Went to the Hard Rock Cycle Park in Ocala. This is a great park and only $30 for the whole day. I highly recommend it if you are in the area AND have the appropriate setup. I did not.


What’s up with the ratings? I’m just jumping into the black trails head on!


Thought I would show up all the Jeep posers but this place handed my *ss to me instead. No mechanical issues, but it had been raining hard for the past couple of weeks so it was like driving in 2 feet of snot. My tires are Cooper ATs and they filled up with mud quickly and functioned like they were bald.

After driving around a bit, I decided to try climbing a the drainage pipes. Bad idea with slick tires. I fell half way off and lodged the diffs on the edge of the pipes. No traction to move off or back on the pipes so I had to be pulled off by two Jeeps. Well, that was embarrassing and I am sure it will end up on YouTube somewhere. 😜



Moved on to another trail and sliced my right front tire open on a rock that was as sharp as coral. This was not going well.


There goes $150

Started hitting some of the other trails and as long as there wasn’t the snot mud, the Disco managed very well. Let my wife drive for bit until she freaked out thinking she was going to tip over!



I got some GoPro footage I will upload later. Here is my general summary and a few more pics for now.

Pros

1) Trails for all levels of drivers and vehicles from easy to treacherous
2) Can also bring motor cross bikes if you like
3) Family friendly environment
4) The have a rescue vehicle that roves around
5) Bass fishing in the pond

What you need

1) Mud tires
2) Tires larger than 33” if you are doing some of the more technical trails
3) Recovery boards, Hilift, D rings and a recovery strap
4) Humility



Nothing broken!

The spare installed



Watching the recovery from afar

Free and clear!

Finishing touches on the spare

 

great write-up! Nice pics! and you want to sell this baby?

 

Ha! Everything is for sale!

 

Looks like you had fun regardless, so it was a good day!

 

I've been through the national forest outside Ocala in the Jeep and liked the overlanding type of off roading. Not really wanting to rock crawl or anything like that yet with my brand new DS. How do the simple trails compare to the national forest?

 

Not a lot of rock crawling here. Most of the trails require some skill or guts but a stock rover should be handle all the blue and green trails provided it has not been raining recently.