Mrs Roxtar is a solid intermediate rider and we are constantly riding jank that has her pushing her limits.Quote:
Originally Posted by smmokan
A solid week of nothing but pure flowy fun sounds like a great vacation.
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Mrs Roxtar is a solid intermediate rider and we are constantly riding jank that has her pushing her limits.Quote:
Originally Posted by smmokan
A solid week of nothing but pure flowy fun sounds like a great vacation.
I'm honored to have that system on your list!Quote:
Originally Posted by MarcusBrody
I might get over that way this coming week. Lets ride.
It's really fun. As a trail builder it was more about looking at all of the awesome work that has been done and inspiration for projects I'm involved with but the riding is plenty of fun. There's a ton of jumps. Who doesn't like air time?Quote:
Originally Posted by Roxtar
List for this year,
1. I'm getting a DJ bike to improve my jumping skills. That's all I'll probably ride when I'm in flagstaff.
2. I want to find projects that challenge me and push my skill set. I may be getting into a good one soon, I'll find out in two weeks.
3. I want to keep improving as a builder and a rider, within reason of course. I'm 47 now and I don't want any more injuries.
I keep pushing it off for places with more vert, but I really want to get there with the wife. We ride almost nothing but janky tech around here, so a week of riding cool flow trails sounds like fun to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by raisingarizona13
Not crashing
I've got a couple trailbuilding buds from here that are now soaking up that Walmart coin. Alex Scott from Jagged Ax and Hogan from Bike Park Solutions (built and ran Angelfire). Hogan has been bugging me for years to come out.Quote:
Originally Posted by raisingarizona13
Fuck Arkansas.
Come on - somebody had to say it.
:fmicon:
My friend goes down there every winter from Minneapolis and absolutely loves it, but he's used to small vert. One trip he saw a Walmart heir and his friends doing heli laps on the main trails, ha.Quote:
Originally Posted by raisingarizona13
Don't make the mistake of going to Brianhead and only riding the park. The shuttle trails are awesome, more awesome than the park imho. I like the park but it's pretty sketchy if you are going for it there. It's crazy rocky and there isn't really any good place to crash. Every time I ride there we watch lots of riders being driven down the hill or walking down with broken bones and displacements. The Little Glitter Trail is a blue but probably the most fun trail there and you don't have to feel like you are on the verge of killing yourself while riding it. The blacks are much steeper and fall line and get really eroded and rowdy, especially if it's been raining. There's some big hits on the blacks but a lot of them I need to pedal into and that gets real sketch at those speed. I've bottomed out my pedals smashing the dirt and rock getting real close to getting bucked. There is a green trail but it's not all that.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarcusBrody
There's three main shuttles and Georges Ski Shop has a shuttle service. All 3 are fun and have their own character. Bunker is chill and a bit more XC but there's a lot of really fast dh on it. The alpine sections up top are just incredible and the views are huge. Dark Hollow is a trail I worked on in 2020. I did most of the lower 2/3rds. It's a really nice alignment that Kevin from the bike org in SW Utah did. It's steeper and more dh-ish than Bunker. Last is Blowhard. It's currently my most favorite trail anywhere. It's steep, fast and rowdy! I think it's around a 3600 ft. vertical drop in about 6, maybe 6 and a half miles, there are a couple of climbs in there but it's mostly down hill. This is much more tech than the other two. It's a legit black.
Hope that helps. That Thai joint at Brianhead does breakfast and their chicken and waffles dish is awesome. The pizza joint is decent enough, it's hard to fuck up pizza and beer. The sandwiches ain't bad either. There's tons of free camping up on that plateau. All of the sites I've used are beautiful. Parowan down the hill has a couple of decent Mexican restaurants and the diner is good enough. Parowan is really peaceful.
If you do a couple of shuttles in a day I like to finish with a Bunker if it's on the agenda. You can ride right down to a good BBQ/Burger joint. We'll do a car drop with the shuttle service right at that place.
Let me know when you're coming over. I'm fairly flexible at the moment with a little bit of notice.Quote:
Originally Posted by raisingarizona13
That's great info, thanks!Quote:
Originally Posted by raisingarizona13
It looks like I'll be riding over here all week. A couple guys are coming over from Kingman to ride Flag and Sedona and we might go up to Page and East Zion as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarcusBrody
New plans (possibly)
Mentioned planning the year with Mrs Roxtar and she suggested something different. A two week trip made up of places we haven't been to.
We would have to stay somewhat local-ish (limit to four corner states; NM, AZ, CO, & UT) to keep travel days to a minimum.
So, looking for suggestions from the collective. We've been to pretty much most of the obvious destinations; Sadona, Moab, Fruita/GJ, Salida/BV, Durango, CB/Gunni.
What other destinations would you recommend for 3-4 days of riding? Bonus points for natural + park combos.
