Biking Pine Trail at Santos mountain bike trails, Ocala.

Mountain bike riding for the first time at Santos bike trails.

 Today was the first time my daughter would take her mountain bike out on the Santos trails. Her bike was a Christmas present a year ago and she has been enjoying the paved trails at the Greenway walking/biking trails on Baseline road here in Ocala. Here is a pic of her bike that I bought at Santos Bike Shop.

If your schedule is flexible, I think it’s a good idea to introduce someone to their first trail ride at a time that when the trails aren’t packed with people. I took my daughter Kayla to the Santos trail head early Monday morning during the summer break. Once we arrived, I explained to her about some safety issues as well as what to expect on the trail. She has only been riding on paved trails so far so she had concerns about what to expect while out on the trail. I wanted her to practice going over some bumps and getting a feel for what her bike was designed to handle.

 

We are lucky because the Santos trail head has an intro level practice area set up where you can ride over some basic obstacles to get a feel for your bike.  I rode with her on the practice track until she was confident and ready for the trail.

The trails at Santos are divided into three levels of difficulty. There is the yellow which is the easiest, blue which has some technical aspects that provide the rider with moderate challenges and finally the reds which are truly expert level.  We started with a yellow path named Pine Tree trail. The trail starts out at the main trail head and meanders a nice, flat, well traveled course. At just over three miles, the trail is very scenic and offers a great introductory ride for beginners. Pine Tree trail consists of gradual elevations, some narrow sections as well as its share of open areas to mix up the scenery a little. Other than some roots and natural protruding limestone, I didn’t find any steep hills or rocky obstacles that you sometimes find on the blue trails. We rode at a leisurely pace of around 5 miles per hour.

Add caption

At the halfway point we came to a sign that directed us back to the trail head. I let Kayla lead us back instructing her to look for either a P- (for parking lot I assume,) or TH which stands for trail head on the yellow markers. She did a great job leading us back to the trail head without making a single mistake. 

Overall it was a great first experience to introduce my daughter to mountain biking. After just one ride Kayla decided that she prefers riding the dirt trails at Santos over the paved greenway trails on baseline road. We ended with her asking to go again tomorrow which we will. We took it slow, I made sure she was confident and comfortable and she had a great time. We are looking forward to going back together.

"But tomorrow we'll go faster!" - Kayla