Featured Trail Friday: Alafia River State Park, Brandon, Florida

Photos by ositoking

Trail stats

• Difficulty: Advanced
• Length: 14 miles
• Average Singletracks.com Rating: 4.67 out of 5 stars.

Description

The skinny: Alafia River State Park trails are IMBA Epic certified. The park offers a wide range of trail difficulties, from novice to intermediate to advanced to highly-advanced sections. Due to the park’s location on an abandoned phosphate mine, the topography is much more convoluted and varied than you would normally find in Florida. To cross the swampy ditches, the trail builders have incorporated numerous bridges and creative trail building techniques, making Alafia unique and endlessly entertaining.

The trailhead parking lot offers bathrooms with hot water, bicycle-rinsing stations, shaded pavilions, a volleyball net, and a playground.

Description added by Adventurecycling. Read more about Alafia River here.

Reviews

I didn’t expect to find such a nice trail system in Florida. Trails are well maintained and well built. Not very flowy, but rich in technical sections. Packed sandy trails gives nice traction…. enjoy. —bulletprooftiger 

Apart from Copper Harbor, Michigan, this is my favorite course to date. Moonscape/RollerCoaster/Rabbit Ears/Gatorback are all awesome challenges with lots of ups and downs and technical aspects. Who would think that Florida would have such a great course? I consider myself an advanced intermediate and had a lot of fun on this course and a great cardio workout. If you find yourself near Tampa with a few hours to burn (literally) you won’t be disappointed. Bring plenty of water… rode in April and it was 90F. Just added to the fun! —grahamt

Alafia’s trails are in the best shape they have been in a long time, with Jeff the trail boss constantly doing trail work with his wife and some crew every week. It just keeps getting better and better. Me and a few of my riding friends have actually been adding a few new additions to the trails recently, like on North Creek and Roller Coaster, which include nice banked berms, pump bumps, and a few double jumps, with many more to follow in the future. And also Jeff and his crew have started on a completely new trail extension off of North Creek that’s going to be called Devils Island, which should turn out to be a great addition to that already super fun trail. So if you ride this trail system at Alafia, you’ll have new and improved options each week that will be added for you to ride!!! —peresite70

Featured Trail Friday is a partnership with Singletracks.com, an online community of trail guides and reviews. Join the Singletracks membership and get access to topographic maps and GPS routes.

What’s your review?

Have you ridden at Alafia? Share your review in the comments below.