Underexposed is a self-shot and produced series by Pivot Cycles athlete Brice Shirbach dedicated to showcasing trail advocacy and stewardship while exploring a variety of trails in unfamiliar places. Join Brice as he explores the personal motivations behind the effort that goes into mountain bike advocacy while sampling the trails they work so hard for.
The first thing that stands out is the obvious beauty of the Allegheny Front of the Appalachian Mountains. The dense forests that cover the archaic ridges and valleys along the western edge of West Virginia’s panhandle cast a hazy blue hue upon the landscape, interrupted only by the warm glow from the sun whenever it nears the horizon. Sunrises will take your breath away, and sunsets will set your soul on fire. It’s almost heaven, after all.
The next thing you’ll notice are the golf carts.
They’re everywhere you look at Big Bear Lake Trail Center just outside of Bruceton Mills, WV or roughly 20 miles to the east of Morgantown. Big Bear Lake is a 5,000 acre deeded private R.V. campland with thousands of landowners who have set up a variety of campers and trailers throughout, organized into a number of territories and villages. There’s a waterpark, a country store, tennis, basketball and volleyball courts, and of course over 50 miles of trails throughout. I’ll get back to those in a minute. The golf cart use is a quirky, slightly odd, and largely endearing trait of Big Bear Lake. The speed limit throughout the property’s roads never exceeds 20 mph, so it seems as if everyone decided that cars are too much for the task at hand, while bikes would be too much work and thus the golf cart became the most logical choice for inter-camplands transportation. I mean, it certainly looks like fun.
Situated in the heart of the Cheat River watershed, the primary trailhead at Big Bear Lake Trail Center sits 2,400 feet above sea level, with the trails themselves topping out at 3,000 feet. Throughout its 5,000 acres, Big Bear boasts a number of forest types, from high elevation wetlands, to mixed hardwood, to pine, bogs and more. What’s unique about this place, besides the golf cart obsession, is this convergence where you’ll find northern species in their southernmost range, and southern species in their northernmost. It makes for an unbelievably beautiful swath of Appalachia, and the trails found throughout are equally lovely to behold.
“The trail center has a long history of races dating back to the 80’s,” Jeff Simcoe tells me. Jeff is the recreation land manager at Big Bear Lake Trail Center, and is responsible for organizing the trail events on the property, most notably the Bike Bash. “A lot of the original trail was developed through motorcycle races. The Big Bear 100 was a part of the Blackwater 100 Series, which was a very well known series back in the day.
“As time went on, Mark Schooley, the general manager here and a mountain biker from the late 80’s, began to develop more bike specific trail. He was turning out forestry access routes into better trails, and over time began to connect all of these unique sandstone features and rock outcroppings. A lot of that work was done by Mark and other local trail builders.”
Jeff entered into the picture in the fall of 2014 as the recreation land manager, and more recently was able to bring his wife, Annie, on board as the trail maintenance supervisor. Because the trails are on private property, a trail pass is required to access them. You can purchase a day pass for $10, or a season pass for $30. The trails themselves are largely technical in nature, with loads of embedded rock throughout the area, much of it covered by a glowing green moss and surrounded by a sea of shoulder height ferns and ankle deep duff. Though there are a handful of steep punctuations, most of the 600 feet of vertical relief comes very gradually, with undulating trails that weave in and out of the beautiful sandstone formations, or on occasion up and over them. The area receives upwards of 50 inches of rain per year, which means that riding in the wet is unavoidable at times. Fortunately, the abundance of sandstone and duff combined with a lack of clay makes for an ideal drainage situation. The rain can make for a spicy ride, but there’s a real beauty that comes with the total sensory overload in those kinds of conditions.
This is Appalachia in its rawest and most beautiful form, and these trails are nature's playground at their finest. There are slow and funky rock drops that make you work hard to keep your momentum, and are often begging to be sessioned. You'll occasionally get sendy off of a massive huck-to-flat, or huck-to-off-camber grease trap. There's not a lot of support in the turns, so be ready to put that foot out, or just use this trail to get better at flat corners. Speedy sections come and go throughout the ride, but the smile will likely never fade.
“West Virginia is such a great place for mountain biking,” Jeff continues. “It’s really about community. We’re fortunate here to be able to put on these large events. I think last year we attracted riders from 17 different states for the Bike Bash event. There are plenty of days where I’ve given up riding so we could facilitate someone’s good time here in West Virginia and at Big Bear. Bikes are life for us right now, and we hope that continues on for a long time.”
7/20/2023 9:00pm
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