Filthy Trails

This is an older one. Back in..September? I was in Belgium for a week and Joop was just across the border, so we met up in Maasmechelen, right across the Maas river from Maastricht, Holland. Filthy trails was one of the premier "free ride" locations in Belgium, supposedly. We decided to go and judge for ourselves.


Completely devoid of mountains, especially where we were in the north of Belgium, trail builders have to be creative. In our region there are several huge mounds that are the remnants of the mining era. Filthy Trails was built on and around a couple of these mounds. We pulled into the parking lot just as a couple were donning armor to go ride the most extreme trails in belgium...


The freeride section is actually just a tiny part of a large wooded area with a handful of cycling and walking routes. All of which are unbelievably boring. The filthy trails themselves are short, and although they feature some good woodwork and fun sections, you could feasibly do 10 runs in about 40 minutes. Whatever. It was challenging and technical and fun. For a few minutes. The rest of the time we wandered around the woods and climbed up to the top of the tallest mound.



Which was actually the highlight of the day. At the top there was a pretty decent view of most of Limburg, the Maas, Maastricht, and the old mines. Burned some calories, finally saw filthy trails, and hung out with Joop. So all in all, a good day.