Dan Casey

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There are many jokes running around the small cadre of Roanoke-area mountain bikers. The biggest, and the one guaranteed to get the most yucks, has been the city's toothless "prohibition" on mountain biking in the thousands of acres surrounding Carvins Cove reservoir in Roanoke and Botetourt counties.

Back in 2000, Only weeks after City Council's plodding approval of a cove recreation plan that allows biking, one of those gags has taken material form.

High above the reservoir, and most of the way up the Brushy Mountain fire road, stands an obviously new wooden sign denoting a new trail, the ClownHead Trail.

At roughly a foot wide and three feet tall, the sign is varnished to a high sheen to protect against the elements. The carefully carved letters are painted in a bright yellow and its 2x4 post is set deep in the earth in a shady patch of woods -- into, of all things, a concrete base.

All of which means some nut actually went to the trouble of hauling concrete and water, the sign itself and a post-hole digger about 1,000 vertical feet over a distance of two miles.

A small rubber clown's head is nailed to a nearby tree about seven feet off the ground. Its painted face has a doleful, bored expression, with small crossed eyes that gaze down upon the entire setup in a macabre way, as if there's weird biker voodoo at work in the deep shade cast by maples, oaks, laurel and white pine.

This shrunken head tells us where the trail's name came from. But it doesn't answer the larger questions: Who went to the trouble to put it there? Why? Is there a bit of commentary implicit the title?

Is this what mountain bikers think of the city bureaucracy's numbingly slow three-year process to formally approve the status quo?

'What the hell?'

None of those questions can be answered here. What I can tell you is that the cove's newest trail may be its best, with something for everyone. In terms of fast and perilous, the famed Gauntlet may have met its match.

I and three other mountain bikers -- Ron Glowcznyski, Dick Howard and Justin Barth -- stumbled across the ClownHead Trail early on a Sunday morning in 2000. The gray morning's clouds were settled over Brushy Mountain's peak as we parked our cars on the grassy shoulder of the Bennett Springs entrance. We mounted our bikes, then pushed ourselves up the well-traveled fire road, cooled by thick, cool fog that couldn't quite summon the gumption to rain.

We'd passed the well-known fireplace, where The Comet veers off in a steep left downhill bend, and continued up the mountain on the fire road. About 200 yards farther up, in a small clearing on the left, a small pile of rocks drew our attention. Near it was two short walls of rocks, placed on as if to mark a corridor.

A quick left confirmed it was a trail, and a well groomed one at that. About 25 yards down it was the sign, garnished by a cheap plastic Hawaiian lei.

"What the hell?" asked Howard, as the brakes on his bike squealed it to a halt. The sign was fast in the earth, its post surrounded by a ground-level concrete collar.

We stayed there for awhile, ruminating on the origins. A pack horse or mule could have carried all the necessary hardware up the mountain to put the sign there, but there were no hoof prints on the raked earth. A motorcycle or jeep could have done it, too, but tire tracks were absent.

We could have spent half the day there, inventing theories about how the trailhead came to be. And we unanimously agreed that it was an inspired idea -- if there's anything the cove lacks it is signs that mark the tangled maze of dirt paths and roads that crisscross its 13,000 acres.

"They ought to put one of these at every junction," observed Glowcznyski, owner of American Flyers bike shop in downtown Roanoke.

Then we were off, knobby tires digging into the ClownHead's dark brown dirt. More discoveries awaited.

Fast and furious

If you like steep and narrow single-track trails full of tight turns that wind through trees barely wide enough to fit your handlebars through, the ClownHead Trail is for you. If you like bumps and dips that throw you off-kilter and make you shout "Whoa," The ClownHead is for you. If you like riding high above deep cool streams, then crossing them with a WHOOSH as your spinning wheels fling a shower of droplets upwards, The ClownHead is for you.

If, on the other hand, your brakes need work or you like nice, flat, and carefree riding, then stay away. Stick to the road that runs around the reservoir.

The ClownHead Trail winds down Brushy's northeastern slope in five hairpin turns. It's easy to follow until you get past the fourth turn. Then there's a short, down and up section no more than 25 yards long, and here's where you have to be careful. Make a sharp left here and as the trail gets even steeper you're on your way. If you miss this turn you head up hill on a trail that gradually peters out.

