{"id":35447,"date":"2018-06-21T11:12:34","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T18:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=35447"},"modified":"2020-05-22T12:59:51","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T19:59:51","slug":"going-somewhere-put-these-5-mountain-bike-trails-on-your-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/cycle\/going-somewhere-put-these-5-mountain-bike-trails-on-your-list","title":{"rendered":"Going Somewhere? Put These 5 Mountain Bike Trails On Your List"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"cb-itemprop\" itemprop=\"reviewBody\"><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When you show up to a new place with your mountain bike in tow, it can be hard to figure out where to start pedaling. Between Strava and the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mtbproject.com\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">MTB Project<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Instagram and Facebook, and all the bike parks out there, the options are plentiful and, when you want to do it all, making a decision gets overwhelming. What you really need is a friend who lives in the area to show you around and tell you where the best places are. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We called up five people who work in the bike industry in different locations across North America to ask them to recommend some trails on their home turf. They responded with an epic bikepacking adventure through a national park, volunteer-built trails that are labors of love and sweat, and down-home bike parks and flow rides through the local forest. Some are trails to train for. Others are accessible to riders of all abilities. Put these all on the list of places to ride someday.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mtbproject.com\/trail\/205150\/white-rim-trail\"><b>White Rim Trail<\/b><\/a><\/h4>\n<p><em><strong>Canyonlands National Park, Moab, Utah<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Recommended by<\/strong>: Mark Sevenoff<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!-- BEGIN MTB Project --><br \/>\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; max-width: 1200px; height: 410px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mtbproject.com\/widget?v=3&amp;map=1&amp;type=trail&amp;id=205150&amp;x=-13569605&amp;y=4450155&amp;z=6\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<!-- END MTB Project --><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Circumnavigating the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands National Park is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for a mountain biker, just as rafting the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon is a bucket-list item for a paddler. The 100.7-mile loop is a three- to four-day ride that wraps around the national park\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/cany\/planyourvisit\/islandinthesky.htm\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Island in the Sky mesa<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, carved out of the Colorado Plateau by the Colorado and Green rivers. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The route traces a layer of white rim sandstone that encircles Island in the Sky. \u201cIf you can imagine a beach shore where the waves wash up\u2014it\u2019s believed to be the border of an ancient inland sea,\u201d says Mark Sevenoff, who owns<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/westernspirit.com\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Western Spirit Cycling Adventures<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in Moab with his wife, Ashley Korenblat. \u201cIt\u2019s not a super gnarly technical singletrack, but the fact that it\u2019s in a national park and it\u2019s a 100-mile loop is pretty unique.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The trail, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/westernspirit.com\/trips\/the-white-rim-trail-mountain-bike-tour\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">which is rated beginner-intermediate<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, is one that requires a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/cany\/planyourvisit\/whiterimroad.htm\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">permit<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from the national park and a heavy amount of logistics planning. \u201cThere\u2019s no water out there, and you need water if you\u2019re going to do it in four days,\u201d says Sevenoff. As well, the desert brings a risk of heat exhaustion. (The best time to go is in the cooler months of the year, especially in early spring and late fall.) If you hire a guide service (there are several in Moab), some of the perks include vans that carry water and food for you. Other riders choose to do the route self-supported. \u201cThe classic tough-guy and tough-girl badge is to do it in a day,\u201d says Sevenoff.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the White Rim is not a trail to race. It\u2019s one to savor and, between stretches on your bike, explore slot canyons and Ancestral Puebloan ruins. <\/span><\/p>\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mtbproject.com\/trail\/988912\/trail-4095\"><b>Trail 409.5<\/b><\/a><\/h4>\n<p><strong><em>Crested Butte, Colorado<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Recommended by<\/strong>: Kelli Emmett<\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<div><!-- BEGIN MTB Project --><br \/>\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; max-width: 1200px; height: 410px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mtbproject.com\/widget?v=3&amp;map=1&amp;type=trail&amp;id=988912&amp;x=-13569605&amp;y=4450155&amp;z=6\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<!