Lake Ray Roberts-Greenbelt Corridor

I never thought i would really be into riding a Greenbelt..but I love this place..it is basically a gravel service road that runs between 380 in Denton to Pilot Point..a round trip is roughly 20 miles..nothing technical about it..ride it on a cross bike, hybrid or mountain bike..there is a rest stop at either end and in the middle...if you want to ad miles you can leave it and ride over to Isle Du Bois State Park from the Elm Fork Branch...if you really want to push it head over and ride some of the mountain bike trail at Isle Du Bois before heading back towards the 380 access trail head..usually plenty of people about on the weekends and a few during the week...nice and flat and if you want you can push yourself for speed and get a good work out...if you plan on doing any of the Dorba trail at Isle Du Bois ride a mountain bike...

The Greenbelt is a great place to ride or hike..alone or with the family..if goes through some wooded areas and then through some open fields..even though you are beside Denton you get the feeling you are way out in the country..just make sure you pay at the self pay station if you do not have a annual pass...the rangers come though and right down LP numbers of non payers and they send tickets/fines out in the mail.

If you are getting into the sport then a state park pass more than pays for itself..I use mine several times a week and within a month it has paid for itself..plus with the pass whoever is in the car gets in free..

Isle Du Bois Dorba Trail

This is one of the more difficult trails in the area..not so much as the entire trail is hard but the back side of the D loop is a killer..pretty much abounds of rock gardens..when you leave the trail head you will on the A loop heading out...as most state park trails go when you come to a junction or intersection on the trail stay left to keep going or go right to head back to the trail head..

The front side of the A,B,C loop is fairly easy though new comers may disagree...at the end of the out going C loop you will cross a cement path to get to the D Loop..or you can bail there and head out out on the cement path and ride the road back to the TH or make an immediate right and jump back on the C Loop and finish out the trail..if you cross the cement path it pretty much starts getting harder from there as in more technical with rocks and short climbs with rock gardens..this starts the loop that goes out and heads back to the cement path..once you do the front side of the D Loop and E Loop you will cross a field to the back side of the D Loop..you can go left on the dirt road and that will bypass this part of the trail and take you back around to the cement path where you reconnect to the C Loop to finish the trail...if you decide to press on and do the back side D Loop you will find a challenging and difficult section of the trail..it will test your bike handling skills and the more you ride it the better rider you will be..

Back on the C Loop there are some good long climbs and some fun technical stuff that is not to bad..once you cross over to the B Loop back it is pretty much a climb then onto the A Loop and back at the trail head..

The good-there are enough cut outs so one can pretty much dictate how much of the trail they want to ride..it is a good place to start honing your mountain bike skills and has enough challenging sections to keep it interesting. 

The bad-no rain makes the trail start turning to sand in some sections and the more it is ridden the longer the sand traps get..if you go early in the morning and are the first to ride the trail and the spiders are out you will be eating spider webs through most of the trail..colder weather it is not a issue..as a week ago when I rode there there where a lot of soft and sandy sections on the trail..but it is still worth checking out if you have never rode there.