I live in Youngsville North Carolina and San Lee is further away than a lot of local trails in my area. This trial is about an hour and 15 minutes from my house.
Some have asked, “is it really worth the drive?” Yes, San Lee bike park is well worth the drive as they have something for every style of rider and they just keep making it better.
As stated in multiple articles our crew tries to get away for some long weekend mountain biking and camping excursions. In one of my earlier articles I mentioned that most of our training sessions for our last excursion to Virginia was riding what we called Crabstead as we combined a lap of Umstead and Lake Crabtree.
The thing is that the more we ride San Lee bike park, the more we think that this should be our main training trail for our mountain trips. The crew at San Lee do a great job with the trails as well as trying to keep everyone up to date with trail conditions on their Facebook page.
This post will cover the various fun and challenging aspects of the park as a whole. This will cover the different trails, recommendations for what to bring with you while out on the trail, and some of the coolest aspects of the trail.
Unfortunately, most of this will be by memory due to the bad SD card in my action camera as I couldn’t go back through the footage. I am also going to be adding some information about some of the Gravity park portion of the trails that I don’t ride yet due to lack of confidence.
After our next trek out to San Lee, I will update it with additional detail and hopefully some additional footage.
About the park
San Lee Park is located at 572 Pumping Station Road in Sanford, North Carolina and consists of over 177 acres. This park offers a wide variety of items that could make a trip to the park a nice family affair.
It not only contains the mountain bike trail but it also includes, stocked lakes for fishing, campgrounds, playground and picnic facilities as well as a nature center.
The mountain bike trails are set within some of the hiking trails so be kind while riding and share the trails.
Trail Head
From the parking lot you are going to head up the the road towards the RV Campground where you will find the entrance for the mountain bike trails.
The Gorge
The first portion of the trail that we road was the Gorge. This is a neat section of the trail that offers some tight spacing. It can be a little nerve racking if you are the least bit ski-dish as the wrong move could send you over the edge.
It’s a nice section that has you pedaling most of the way but offers a unique bit of scenery based on the trail layout with some berms and rollers. We session this section for a bit and had a blast.
Nothing too dramatic but it had a nice flow and it was fun getting some air early on. It was my first true test on the new Race Face Chesters which had me trying to figure out a way to keep my feet on the pedals since changing out the old Shimano SPD’s.
Bouldergiest
Bouldergiest is a black diamond section of the trail that we went ahead and bypassed for this trip. It is a pretty technical section with a ton of rock and some pretty sick lines which we had ridden in the past.
You are going to want to lay off the front brake as there are some sections that can easily snag the front tire and send you OTB.
Gatewood
We then proceeded into Gatewood from the Gorge. One thing that seems to be similar in all of the trails here and in the rest of the state is the amount of roots and rock that can be found along the trail.
We found we were taking a lot of breaks this time around due to the cold weather as it was 27 degrees at the beginning of the ride. This portion of the trail is only about 0.7 miles in length.
Gold rush
Again pretty good flow on this portion of the trail with a couple of jumps and technical sections
The Gauntlet
If you like rock gardens then the Gauntlet is going to be a fun section for you. If you can keep your momentum going then you might be able to make it through this portion of the trail without any headaches.
Owl Hollow
Owl Hollow takes me back home as it is cut into a thick forest with some tight turns to have to navigate. If you are tall like me keep your head on a swivel as you will have to make adjustments on the ride as to not take a limb to the head. This keeps you focused while riding.
The trail then opens up giving you a good view of the lake but also offers up the ability to pick up a decent amount of speed in this portion of the trail. I found myself loosing a bit of focus and had to lock things up going into some of the turns.
Rock Nest Monster
Another fun portion of trail that incorporates, yep you guessed it, a ton of rock. You have to be extremely careful with your pedal strokes in order to keep your momentum here.
This caused me to have to reset several times as I got the new Chesters hung up a few times here. The good news is that the Chesters took a beating on the trail and are still great shape.
Gravity Park
This area can be either a ton of fun or just down right sketchy depending on your skill and confidence level. I believe I have done Ricochet as well as Shock and Awe so far. Both of which are a lot of fun but also had me clinched up pretty good if you know what I mean.
There are a few nice rolling jumps which were easy for me to handle but as I got further along I started casing the jumps and at one point almost went OTB. I am just glad I was the last of our three to go down so I didn’t screw up anyone else’s ride.
Final Thoughts
This has become one of my favorite local trails. Only issue for me is the fact that it is an hour and fifteen minutes from my place in Youngsville.
Is it worth the drive? Yes, it is absolutely worth the drive. The biggest thing for me is trying to line up an early morning start and ensure I give my wife the following day to have a break from the kids. As they say, happy wife happy life.
Tips for a successful ride at San Lee.
Tip #1. If you are planning to ride the entire trail the main tip is to get there early. If you take the main loop in which starts out at trailhead leading into the Gorge and ending up with Dragons Tail you could be looking at a long day, especially if you are out of shape.
The parking lot closes at 5 pm and you don’t want to be stuck behind the locked gate. There are several exit spots within the trail that you can take advantage of if you are running out of time so keep an eye on the clock when you take your breaks.
Tip #2. Ensure you have proper hydration amounts. This differs per rider and you should try to ensure you have more than you think you will need. This will help eliminate running into the problem I had on our last ride.
I was trying out a new hydration pack that has a ton of extra storage but ran into an issue with the fact that the water leaked out of the bag for the beginning portion of the trail.
This caused two problems for me. #1 it was cold outside and the water pouring down my back was not a great feeling. #2 was the fact that I probably lost about 1-1.5 liters of the 3 liter bag and barely had enough hydration to finish the ride.
Luckily I had a Gatorade stored in my bag that helped get me to the end.
Tip #3. Ensure you pack snacks. Nothing is worse than running out of energy while on this trail. There is a lot of climbing and your body takes a beating from the rocks and roots but its a ton of fun.
The key is to try and snack every few stops and not wait until you feel depleted as that can lead to cramping which will kill the end of your ride. I suffered from leaving my banana in the car on our last ride and not having enough to snack on.
My quads locked up just as we were trying to finish up the last climb heading into the drop zone portion of the trail which made our exit very painful and less exciting than it normally is.