White Clay Creek's smooth as butta singletrack.

One of the best features of the Middle Run Trail system is that it butts up against White Clay Creek State Park. WCCSP started putting in singletrack a few years ago. The mult-user trail system has grown to include about 25 miles of the smoothest, best maintained trail on earth. The trails at WCCSP has it?��Ǩ�Ѣs own full time trail care crew. The crew does one hell of a job maintaining these trails, I honestly think that the trails are a bit over maintained... they are soooooo damn smooth and buffed out that they could use a couple of logs and rocks added in to mix things up.

Most of the WCCSP multi-use trails (read bike trails) are on the north side of the creek. On the south side of the creek there is a fire road that goes past the WCC Nature Center and heads towards downtown Newark. The fire road is popular with local fisherman. On opening day of fishing season the creek and fire road is jam packed with fishermen jockeying for a place next to the creek to catch some freshly stocked trout... it?��Ǩ�Ѣs one of the biggest cluster f?��Ǩ�Ѣs I?��Ǩ�Ѣve ever seen.

From the Newark end of the fire road, I veered right up the creek bank to hit a small portion of multi-use trail that eventually leads to the frisbee gold course located at the southern most point of the park. This is one of the few places where you can get water. I stopped to refill my Camel Sack and watched some dudes play a hole of frisbee golf. They looked like they were having fun tossing their discs at the metal net, I?��Ǩ�Ѣll have to try frisbee golf sometime. For some reason frisbee golf is extremely popular with the collegiate hippie types.

From hippie frisbee land, the Little Egypt portion of Fair Hill is less than a 2 mile ride on New London and Little Egypt roads. The Big Bird bike rolls quite well on the pavement making quick work of the short stretch of road. Once in Fair Hill I quickly noticed a change in the trail condition from the trails I had just ridden in White Clay and Middle Run. Fair Hill is for the most part, a horse park, and many of the trails are a bit rougher due to the horse traffic. Fair Hill hosts to the Fair Hill International every year, an international 3 day horse event. Some of the obstacles these people ride their horses over are huge, really huge, horses are pretty damn amazing animals. Even with all of this horse activity, confrontations with equestrians are far and few between. Mingled in amongst the horse trails, Fair Hill contains loads of horse-free biking and hiking trails. Another factor that reduces the number of equestrian encounters is that Fair Hill is quite large at 5,613 acres... that?��Ǩ�Ѣs a lot area to spread trail users out on.

Hey man, is that a frisbee golf corse?
Well lets go man!

I eventually made my way to the Fair Hill fairgrounds, home of the Cecil County Fair (I hear that the fair has a good demolition derby), and the fairgrounds are the furthest point from my house this ride would take me. I rode about 15 miles of super nice single track an get from Little Egypt road to the fairgrounds, Fair Hill rocks! I was a little over three hours into my ride when I reached the fairgrounds, I figured I was about half way done this journey and feasted on my PB&J and granola bar. With so much nice trail in such a large area it is easy to burn a few hours riding in Fair Hill.

It was now time to head back towards home, 3 more hours of sweet trail. I was worried that my single PB&J would be enough fuel to get me back home. Luckily for me it was. After close to six hours one the bike I found myself back at my place opening a High Life, the best way to finish such a great Sunday. Here are a few ride stats:

High Life, that's what I was living on Sunday.

• Ride time: 5 hours 50 minutes
• Approximate mileage: 70-75 miles
• Approximate trail mileage: 50 miles
• Number of mechanicals: 0
• Public parks ridden: 6 - Brandywine Springs, Judge Morris, Middle Run, White Clay Creek (in DE), White Clay Creek (in PA, very brief portion), Fair Hill
• Number of other cyclists spotted: about 20 - I saw 12 of these riders in one group. It was a huge group of kids riding the fire road through Little Egypt.
• Granola bars eaten: 2
• PB&Js : 1 (wish I had packed more)
• Post ride High Lifes: 5