Turkey Course Specifics

I went out and marked the bike course today.  It's marked with red-and-black checkered ribbon on your left.  If you pass a ribbon on your right, you either missed a turn or you're going the wrong way.  They're all on your left.  I marked it sparingly, mostly in the corners, but I tried to make it clear and obvious where the course will lead.  Here's my best word map:

Start between the parking lot and Elwood in the new sod.  Ride north straight toward the hill and up the hill.  I rode up Lipbuster today and even though it's rutted worse than usual, it is ridable.  Cut west through the upper parking lot and follow the trail along 61st and then toward the Snake Trail (or the Racetrack).  Watch for a turn in to your left about half way down the doubletrack toward Snake.  Ride that down into the tallgrass field where you'll cut off to your left again on some fairly new trails.  We rode these trails the opposite direction at SIX IN THE STICKS.  This short, windey singletrack section goes around a tree and over some rocks, over a high tree root with chainring marks, and through a creek bed, ending at the trashy doubletrack that leads down to the pipeline.  Follow this (couple jumps on the way if you're brave) down past the pipeline, falling back in the woods to your left just before it gets really rocky.  This singletrack goes by the westside YMCA, by the board jumps and teeter totter, around a bowl that is a dry falls, and down to the bottom creekbed by the Pepsi plant.  Take a right there (unless you want some Pepsi) and after you roll up over the big lift and around the downed tree, take a hard, 180 degree left turn up the hill.  This hill is ridable and once you get on top you'll wind through the woods, by one homeless tent, by two more tents, and end at the Spider.  From there, climb the Ridge Trail.  At the top, hang right all the way to the ridge line and follow it back west.  The downhill is sketchy.  Rocky, rocky, rocky.  Personally I CAN ride down this, but it's not worth it to me.  Probably faster to run through it.  The second half of that downhill is so eroded that the bowl we used to ride down is a bit scary.  Holding a line over to the left is better... slightly.  You'll end that descent at the trailhead of Ho Chi.  Come down the bridge trail that Womack and Mikey built and back toward the parking lot.  Under the powerlines you're going to take a left.  Through the field and back into the woods on your right, down the hill to the paved trail.  Take a left there but just until you get to the first right that has a trail sign with a red blaze.  Follow that trail to the Bomb Shelter and up to the field just south of the parking lot where they put new sod.  That's where transition will be.

It's a two-lap course.  Probably around 10.2 miles total.  I didn't have my computer today.

Let me know if you have questions.