The Southern Traverse
Several friends and I spent this past Saturday tackling the Southern Traverse, an IMBA Epic ride along the southern spine of the Shenandoah Mountain Trail.
Photos never do it justice. Brian, one of my riding partners, rides under one of the many obstacles encountered along the route. What you really can’t tell is how narrow the trail is and how steep the exposure is to his right.
Ten people committed to the ride, six of us started, five finished it…
Ride Meta
Bike: Bubbles - Ibis Mojo
Trail System: Shenandoah Mountain, IMBA Epic
Distance: 29.56 mi
Moving Time: 5:28:54
Elevation: 4,495 ft
Avg. Speed: 5.4 mi/h
Max Speed: 26.3 mi/h
Temperature: 41°
Favorite Segment: The End…
My buddy Dave thought that when I flagged and conceived The Col bench at Locust Shade Park in Prince William County, VA, I did so because of the “exposure” factor of the Southern Traverse. To some degree, I did. I have a love and affinity for old school narrow singletrack, and this ride has plenty of that.
This IMBA Epic has some of the the narrowest trails you’ll ever roll tires on. This Epic ride traverses the southern end of the Shenandoah Mountain trail from the vicinity of Fort Edward Johnson at the Confederate Breast Works to Indian Draft Road to the South. We rode it in the preferred direction to take advantage of some great descents at the end.
The ride starts out with a steep fire road climb, followed by another steep singletrack climb and then a 20 mile section of rolling singletrack. before a bomb of a descent to Scotchtown Draft Road.
The route along the Shenandoah Mountain Trail is along an extremely primitive section of land. The remoteness of the location makes the stretch of trail incredibly difficult to maintain. As a result, this ride is what I like to call “raw”. The trail is narrow, often overgrown and littered with plenty of natural obstacles along its entire length. This ride is not for the faint of heart, and once you commit, there are very few “bail out” points. The remoteness and unavoidable obstacles is what makes this back country ride such an adventure.
We lost one to a major mechanical 4 miles in. Glad it was early on. Of the ten that committed only 5 of us finished. Selfie at the Jerkemtight juncture, halfway into the ride. Some of us toyed with bailing out this intersection, but we carried on and persevered. The bailout point is also a difficult undertaking…
The Southern Traverse is best experienced in the fall simply because the overgrowth in the summer makes it virtually impossible to traverse. Even with the “lack” of vegetation, fall riding is also difficult. Leaf cover makes the tread slippery and dormant plants and samplings still whip your body as you ride by. For that reason it is highly recommended you ride with long sleeves and long pants. I failed to do the latter and opted for “knickers” - my shins hate me for it…
This year we were somewhat lucky. Temperatures were mild, and other than one major mechanical at the beginning, it was just another brutal ride at the George Washington National Forest (GWNF). As we expected, there was a lot of briar and overgrowth. While we did expect leaf cover, we didn’t quite anticipate how slippery it would be. That leaf cover added to the adventure and made the narrow bench cuts even more treacherous than they usually are. In some cases the leaf cover was a blessing since we could really not see the “hazards” below.
Unlike last year, where we did the ride as an out and back, this year we chose to ride the full length of the trail, from the “entry point” to the wilderness just above the Confederate Breast Works, to the exit point at Indian Draft Road.
This is big notch on my to do list. I’m not entirely sure I’ll tackle this ride again next year - just getting to old for this shit… But, if you are young and daring, and really want to expericne back country riding, I highly encourage it…
Above, A quick flyby by the members of the outing.