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Gonna be there mid April and want to get a couple days of riding in (also gonna ski Alpental one day).
Looking at trailforks is mind boggling with so many choices. What riding good that time of year and relatively close to the city? I'm seeing some shows at the new Climate Pledge.
Tiger Mountain and Rattlesnake/Raging River are the places to ride within ~45 mins from Seattle. Canyon Creek to Poppin Tops is a great intro loop at Rattlesnake. Tiger has excellent steep tech riding, their ratings are kinda stout there, lots of serious features that are fun/scary. Bellingham is world class but I have less experience there. Mid April is a great time to ride. It will likely be rainy but the dirt there handles it very well.
The best riding is going to depend snow level, weather, and type of riding you like. Check Trailforks prior to see which trails still have snow on them before committing to a specific ride.Quote:
Originally Posted by Whiteroom_Guardian
If we get significant lowland snow just before you arrive (below 2,000ft) or heavy rain while you’re here, Tokul will be your best bet. A good session there would be to park at the Tokul East parking on Trailforks, then ride Last Frontier -> OGDH -> Between 2 Fernz -> Goosechase -> PNWheel -> Crazy Ivan.
If the spring melt-out continues, you should check out Tiger Mountain and Raging River (aka. Exit 27).
It’s unlikely that the full Raging River lollipop out to No Service will be melted out so you could ride Canyon Creek -> PT -> Poppin Tops depending on your time constraints. Canyon Creek and PT are more natural tech trails and Poppin Tops is machine built flow.
At Tiger, you have a lot of options. My personal favorites are NOTG, Close encounters -> Super-T, The Legend, and Predator. A good lap from the summit is East Tiger Summit -> OTG -> NOTG -> Fully Rigid -> Joy Ride -> The Legend. You can also sub the last three trails for Crosshaul -> Inside Passage -> Eastbound and Down OR Atlas or just head up to Predator from the bottom of OTG. Finally, if you want a long flow trail from the summit, Side Hustle is good.
If you like XC riding, an out and back on the Grand Ridge trail is worth a go. Also Olallie has a long climb and descent that’s fun on a short travel bike.
Tons of other stuff in the area but that should be a good start. All of these suggestions can be easily shortened or added on to depending on time constraints.
Ok awesome, thanks! I'm leaning towards some enduro/enduro training type riding. So 1-2 hour Zone 2 "transfers" to fun tech DH. Or Stuff with short Z2 transfers like 10 minutes to DH trails. I don't need crazy jumps/huge wooden feature type stuff. Trails I can ride pretty fast but blind are my jam.
Roger. Then you want to take full pulls of PT and Canyon Creek at Raging River and Predator, NOTG, and Legend -> Megafauna at Tiger. Tokul is more like mini-golf but still fun riding.Quote:
Originally Posted by Whiteroom_Guardian
Predator is the most DH race-like track we have in the area that’s sanctioned.
PSA, there is a double black section of PT and parts of Predator that, if riding for the first time, you’ll probably want to hit at a more casual pace than true race pace. That is probably obvious but worth mentioning if you’re trying to get some actual training in.
Here are the enduro race tracks for Raging and Tiger:
2022 CDC: Raging River Enduro - Pro/Exp/HTO Route
https://www.trailforks.com/goto/ro/37602/
2022 CDC: Tiger Mt Enduro - Pro/Exp Route
https://www.trailforks.com/goto/ro/35997/
yes what he said. Exactly.
This image makes it easy to size up relative elevations of the local I-90 areas.
Attachment 452835