DJ, Jeff and I left very early this morning (earlier due to daylight savings time!) to make the trek down to Louisville, Kentucky for two reasons: The North American Handmade Bicycle Show (more on that in another post) and to ride the cave...the Mega Cavern!
The Mega Cavern is a mine that has been repurposed as a recreational facility. It has climbing, zip lining, and...mountain biking. This is a view from the parking lot. It goes down from those gaping square holes in the ground.
Very tidy facility inside. The tent is the registration, and behind that are doors that go into a lobby of sorts.
The lobby had the climbing stuff, as well as the zip line. Very cool!
There was also a concession stand and gift shop. Remember, this is all underground, in the mine.
And on to the mine.....At first, it's a bit overwhelming. There are seemingly trails going everywhere, but upon closer inspection, there is a very well thought out design. Follow the arrows, don't go where it says "wrong way"!
Here is Jeff, sitting on his bike next to one of the big line of dirt jumps. Most of the youngsters were doing big things on these big jumps. They had all sorts of bikes for this: bmx racing bikes, dirt jumping bikes, and clunkers. Some of them were very good!
A taste of some of the wild jumps.
A kid boosting a set of doubles.
A very cool sort of hip turn on the XC course.
A big feature in the line of big jumps.
A view from the top: This was at the top edge of the mine. Along the right wall, where the riders are walking up, is the main cross country course. The kids in the foreground are waiting their turn to go down one of the three jump route. I stuck to the XC course and the other stuff that flowed.
This is the scariest thing I did. Dropping off this platform, down the hill, up the next "jump"...only I hit the right edge of the jump and took the hard right bowl turn into a slalom of sorts. Super fun. The cool kids jumped this big ass jump!
Other features of the course included wooden pathways, old shipping containers that could be ridden through and over, super fun twisty corners, fast and bumpy straights...something for everyone.
It was truly a fun time. It's advertised as being 60 degrees or so inside the mine. It was more like 50, 55 degrees, but it was not a problem. Upon our arrival, there were 60 people or so riding, and that included kids as young as 5 and adults well into their 50's. We were wasted after riding 3 hours, and at that time there were less than 25 people in the mine. If you are in the area, make the time to visit this great facility.
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