Description for Tapeworm
Skill builder ride, nice quick after-work destination. It takes 1-2 hours to ride everything. This is a small system of trails that are tightly wound to make the most of a power utility company lot. There are four trails: Crop Circles, The Worm, Parasite, and Mr. DNA. Best to find a copy of the CycoActive map and use that. [See link below.] This is a trashy section of young deciduous trees, don't expect nice forest (and doesn't really make for great night riding with so many low branches if you use a helmet light).
Tapeworm is considered by many to be a one-way trail; you may get grumbles if you ride it counterclockwise (just keep in mind that no one will expect you to be coming the other way, so BE CAREFUL...and don't wear your iPod). All other trails are generally considered two-way.
The Tapeworm trails are aged. When it was a young fresh trail, there were many sections that were more difficult than it's current state. Please respect the difficulty in the trail, that all riders enjoy overcoming whether sooner or later, and don't remove natural obstacles, or create go-arounds.
Note that there are now some nice (i.e. difficult) log piles on Parasite that were built after all the winter storms (early 2007) that add some more difficulty back to Parasite (but you can walk over all of them, so good skill builders).
Some trails tend to grow in a bit, especially in the Spring, and especially Crop Circles. It's a great help to all riders if you bring clippers and spend 10 minutes cutting back some brush!
Also great fun to ride the last part of DNA downhill, which is the reverse of the typical direction (3rd entrance on the right along the power station fence (go right instead of left once you take the right...left takes you to crop circles). You will have no problem seeing if someone is coming the other way.
And the trails on the far side (used to be called "Stay on Target", I think) now have a great berm section, and new lines with good drops and jumps if you're looking for some technical in-the-air challenges. You can even do a variation by starting Tapeworm, then in the first or second turn after the first big rock, go left out onto the open trail, then right, then immediately left to hit all the jump/drop stuff. Ride back up the hill to take the left back onto the 'worm). Keep in mind that this is more intermediate to advanced, but you can take a look and ride around anything there. Someone has put a lot of time into developing this (moving a lot of dirt by hand). If you want to do the berm stuff, start earlier on the trail (at the bottom of the fire road on the far side, and look for the first left turn past a big log about 300 yards into the trail). Fun stuff!