BULL AND JAKE MOUNTAIN IMBA EPIC JULY2016

This is an IMBA (international mountain bike association) EPIC trail. EPIC stands for, well, EPIC literally as in long and tough enough.. not just a bike ride.. but rather, an adventure bike ride.

Track gives around 40kms, 25 miles more or less. on mtbproject you can find inside connectors which in turn could shorten the track to 20kms or 30kms... or if you want more, the connectors could add another 10 to 20 kilometers. So there is flexibility to do this at your need.

This EPIC in Georgia is absolutely fantastic. MTBProject.com gives this trail a blue/black code. Well... what I found was first 20 kilometers were perfectly doable, tough and challenging but doable and at a given rythm.... but ay! .... the climb to the top of the 850m BULL mountain... that climb was the epopeya! it was tough and loooooong..... looooong..... only when I got to the top after completely giving up and walking the bike min the last full kilometer.... only at the top when I got some signal on the phone and checked the elevation profile I understood... this climb is about 450 meters in 5kilometers... and this, without 20 meters "clean"... it's all a climb over pointy rocks, loose pebbles and gigantic roots... all the way... so yes, I agree with MTB this is a blue/black... blue for the first 20kms and the last 10 kms.... and black as it gets for the climb to the top of the Bull mountain. Here in wikiloc I give it a red difficult.

So what's the right direction to tackle this? I did counterclockwise following text I read in mtbproject ... but... this meant I attacked the climb with 20 kms on my legs already... and more steep... If you do the trail clock wise then you pretty much start with the huge climb... same height but over more distance, maybe, maybe more doable. I can't be sure. But for sure, you'd do it at the beginning of your EPIC experience.

Get ready to cross creeks and streams. At least in one of them, water would go up my knees so shoes off etc. In July. I suppose in other months water comes down with even bigger currents.

The tracks are in perfect shape, I saw the volunteers working that Sat morning. Great work on maintining this fantastic MTB area.

Great EPIC trail. Big recommendation.