Alright...its time for me to stop slacking and get y'all updated on the adventures!

The AMA Supercross series made its way to Reliant Stadium in Houston on April 6, which is a short 4 hour jaunt across I-10 from Baton Rouge. Growing up riding motocross and being an avid follower of the professional series, it was only natural that I made my way west to the Lone Star State to watch the action! I ended up staying with a friend from Muscatine that lives in Houston, and luck would have it that he rides mountain bikes too...how convenient!

Saturday
After having a few too many Black Velvet's on Friday night, I woke up feeling a little foggy on Saturday morning. We limped our way over to Memorial Park, which is located very close to downtown providing a unique urban setting for trails. The trails were pretty fun...full of tree roots, hikers, and sticks/logs. We didn't hit it very hard on this day and only did one lap around the park, but it was still a good time! We also stumbled upon a couple brand new Ferrari's in the parking lot. They were getting loaded up onto a flatbed truck after being on display for a running race of some sort earlier that morning. Very cool!
Strava

Supercross was fairly uneventful and the racing was average at best, but I always enjoy being at the races live to take in the action. After the races were over we proceeded to take on a few too many drinks at a multitude of bars throughout Houston...sports bar, club, tap house, you name it, we were there. Good times were had.

Sunday
I woke up on Sunday feeling even foggier than I was on Saturday! ...must be getting too old for this stuff or something. After sleeping in a bit and drinking a large amount of water, we were up and ready to ride at the buttcrack of noon. The plan for the day was to ride the trails at Terry Hershey Park...The Anthills, located on the west side of Houston.

The trails are laid out along the Buffalo Bayou creating a narrow Out & Back system along a small bluff. There were usually 2 or 3 different trails to ride on at any given point along the bayou providing riders options to stay up on top, down on the bottom, or climb up and down the bluff for a better workout. I could tell these trails get ridden a lot and they were better maintained than the Memorial Park trails we rode the day before. I found myself in granny gear grinding up climbs, bombing high speed descents and picking my way through technical sections throughout the trail system...big smile on my face the entire time!

My buddy took me to the far east side of the trails and showed me where "The Anthills" got it's name. we dropped into a trail and it rolled us into some GIGANTIC DIRT JUMPS! I'm talking 8 ft tall booters with vertical takeoffs...gnarly stuff. The first guy we roll up on in the dirt jump area clearly had nice crash at some point as his front teeth were all busted up. I asked him if there were any jump lines that wouldn't break my frame in half just by looking at the jumps wrong, and he pointed me in the direction of the "small" line. I eyed it up and decided to drop in and hit some small kickers on the 29er! It was pretty fun doing a couple laps, but I could definitely tell that I needed a dirt jump bike to ride the lines properly so we headed back to the singletrack.
Strava

All in all, the weekend in Houston was a very good time, but it made me realize how lucky we are to have the FORC trails available to us back home where there is more room to breathe (RIP Sylvan...hopefully not for long). I don't have any pictures from these trails, but I'm sure Google would yield a few results if you were so inclined.

Hopefully y'all enjoyed this installment of the Cajun Adventures! Thanks for reading.