I arrived late, the closure of the Pig Trail- highway 23, due to a washout caused me to take the long way to the park on the south shore of Beaver Lake. As I pulled into the Townsend Ridge parking lot, I quickly got my bike off the truck and got checked in. I rolled up to the start line with minutes to spare. I still had time to notice that the category 3 50+ group was the largest I’d ever raced in. This is a popular race.
It was the first race of the 2015 Arkansas Mountain Bike Championship Series (AMBCS). It wasn’t suppose to be the first but the recent rains caused a reschedule of the Cane Creek Timberlands race. So the Battle for Townsend’s Ridge at Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area was on deck. The recent rains that wreacked havoc on other trails and even highways left this beautiful trail as fast and race ready as ever, a testament to good drainage and proper trail building.
The course was fast. Going counterclockwise gave us a couple of short steep climbs, but mostly fast, flowing singletrack. I found myself taking some of the downhill sections a little faster than I had in the past. Before I knew it, my race was over. I finished solidly in the middle of the pack.
Leading up to the event, organizer Brannon Pack for Ozark Off Road Cyclist, started posting new information on what has always been a popular event. This year they would go green. Working with Waste Management, the trail advocacy organization stepped up to embrace part of the mission of the park to protect natural resources.
Grilled chicken along with chicken salad, bean salad and some incredible roasted corn on the cob was just what I needed to recover from my fast paced morning. I went back out on the trail to take some photos, but never far enough into the woods that I couldn’t hear the live music. Awards, a Huffy toss and other festivities took place throughout the day. It was a great way to kick off the Summer mountain biking season.