-- END MTB Project --><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First of all, according to Kelli Emmett, who is the team manager for the women\u2019s mountain bike company, Juliana, Crested Butte is a destination that every mountain biker should experience at least once. Emmett lives in Colorado Springs, but she says she aims to be in Crested Butte with her boyfriend and her bikes at least once or twice a year. The trail Emmett recommends to look up when you get there is number 409.5. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The challenging, 2.9-mile-long trail starts by climbing up the dirt Cement Creek Road, then peels off to singletrack. The crux is the steep Heart Attack Hill, though by comparison to other trails in Crested Butte, Emmett says it\u2019s manageable. Keep up your momentum and you\u2019ll ride through a meadow, cross a stream and sidehill through wildflowers. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThrough one point of it, your handlebars are hitting sunflowers,\u201d says Emmett. \u201cIf you hit it at the end of June or beginning of July, it\u2019s absolutely stunning.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The view at the top is hard-earned and equally rewarding. \u201cYou can look over the whole mountain range,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Recent wildfires have closed many of the trails in Southwest Colorado. Be sure to check with the U.S. Forest Service on which trails are open before making plans.<\/p>\n<h4><a href=\"http:\/\/www.worca.com\/westside\/\"><b>Lord of the Squirrels<\/b><\/a><\/h4>\n<p><strong><em>Whistler, British Columbia<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Recommended by<\/strong>: Sarah Leishman<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whistler, with its famous mountain bike park, mossy woods and flowing trails, is a mountain biker\u2019s mecca; people travel from all over the world to ride here. For locals, the Lord of the Squirrels trail was a longtime dream come true.<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.worca.com\/sproatt-alpine-multi-use-trail\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> According to the Whistler Off Road Cycling Association (WORCA)<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, one of the largest cycling advocacy groups in North America, professional trail builders and volunteers spent eight years planning and constructing this trail. It achieves what riders had been asking WORCA for since the organization\u2019s founding in 1989: a means to ride from Whistler\u2019s forested valley floor to the high alpine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt\u2019s famous because this climb was built by the cycling community,\u201d says Sarah Leishman, a Whistler rider who works for Arc\u2019teryx and is on the pro team for Juliana. To build the trail, WORCA raised $202,000 from donations and grants and recruited volunteers and trail builders to put in a total of 8,784 hours of work over three summers. \u201cIt was a huge expense,\u201d says Leishman. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the only places [where] you can get from the valley to the high alpine without any assistance in four hours.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some riders could take up to 10 hours, according to WORCA, to climb the 4,360-feet of vertical elevation to the near-summit of Mount Sproatt, northwest of the ski resort. Even though it\u2019s rated intermediate, WORCA <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.worca.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/LordOfLoopsInfoSheet2017Nov19.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">recommends<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> riders spend an entire season preparing to ride Lord of the Squirrels and says that, for intermediate riders, \u201cthis route is potentially the longest distance, largest amount of climbing and most sustained descending that you&#8217;re likely to have experienced in your riding life.\u201d And the ride down? \u201cIt\u2019s an epic,\u201d says Leishman. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Equally as epic? The trail\u2019s name. Inspired by his fanaticism of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Lord of the Rings<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, an encounter with an aggressive squirrel and the trail\u2019s \u201cfast and twisty style,\u201d lead trail builder Dan Raymond can be credited with the genius that is \u201cLord of the Squirrels.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mtbproject.com\/trail\/7008331\/flow-trail\">Flow Trail<\/a> <\/b><\/h4>\n<p><strong><em>Soquel Demonstration State Forest, Santa Cruz, California<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Recommended by<\/strong>: David Smith<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!-- BEGIN MTB Project --><br \/>\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; max-width: 1200px; height: 410px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mtbproject.com\/widget?v=3&amp;map=1&amp;type=trail&amp;id=7008331&amp;x=-12233785&amp;y=4638795&amp;z=6\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<!-- END MTB Project --><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you find yourself in Northern California\u2019s Bay Area and happen to like smooth singletrack that rockets through a coastal forest, then the Flow Trail is for you. It rides like it sounds\u2014rhythmically descending berms, jumps and 1,254 feet across three and a half miles.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThis thing is a full-on speedway,\u201d says David Smith, the art director for Santa Cruz Bicycles. \u201cIt\u2019s a BMX track rolling downhill through the forest.