We like this trail for a close to home ride. We rode loops A, B, C, and E, we liked loop E so much that we rode it twice. This particular pattern of trails resulted in an 8 mile ride. Isle De Bois is a Dorba maintained trail. This trail is mostly hard packed sand in a fairly heavily wooded area near a large lake. This trail has a lot of rock gardens but, most of them not too bad to ride through for an intermediate rider. We are not a fan of rock gardens and generally we will walk through them. The lake is Ray Roberts Lake and this trail is another that requires an entry fee ($7 per adult per day), unless you have a Texas State Parks annual pass. For the entry fee, they do have indoor bathrooms, picnic tables, pavilions, a beach with swimming, camping for tents, RVs, and equestrians, fishing, and a boat launch.
Loop A is 0.18 miles and a good warm up. It starts with a small climb and winds through trees, but with enough room to maneuver safely. It is pretty flowy and we rate it an easy to intermediate level. When you come to a cross with another trail then you can choose to either continue to finish loop A or transition to loop B.
Loop B is 0.52 miles and a good follow up to Loop A. The easy to intermediate level continues on this trail. It windes back and forth in the corner of two road with some decent straight aways. When you get to the concrete walking trail again, you can choose to continue loop B and head back to your car or you can cross and begin loop C.
Loop C is 3.7 miles and bumps up to a proper intermediate level. It features climbs, rock gardens, and flowy sections. If you have a full suspension bike, we recommend setting it to "full squish" for this part of the trail.
We skipped loop D as it was labeled with a back diamond (Expert) and we are not yet at that level of riding. It was relatively easy to ride a little ways down a wide mowed path (fire road) to skip loop D and start loop E. Also, after looking at the big map we discovered that we missed a big portion of loop E. Oops, looks like we missed a left turn.
Loop E, the section that we did anyway and including the ride down the grassy road, was approximately 1.5 miles. The full loop E is 2.2 miles. Since we rode this section twice plus our ride back through all the loops, we ended the day with a pretty solid 8 miles. The first section of loop E that we rode consisted of flowy sections, some short punchy climbs, a few switchbacks, and two rock gardens that we walked. It brings you right up to the edge of the lake and you are rewarded with a majestic view. We would really love to see a picnic table here as it is an amazing view and good place to rest, have some water and an energizing snack. We were told by some other riders who stopped that after severe flooding in the area this year, about 50 feet of trail that went farther out into the lake had eroded and fallen into the water. There was still enough room to get off the trail and set the bikes down to take a short break
This trail provided a good ride, great exercise and for us is close enough to ride frequently. We are looking forward to going back and trying to find the rest of loop E.
Here is the trail map
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