Trail Reversals! We asked Freedom Park to reverse the riding direction of trails D & E for February. Look out for the cool reversible-direction signs at the trail heads/ends to be changed from Saturday, Feb 1 through Fri, Feb 28. (UPDATE: reversals remain in effect well into March, to be changed back....sometime.) We haven’t reversed these trails in a while and we’d like to make it somewhat regular. In many informal discussions with various EVMA members over the last few years, we’ve heard mixed reactions about reversals. We can’t please everybody. Here is some common feedback:
- Many (but not all) people say that they enjoy D reversed occasionally. A good number really want D reversed more often.
- The consensus is that many people seem to not enjoy E reversed. But some do like it reversed sometimes just to get something different, even if they agree that it flows better forward.
- D & E work well as one big loop, with trail heads/ends that line up. It works well to have both reversed at the same time to keep the loop (even if E backwards is not most people’s favorite).
- D & E have few access points, so there’s little risk of people entering the trails there and going the wrong way during reversals. So if we’re going to reverse some trails, D & E make sense. We’ll never reverse C during normal park hours, as you can’t ride the features reversed. (But we sometimes night-ride C backwards which many agree is fun!) Trails A & C have too many access points for people to enter the trail, so there’s no good way to notify/enforce reversed directions.
- If you haven’t tried D & E reversed yet, give them a try. Even if you don’t like them as much reversed, at least it will be like riding a new and different trail.