Camping at Alafia

I've never liked camping. I had a bad experience with rain, cold, and mud in my early 20's and said I would never go again! Well, never say never...
Last winter my friend Jen convinced me to try camping with her because we can camp at the mountain bike trails. Hm, that actually sounded interesting. Jen has a travel trailer and she is awesome at packing it with food and everything we need. So, of course, I ended up having a riot on my first camping trip last year.
This past weekend the Mudcutters planned a trip to Alafia to camp and ride for 3 days. Now that I am an expert camper (ha), Jen and I decided we should go!
We got there Friday afternoon wolfed down some lunch and couldn't wait to hit the trails!  We had friends coming up and some of the other Mudcutters were already there. We headed out and hit some of my favorite sections (North Creek and Roller Coaster). One of our friends brought us in to Gatorback which was too technical for me! It always takes me a few hours to get used to trails I don't ride all the time. Luckily I didn't kill myself or break my neck and decided to just take is easy for the rest of the evening. The next day was going to be a full day of riding.

Saturday we packed up the bikes and headed to Balm Boyette. I had only been here once before. It was as fun as I remembered. We had a great group of 5 of us. There is a trail called "ridgeline" which is 2 miles of punchy climbs and steep descents. We rode it once to get the feel of it and then we all decided to race it as fast as we could! It was a crazy adrenaline rush. The slightest mistake would have sent you off the ridge 20 ish feet down. We rode there for about 3 hours then drove back to camp for lunch. I had made some adjustments to Honey Bee the night before and the bike was really feeling awesome. The shocks were dialed in just how I like them.

After lunch we rode at Alafia for a few more hours. I think it's the best I've ever rode. I was feeling one with the bike and everything seemed easy!
The next day we decided to try another new trail.  Loyce E Harpe Park.  I had big plans for another 2-3 hour day but my legs seemed to have plans of their own.  Jen and I were wiped out!  We took a nice easy tour of Loyce Harpe.  There are some fun little sections I'd like to try again when I'm fresh! Overall a great weekend.  Here is some GoPro footage from our afternoon ride at Alafia!
Link to YouTube video of us at Alafia