging to get right again.

As such, we had declined to ride the paved trail that also winds through the park.

Not this time!

It turned out that the paved trail was narrow, fast, and twisty. I used to call trails like that "road bike singletrack". It was, by far, the most fun paved trail I'd ever ridden.

Somewhere near the end, I had to stop to pee, and I got a couple of photos of my Dad and our bikes.

But, we didn't dally about. The sun was getting low, it was cooling off, and we were both feeling underdressed, though I think me more than my Dad. He was, at least wearing a long sleeve base layer. I just had my craft sleeveless layer on under my jersey.

It was kind of a climb back up out of the park, so that helped keep us warm, but it was up and down on the road, and the drop down to the lot off of the dam was a screaming descent. I remember it really vividly, actually. The sun was setting ahead of us, my Dad was riding up, off to the right, and we were tearing down the road, but the cold was biting harder and harder, the faster we went. It was one of those cases where "this is great!" and also "this is awful!" at the same time. In the moment, I was doing that Perpetual Retrospect thing, and it's such a good memory now. I've done so much of that kind of thing by myself, but it's so much better with somebody else. Later, you're just talking and it comes up... "Remember coming down off the dam? Goodness!"

We didn't go all the way down to the lot that we'd exited earlier, rather just crossed through the one that we'd been through on our previous visit.

The river was tranquil.

Heading back, we experienced the ultimate conflict... Do you ride faster to get back to the car more quickly, or do you ride slower so you freeze less? Choose! Neither is the right choice. If you ride faster, you get colder, but if you ride slower, you're out for longer and you still get colder! We chose to push it, and as stated earlier, it was both the right and wrong choice.

I remember thinking that each field was the last field, only for there to be another field.

It was undeniably beautiful out there though. The cedars and the tall grass, the dim light, the clouds and the last bit of light... We eventually put our lights on. We probably could have pushed into the darkness a bit longer, but not safely, at the speed we were trying to maintain.

I distinctly remember being very happy when I saw headlights on the road ahead of us. Even if there were 3 more fields, we were still pretty close.

When we got back to the car, I was a popsicle and my Dad wasn't much warmer. I got the truck going before running off to change clothes. It was decently warm in the truck when I got back, but my heater core needed to be back-flushed, so it wasn't as warm as I craved. I definitely made good use of the heated seats.

We grabbed some dinner at Luigi's Pizza, nearby in Aubrey. Their gimmic is this awesome lazy susan tray thing. The server actually came out spinning it.

The pizza was great. I'd definitely eat there again, and considering that there are still a few bits of trail out there that we haven't explored, I may just get the opportunity.