Dan Casey | The Roanoke Times

It's eerie. This rubber clown head is affixed to tree nearby the sign, at the top of ClownHead Trail, giving the scene a slightly macabre cast.

Related

Map

• Map of the ClownHead Trail

It is on the "flume," as Howard calls this even steeper section, that we made the additional discoveries. Large fallen trees that otherwise would be in our way -- monsters with trunks up to 2 feet in diameter -- had been thoughtfully cut to keep the trail open. There was no question that beyond the sign, the mysterious trail builder(s) also had remembered to bring along a chain saw.

The trail flattens out in a small clearing littered by debris left over in the wake of the chain saw work. Here, I am given to understand, it changes its name to The Stickman (although there's no sign here -- yet). The Stickman is a rolling, twisty cross-country trail. Its tight bends rise through pine groves and it crosses creeks with sharp dips. There's a bit of climbing here, before it ends abruptly in a T-intersection with The Comet, a wide dirt road.

The Girl Scout

We headed left on The Comet. About a half-mile later, where the road comes to a large junction (careful of the MAJOR ruts here), we took a right on a broad dirt road heading mostly downhill. In less than a mile, the road opens into a grassy meadow and we hung another right on The Girl Scout trail.

After all the hairpins, bumps, narrow openings between trees and ruts we'd negotiated, this two-foot-wide trail was a joy. Its hard-packed dirt twists and winds its way through woods with hardly a bump or an obstacle. The descent is gentle, but The Girl Scout's sheer smoothness allows you to take it very fast.

At the bottom of The Girl Scout, where it comes to a four-way intersection, go straight, cross a stream, and you'll soon hit the main road around the reservoir. Take a left here. A bit more than a mile takes you back to Bennett Springs, where your car awaits. If instead you take a left at the intersection, you can take single-track all the way back to your car.

Notes

There are no facilities on this side of the cove, so be sure to bring what you need: water, of course, and sunglasses to keep twigs out of your eyes.

Be very careful near the top of the ClownHead Trail. The first turn is a 90-degree humdinger. If you miss it, you'll hurtle off a small cliff into a tree-filled ravine.

On Stickman, one of the stream crossings appears to be a sheet of solid rock, barely covered by a small film of water. That rock is as slippery as ice. However you cross it, be careful. If you're lucky, or agile (unlike me) you won't end up with a green, blue and yellow bruise on your bottom like I did.

Where The Comet meets a juncture with the broad dirt road (you hang a right here), be very careful of the ruts. They're deep and narrow: one wrong turn of your wheel and you could get hurt -- or you could do some serious damage to your bike.

Getting there

The starting point is about 15 miles from downtown Roanoke. To get there, take Interstate 581 out of the city, head south on Interstate 81, and take the first exit, 143. It's marked Salem - New Castle. At the end of the ramp, take a left on Route 419, go to the bottom of the hill, and take a right on Route 311. A couple miles down 311, take a right on Bennett Springs Road. At the next intersection, make a right on Carvins Cove Road. Follow it until just before the pavement ends. You can park on a wide grassy swath next to the fence on the right just before you enter the Carvins Cove property.

Hey, chowderhead, how come?

Those of you who have had the fun of riding the recently opened ClownHead Trail probably noticed the nice handmade sign at the trailhead.

Someone has stolen the sign. I was at the trail Sunday (9/10/2000) with a friend who had ridden the trail the previous Thursday and he said he thought it was there then. This vandalism doesn't surprise or anger me. The cynic in me told me that some ass would one day yank it down or in some way deface it. But the optimist in me said that this might take years to happen.

It only took four months.

The really sad part of this is that we go into the woods to bike, hike or ride horses with the delusion that for at least several hours we can be away from the scummy bottom feeders that inhabit the lowest rungs of our society. We like to think that we are all brothers and sisters sharing a common, momentary bond of enjoying Carvins Cove. Within the last two weeks we have seen several acts of vandalism and irresponsible behavior that have resulted in our losing our parking at the back end of the Cove. Now someone is yanking down signs. I am not so much concerned with the "who" as I am the "why." Why?