Do you always skip the SLV?Quote:
Originally Posted by Roxtar
I'd just open MTBproject or Trailforks and circle an area with a lot of squiggly lines ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Roxtar
If you can tolerate the circus/Disneyworld aspect, Summit County has shitloads of *excellent* singletrack. As does Vail/Avon/Eagle. And don't forget the Roaring Fork Valley - there's enough stuff to keep entertained for 3-4 days.Quote:
Originally Posted by Roxtar
Angel Fire?Quote:
Originally Posted by Roxtar
Depending on time of year:
Vail/Eagle
Steamboat
Summit County
Angel Fire / Taos
Thanks for input but hoping for slightly more details:
SLV? More particulars, please.Quote:
Originally Posted by BFD
But are they squiggly lines worth riding?Quote:
Originally Posted by grskier
An hour from my back door. Great park, not many trails.Quote:
Originally Posted by jm2e
All Squiggly Lines Matter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Roxtar
:D
Actually... please doQuote:
Originally Posted by skaredshtles
I kid.
We have a few hundred miles of singletrack now and the number will be more by the time you get here.
I just bought tickets for a few days in Tasmania on our NZ/Aus trip. I'm going to try to ride Derby if the weather is decent.
Annoyingly we will be right by Maydena at one point, but it will have closed for the winter a week or so before. Depending on our schedule though, I might try to ride in Hobart.
Living it now. In Lenzerheide with the family for the first stop on the UCI DH tour. Gonna ride the course tomorrow (Sans the final drop as they took it down) then headed to Leogang for stop 2.
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Random- we stayed there as part of our tour after a big ride from Tecpan to the lake and then a boat to casa del Mundo. It's sweet.Quote:
Originally Posted by BFD
Guatemala gets 5 stars from me, it exceeded my expectations for sure despite the dry season not quite kicking in on time for us.
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glad you made it there. 30 years ago that was a barren cliff. Bill and Rosie built that out of pocket using workers from Jaibalito. Bill had a vision for the place and made it happen. What is the deal on riding. I don't know if I would be comfortable showing up with my $6000 bike and riding trails. Maybe things have changed in 30 years, Or maybe just buy a cheap bike locally. Not a bucket list person but I did finally clean all of Penitente going clockwise.
It felt totally chill there. At times I bet there was 60k on top of the shuttle van. Difficult, expert level descending for sure. Brendan has Giant Reigns and Trances for rent, and he said he had a bunch of new Comencal bikes to pick up at Customs, too. The riding was difficult enough that I was glad to have my own bike. https://www.mtbguatemala.com/Quote:
Originally Posted by BFD
Some decent looking rentals at the Antigua bike park too.
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We did a six-day tour with Oaxaca Bike Expeditions in April, for my birthday. We had a mixed skill level group including one gal who was barely recovered from MCL surgery. We had an absolute blast… the amount of riding, trails we rode, and the ratio of riding to “cultural” activities was pretty spot on for our group. We did get a couple of longer days with just “expert” level riders in the group.Quote:
Originally Posted by rideit
That said, smmokan’s experience and commentary is still pretty valid. While we got an earlier start than noon each day, we were generally done by around 3pm. This worked just fine for our group as it was as much of a social trip as it was a biking trip. We filled our afternoons with seeing the city, checking out mezcalerias, visiting artist galleries, etc. and that was perfect for us. If our group was more solely focused on the riding, we may have been disappointed like smmokan’s group.
I talked with both TSN and OBE when planning the trip, and to be honest I had read posts from smmokan that had me a little concerned about going with OBE. But we ended up going with OBE for a few reasons… They were more communicative during the planning process, their package seemed to provide a bit more value for the same money, and they have a rental fleet of mad decent bikes. Everyone who went ended up bringing their own bikes, but there were friends interested in going initially that would have needed to rent so it was a consideration early on.
FWIW, my opinion is that if you really want to focus on the riding, the best way to do that is to go for the TranSierra Norte race. I have several friends that have done the race, including a buddy who went on my birthday trip, and that was his recommendation. The tour is more relaxed and maybe a bit less ride focused, the race is ride ride ride your face off.
That said, I can’t speak to what TSN provides with “The Ride” packages, but I did get the sense from one of our guides (who’s the main trail builder for the race if I understand correctly) that the crew who puts on the race isn’t exactly the same as the crew who does the tours.
^^^ sitting in the airport on the way home from a week with TSN, so only brief thoughts for now. We started each day at around 9am and got back between 5-6 every day, so pretty long days of riding. We did stop and eat at the end of the day and the shuttles can be pretty long. I’ll have to check with friends who kept track but I think we were doing around 10k of vert per day.
Our guide told us that TSN has exclusive use of some of the trails because they build them for the race, not sure if that’s true. And our guide was part of the race crew and was a total ripper. Overall experience was great and the trails changed my perspective of what MTB could be. I’ll try to add more later but happy to answer questions.