Description

For a full dose of CAMBA epicness, try this route on for size: The official Rock Lake IMBA Epic Route, which combines the Rock Lake Loop with the Namakagon Loop. Rock Lake is renowned as one of Wisconsin's classic mountain bike trails.

This historic singletrack loop has been around for decades, yet it still attracts mountain bikers from across the state looking to test their skills on the punchy, rocky ups and downs of this beautiful loop. On the global scale, Rock Lake isn't dramatically technical, but for Wisconsin, this trail ranks as a rough, rocky test piece.

Some rock gardens you have to pedal through on flat ground.

Others will challenge you while going uphill.

And then occasionally, you'll find a fantastic rock garden filled with drops and rolls on one of the short downhill portions. In between the rock gardens, flowy historic singletrack runs through the deep northwoods of the Chequamegon National Forest.

Sections of wide-open singletrack beg you to get up on the pedals and hammer, but you need to be ready to lean into the impending corner to keep your speed up! Roots also crisscross many portions of the singletrack, due to the old school hand-built nature of this trail.

Sections of the trail also traverse long elevated wooden bridges across swampy areas, where the route approaches a few of the thousands of lakes sprinkled across Northern Wisconsin. The Namakagon Loop offers a break from the rocky onslaught of Rock Lake.

This singletrack loop is much less technical and instead offers fast, flowy singletrack hidden deep beneath the canopy of the northwoods.

CAMBA has been reworking some of the corners on the Namakagon Trail to make them flow better and for the trail to be much more bike-friendly overall.

Despite the trail work, you'll still be reminded that this is a mountain bike ride! Roots and rocks can be found throughout the trail, and while this is definitely a cross-country ride, be prepared to negotiate a few technical challenges. While the more newly built trails in the CAMBA network now attract more riders than the classic Epic Loop, this historic ride is a quintessential mountain bike ride that every rider passing through Northern Wisconsin needs to check off their list!