Bureau of Land Management My Public Lands Roadtrip- Meadowood Special Management Recreation Area in Lorton, Virginia (17959270304)

The Meadowood Special Recreation Management Area in Lorton, Virginia, is the site of the South Branch Loop Trail, a 4.7 mile hiking and biking trail, one of only a few natural surface trails open to mountain bikes on public land in the greater Washington, D.C. area. The trail is the result of successful partnerships between the BLM Eastern States and local organizations, including Mid-Atlantic Off Road Enthusiasts, the International Mountain Biking Association, and the American Hiking Society.
The BLM and partners built an additional 2.5 miles of mountain-bike specific trails at Meadowood. Features on this trail include banked turns, a ladder bridge, rollers, drops, and rock gardens. It’s the wooden features that make the trails unique to the local area.

The BLM project lead during the construction commented on the real value of the trails to the local community, saying, “Even more significant than the construction of the bike trails is the community of enthusiastic volunteers that has grown around this project at Meadowood. Volunteers take great pride in the trails they are helping to build and will have lasting satisfaction in the knowledge that, ‘I helped build that.’ We’ve seen at Meadowood that communities build great trails, and great trails build communities.”