Cross Roads Quidditch

When you're zooming across an overpass on an interstate, like I-95 for instance, or the Florida Turnpike, do you ever wonder what's going on 20 feet below your car?

Yeah, me neither. 

Unless I am at the exact spot where I-95 and the Turnpike cross one another in Ft. Pierce, Florida. 

Because, under your flying metal steed of highway horsepower, swoop metal steeds of a different propulsion. 

Especially on the weekends.  

This 4.2 mile fat tire roller coaster is usually referred to as the Ft Pierce trails.  Once in a while you might hear some old timer - like me - call it Cross Roads.  (Because well, it's where 95 and the turnpike cross, right?)

I can't say whether it's strictly legal.  All I can say is, we found a couple older websites referring to it as "soon to be legal." 

There was certainly no indication anywhere in sight that one shouldn't enter, park, or ride. 

So that is exactly what we did.

As a matter of fact, on this overcast Sunday afternoon, we had plenty of company at the trailhead.  Most of that company was a group of really loud ATV riders roaring around on their own separate patch of dirt. 

Nobody paid the slightest bit of attention to a couple of humble cyclists pedaling quietly off to one of the best flowing mountain bike trails in Florida.  And that's just the way we like it. 

Yep. 

Quiet.  Low key.  Stealth. 

That's us. 

But once you're in, there's no one around but the critters - and the cars overhead - so whoop and holler all you want.  And you will probably want to - quite a lot!

 

In this section, "The Dance" is on the other side.

One dances over the palmetto roots, that is.

This trail is in the most unlikely of places, on the disturbed land that is the underbelly of two major highways and their exit ramps.  Four miles of well-marked, hard packed singletrack twists and glides through woods and swamp; crossing, and crossing again, under the overpasses. 

bridge abutment

Cross Roads trail is by far, the closest I'll ever get to playing quidditch.  When it's dry, it's pure magic, swoopy and dippy.  And when it's wet, the magic is there, just muddy and slippery. 

By my third time around, even I have stopped shaking, and I am swooping like Harry Potter on a new broomstick.


The trail is constantly in flux.  It's never been the same way twice.  The old teeter totter is gone, and a wooden bridge has replaced the long-ago log crossing.  A few ramps and lots of log piles remain to test your oomph at surprise intervals.  

Sometimes water filled,

and sometimes just filled with prickers.
(Ask me how I know that.) 

 Bulldozers come, and ATVs, but so far the bike singletrack has held it's own quiet ground. 

The trail evolves endlessly with rising waters, hurricanes, or just plain wind. Trees fall, new paths go around. When it floods, new trail appears on higher ground.  When it's dry, new swoops materialize in the gullies.

Dip when dry.  

I don't even know if I should name the mtn bike club that maintains this trail.  Hey, it could be legal by now, for all I know! 

Might not be, though. 

But if you go, give them credit in your heart.  And if you see them there working, be sure to thank them.  Or better yet join them.

They took what would have been wasted land and made it into a mountain bikers dream - wet or dry.



Directions:  On the south side of Okeechobee Rd. (70), find the off-ramp for the turnpike.  There is a dirt road between the off ramp and the Holiday Inn Express.  Take it, heading south for about a half mile, to the trailhead.  Check for signs of legality or non legality and decide to ride accordingly.