School me on Santa Fe riding

Short notice, but I'm heading to Santa Fe this weekend with my SO. We've got most of the trip planned, and have a half-day or so set aside for biking. A bit of research shows that the Winsor Trail has a great reputation but is generally a shuttle. We'll only have one car though. Dale Ball seems to be a good right out of town option as does La Tierra. Anyone have first-hand knowledge?

Just looking for something that would be fun for both of us. Probably a blue/single black ride around 10mi or so.

I was there for a day last spring. Shuttled Winsor, then looped around on Saddleback and some other stuff in the lower Winsor vicinity. All of it was fun, but none of it was mind blowing / can't miss.

meadowskipper lives in SF, not sure if he's a mountain biker, but you might try PMing him.

There is a BME race in Santa Fe this weekend. I wonder if that may affect the availability of the trails you want to ride.

Bme races on semi private DH trails east of town.

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Originally Posted by DolphinSki

Short notice, but I'm heading to Santa Fe this weekend with my SO. We've got most of the trip planned, and have a half-day or so set aside for biking. A bit of research shows that the Winsor Trail has a great reputation but is generally a shuttle. We'll only have one car though. Dale Ball seems to be a good right out of town option as does La Tierra. Anyone have first-hand knowledge?

Just looking for something that would be fun for both of us. Probably a blue/single black ride around 10mi or so.

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Dale Ball fits the bill and you can make it as long or short as you want. I'm pretty sure the trails get rockier the further south you go but nothing too techy. I remember it all being signed really well so getting lost is very hard to do. Winsor is good too but I wouldn't say it's amazing but it is a fairly easy shuttle. Maybe some of the current and former SF mags will chime in with more advice.

yeah
dales balls is the easiest for access, the south side of canyon rd is more like hiking trails in sections than bike riding trails but you can ride it, the stuff off of hyde park road is the way to go, a couple trail heads here and there
white earth trails are ok, the chances of having a car broken into are..........
windsor and all those trails are fun too, you can make some loops up there if you want or shuttle
sante gay is great, love hanging out with suedo hippies, artists who think they have great intellect, and rich people

Dale Ball trails are pretty easy to make a day out of, and they get rockier and steeper from north to south. The trail on Atalaya is the steepest/techiest. La Tierra trails are mellower/flowier, but nice.

There is a bus that goes to the ski area that you can use for a Winsor shuttle.
https://www.ncrtd.org/rtd-mountain-trail.aspx

The BME race is out at Glorieta, no effect on Santa Fe trails.

And fastfred, blow me. :fuckyou:

Thanks everyone for the insight. We ended up doing a loop of Central/North Dale Ball trails. Nice ride close to town that we both enjoyed. The enduro race was evident from all the CO-plated jacked up trucks with Yetis. Also never seen that many people with armor on an intermediate XC trail. Great place to get out for a quick ride though and very fun trails, will post some pics in the Go Forth thread.

People had body armor on the Dale Bale trails. :rolleyes2 Fucking Greenies.