Mountain Biking Freedom Park near Williamsburg VA

Freedom Park, Williamsburg VA

Freedom Park near Williamsburg VA is my favorite of all the trails in the Tidewater area that I rode during my 2008 visit. This is a county park that encompasses around 700 acres of mostly hardwood forest set on rolling terrain. This trail system has really nice flow, some short but make you work climbs as well some stunts and jumps to keep you smiling. This is one of the EVMA's crown jewels. The IMBA trail crew has paid this place a visit in the past and there is some obvious trail design expertise at work here. The plan is too eventually have 25 miles of singletrack in this park. Currently there is about 10 miles of keep you smiling singletrack in the park.

Directions: From the Newport News/Norfolk area take I-64 north and take exit 234 to RT 199. From Rt-199 exit at Longhill Road and turn right. Stay on Longhill Road for about 2 1/2 miles until you come to a "T" intersection with Centreville Rd. The entrance to Freedom Park is directly across the "T". You will drive about half a mile or more once you enter the park before you get to the parking lot.

Map: This map comes courtesy of GPSTrailSource.com. This site some good information on lots of trails around Virginia. Give it a look.

Data Files: GPX, GDB, KML, TOPO

Ride Report:
Oh My, What a bunch of fun this place is! It is hard to describe but because the wonderful contouring layout of most of this trail system, you just don't seem to “remember” the short climbing portions of the trails. This left me with the feeling that I had been gradually going downhill for more than half the ride and somehow managed to end up at the same spot. Pretty Cool.

From the parking area look for the kiosk and go from there. Directions? Uhhhh just ride, really. I did most of the trails going both directions I liked them both ways. You should have a good time. You can check out EVMA.org if you are looking for someone/group to ride with as well as catch up on the latest trail news for this place.

The day I rode here it had rained earlier in the day. I was expecting the trails not to be rideable, but unlike our SoCal trails, these trails handle rain really well. The trails ended up being and great condition with the traction be incredible.

The sweeping flow of these trails just seems to be never ending. Often times the layout of trail felt like artwork. I did all of the trails in one direction and went back and did about half of them going the other direction. I would have loved to ridden more but I ran out of daylight.

There are quite a few optional lines and side trails that offer some technical excitment and challenge. None of these were"sneek up on you" kind of stuff. Really well done designs considering this is a county park. Geez this was just a bunch of fun.

The teeter-totter pictured to the left was pretty exciting the first time I rod it. It is rather short and the weighting was set so that I pretty much had to get nearly to the end of the teeter, before it will tip. Ride up, wait, wait, wait, ride off. The cable spool to the right was nice bit of reuse engineering.