Olmstead Loop Trail Description

Location: Cool

Technicality Level: Beginner

Effort Level: Intermediate

Trail Type: Loop

One way full trail length: 8.95 miles

Roland's best time: 48:40 min, December 08,2002

Elevation Gain: 900ft

Description:

A combined bike & horse trail, well actually it used to be a horse only trail, and they have kindly allowed mountain bikers to also use the trail - so respect the equestrians or they'll kick us off the trail! The trail starts from behind the Cool firestation, following dirt single track for a very short period before you're on double track for about 3 miles, from there it varies between double and single track all the way back. 

The first half of the trail is much harder than the second, given that I wasn't tired on the first half of the trail I averaged 8.9 mph upto the halfway point, from then on I must have averaged 10.3 for the second half making for a trail average of 9.6 - which indicates that it's a fast trail, at least faster than either Salmon Falls, or Jenkinson's lake. Most of the uphills are quite long and take a lot out of you, but likewise most of the downhills are pretty straight with minimal technicality and you can fly down them - obviously watching out for horses though.

At 2.67 miles you'll be at the start of "Granny Hill" called this because you'll almost certainly be in bottom gear, that's if you're not walking the bike at least. The hill seemingly goes straight up for 0.3 miles, but once you're past this there are only a couple of other significant hills, and neither as bad as this one.

 

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