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8 miles

2

singletrack

loop (clockwise)

SGI  |  DORBA

none

n/a

• Picnic pavilions w/ restrooms
• Fishing area
• Playground

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• High volume trail which is better to ride during off times. If the weather is nice on a Saturday, consider a different location.
• Because it is a popular trail, it's a bit more safety-friendly to those who are riding solo. In other words, so many people ride the trail regularly, someone is more likely to be along riding after you should something happen.

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  Although is has some technical spots, it is a relatively easy trail. The beauty of Erwin Park is its as challenging as you want to make it. If you are looking to raise the bar for your ride, go faster. You can there, as there are many decent length winding medium grade climbs there. If you can granny gear them as you come out of the technical areas... or step it up to the second chainring and hammer out some quick climbing.
  Today I was passed by a cyclocross rider on the trail. Albeit the cyclocross rider had great skill, but this is a trail loop which can be rode on 700x32 off-road tires and drop bars.
  Still this is a Dallas area trail but not so bad as Boulder Park or Rowlett Creek. What I mean by that is that most Dallas area trails are built mostly in a flood plain area. Its typically tight winding, a good number of flood ditch whoop-dee-doo's, an ample share of roots, and plenty of tree bottlenecks to regulate speed.
  There are not many rocks here, most of the trail surface will be clay-based soil with roots, and thankfully no sand. Be wary of the wooded sections in the Fall and Winter, however, because of fallen leaves. Thankfully Erwin Park has good trail stewards which keep the trail in fantastic shape.
  Several miles of the 8 mile loop are winding climbs in open fields. I rather enjoyed these parts of the trail, as I prefer distance cross country rides. Some of the fast and rooty-furious crowd may not like that so much.
  Because it was rather crowded today, I ended riding a pace which was a bit faster than my normal ride style. I'm not surprised that the trail was relatively crowded. Kind of a good thing I suppose, for it forced me to push myself a bit more. The flip side is that I can see how this place would be decent for a 3+ hour ride doing three laps at a slower pace. I don't think that would be very fun if there was a lot of people out.
 ~ Thed 1 Jan 2009