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Smith, who volunteered to dig and build the trail, says its design was deliberate. The intermediate trail was made for riders of all abilities\u2014whether you\u2019re a pro looking for an after-work shindig or a newbie who\u2019s feeling feisty and wants to test out some jumps. \u201cThe terrain is pretty dynamic,\u201d says Smith, who sometimes rides to the Flow Trail from his house in Santa Cruz. \u201cThey have little jumps built in, but it\u2019s all very accessible and rideable.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Another ride Smith recommends is longer and more of a choose-your-own-adventure type. He packs his bags and attaches them to his bike, and then sets out to explore a combination of pavement, fire roads and singletrack that weave through the region\u2019s campgrounds in state and national parks. \u201cThey have sites for people who arrive by bicycle,\u201d says Smith. \u201cIt\u2019s totally freeing to do a trip self-powered.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There\u2019s not one single trail to recommend, so pull up a map and look up routes to bike to the destination you have in mind, like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/pinn\/index.htm\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pinnacles National Park<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> east of Salinas Valley, or <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.parks.ca.gov\/?page_id=546\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Smith says he loves the feeling of accomplishment he gets by riding his bicycle to a destination instead of driving there. \u201cIt\u2019s just a zen thing of being in the moment,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mtbproject.com\/trail\/7017313\/the-gronk\"><b>The Gronk<\/b><\/a><\/h4>\n<p><strong><em>Thunder Mountain Bike Park, Charlemont, Massachusetts<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Recommended by<\/strong>: Rachelle Boobar<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!-- BEGIN MTB Project --><br \/>\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; max-width: 1200px; height: 410px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mtbproject.com\/widget?v=3&amp;map=1&amp;type=trail&amp;id=7017313&amp;x=-12233785&amp;y=4638795&amp;z=6\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<!-- END MTB Project --><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The East Coast has plenty of world-class mountain biking, and it\u2019s not all in Vermont\u2019s Northeast Kingdom. Rachelle Boobar, who is the assistant marketing manager for GT Bicycles and lives in Connecticut, clued me into Thunder Mountain Bike Park, located at the mom-and-pop ski area Berkshire East in Western Massachusetts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt\u2019s one of my favorite places to go. It\u2019s small and family owned,\u201d says Boobar. \u201cThey have a good understanding of building trails for everybody.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Owned and operated by <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/berkshireeast.com\/about-berkshire-east-mountain-resort\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Roy and Jim Schaefer<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Berkshire East ski area has invested heavily in summertime recreation and green energy. They are the first and only ski resort to be powered entirely by on-site renewable energy, thanks to a wind turbine and solar panels built at the ski area. Alongside zip lines and whitewater rafting, the Schaefers also built out the bike park. To do so, they hired Gravity Logic, the company that built Whistler\u2019s bike park. The result is a wildly popular bike park frequented by locals and travelers to the East Coast.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIf I was to pick one trail that I think people should ride, it\u2019s a trail called The Gronk,\u201d says Boobar. \u201cFor New England, it\u2019s a super fun trail for people to try that\u2019s very different from all the other type of riding that\u2019s out there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While the Northeast is known for technical, rocky, natural terrain, the Gronk is a purpose-built intermediate jump trail. \u201cIt\u2019s really smooth, it\u2019s got really great berms, and it has great tabletop jumps for people to learn,\u201d says Boobar. Not quite ready to catch air on your mountain bike? Take a lesson with one of Thunder Mountain\u2019s bike pros. The bike park offers an introductory package for newbies that includes gear rentals (including a helmet), a full day lift ticket, and a lesson.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><i>Have another must-ride trail that deserves to be on people\u2019s bucket lists? Answer in the comments below.<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you show up to a new place with your mountain bike in tow, it can be hard to figure out where to start pedaling. Between Strava and the MTB Project, Instagram and Facebook, and all the bike parks out there, the options are plentiful and, when you want to do it all, making a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":37267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,388],"tags":[1389,617,990,1127,727,1133,12],"internal-tag":[1680,1684],"class_list":["post-35447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cycle","category-travel","tag-bike-parks","tag-bikepacking","tag-bucket-list","tag-cycling","tag-latest-posts","tag-mountain-bike-trails","tag-travel","internal-tag-pre-redirect-cycling","internal-tag-pre-redirect-travel"],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/rei.com\/blog\/cycle\/going-somewhere-put-these-5-mountain-bike-trails-on-your-list","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Going Somewhere? 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