Over the Bars In Knoxville!

Photo: Me! (battle scars)

About two years ago my family and I took a trip to Knoxville. It would be my first time in the South, and I was looking forward to getting a taste of the riding down there. Although we only had two days, we made sure to make the most of our time.

For our first day, we picked up some bikes and headed over to Baker Creek to ride some sick flow trails. Although I was feeling good on the bike, I still managed to go flying over the bars and have one of my worst crashes ever. I think this is due to a couple of factors-first of all, I was riding a much less slack and forgiving bike than I was used to, I was running on 3 hours of sleep, and although i thought I was jumping a table top, it turned out to be a roller with a steep backside. Anyways, I don’t want to blame this crash on the trail or my bike, because it was obviously just my dumb mistake for bombing a trail blind.

After my crash, we hit a fun blue jumpline called Barn Burner, and finished off the day on the infamous Devil’s Racetrack Jumpline. I really want to go back to this place when I’m riding better, and they’ve also built an entirely new zone with some insane rock work.

Day 2 had us both very nervous as we were about to ride the gnarly Windrock Bike Park! Our day turned out to be pretty fun as we warmed up on Talladega (pretty rough and steep for a blue flow trail), before tackling some tech runs like Drop Out, Snake Rock, Trail One, and much more. I also would really like to come back here, as they’ve built a lot of new stuff, and I’m a much better rider now and I’d love to tackle some of the gnarlier stuff like Horseface and the Red Bull Jumpline. See you soon, Knoxville!