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In today’s send I’m going to talk a little more about riding year round, and how to deal with different trail conditions. I will also cover more of my favorite destination, and why I like them so much.

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What the bleep was that?

Riding year round presents a number of challenges. I have already covered winter riding gear, but I didn’t get into what you can expect from the changing conditions and how to deal with them.

The first rule of thumb for year round riding is don’t ride when it’s muddy. Where I live it’s almost impossible to get through a whole ride and never encounter mud. If you are finding large mud pits and/or you are leaving ruts in the trail, go home. Most of the trails we all ride are built and maintained by volunteers. Don’t be a dick, and make more work for them by riding muddy trails. If that doesn’t convince you, riding muddy trails can damage your bike and crash more.

I absolutely love riding in the autumn. The temps are perfect for riding, the trails are less crowded, and the leaves are starting to change and fall. The falling leaves can be problematic. The leaf cover will hide technical trail features(TTF). The key to riding where you can’t fully see all the rocks, roots etc. under the leaves you need to stay loose. You need to expect the unexpected. Your tires are also most likely to break free on leaves. The tire is gips the leaves, but the leaves slide over one another making it slippery. Just last week I went down when my back tire broke free in a corner. I got a foot down, but I still couldn’t save it. Thankfully it was a nothing fall, I was laughing about how ridiculous it was when I got up.

Winter riding presents it’s own set of challenges, and some opportunities. Depending on where you live, ice can be a problem. I used to live in New England, and ice was a real problem there. Little bits of ice here and there are manageable. You can avoid smaller spots. and if you can’t, staying loose will help you remain upright. Steering and braking are impossible on ice unless you have studded tires. Studs were essential some years, and not necessary other years. The Schwalbe Ice Spiker is a good tire option for ice. If you are fortunate enough to have a spare wheelset, setting them us a a winter ice backup set is an awesome idea. Riding studded tires on non-icy trails can damage the tires by ripping studs out.

Snow is a different animal all together. If its only a few inches deep it can be a lot of fun. Riding while it’s actually snowing is a trip too, especially at night. If the snow is more than a few inches deep it usually needs to be packed down before it’s rideable. Packing the snow can be done with a Snowdog groomer, feet/boots, snowshoes and cross country skis. Once the snow is packed and firm, you can ride on top of it. It has a muting effect on technical trails because the snow fills in all the rock gardens that can grab your wheel. I know I got at least a few PR’s in the winter because I was able to ride over a rock garden rather than through it.

Freeze thaw cycle is the devil. Freeze thaw is when the temps drop below freezing overnight, and the top layer of soil freezes. As soon as the sun hits it, it turns into peanut butter mud. This a regional issue depending on soil makeup. From what I have seen, a higher clay content contributes to this.

Use your head, stat loose, and have fun!

Bike I’m Eyeing: Raaw Jibb

A few more of my favorite destinations.

Over the years I have had the opportunity to ride a lot of different locations from coast to coast and even Mexico. Below is a list of a few more of my favorite locations. I couldn’t cover them all last week!

Tuscon, AZ

Tuscon is a great place for a bike vacation. I went a few years ago, and I am looking forward to going back. Tuscon has all the ingredients to a great MTB town. Plenty of trails like Catalina State Park 50 Year Trail, Enchanted Hill, Fantasy Island, Mt Lemmon, etc. You could easily ride here for a week, and not hit the same trail twice. The trails cover a wide variety of different types of trails. There is everything from smooth flowy, rock drops, steep rock rolls, technical climbs and descents. There is literally something for everyone. Our group had a wide range it skills, and everyone had fun. There are also huge saguaro cactus all over the place too.

Tuscon also has lots of bike rental options. The people in my group who didn’t bring bikes rented from Homegrown MTB. I can’t say enough about Homegrown. We used them for a shuttle and guide on the day we rode Mt. Lemmon. They are a small local company, and they do an amazing job. I highly recommend them. Matt was our main guide, and he and his team were professional, fun, and really skilled riders. Everything from the cooler of snacks to trailside repairs were covered. They were also able to help remove cactus spikes from a few of our group that got a bit too close to a cactus.

Tuscon has an airport right in town. There are lots of Air B&B rentals to choose from. Ours had javelinas every night just outside the fence. There are also lots of hotels if that is more your speed. There is every type of restaurant you can think of, and some amazing Mexican food. It is only a short distance to Mexico. Being a MTB destination, renting a pickup truck was pretty easy too which made getting to and from the trails a breeze. The ideal time to visit is from October through April. In January and February Mt. Lemmon can get snow, and it’s unrideable.

Park City, UT

Park City is a mountain bike mecca. There are so many options for riding, every type of rider can have fun there. We primarily stuck to lift service downhill because the boy prefers that to long pedaling days. That said, there are hundreds of miles of singletrack in the area.

Park City is a resort town and destination, so they have everything you would expect. There are tons of lodging options in PC. It’s also about 30 minutes from Salt Lake, so you can find some less expensive rentals there if you don’t mind a little bit of a drive. Salt Lake has some great dirt jumps in town if you like that sort of thing. There are at least a dozen places that rent and repair bikes.

We rode Woodward Park City on our first day there. It’s relatively small compared to most other places there, but it was still fun. Unlike any other place there, they have large indoor bike and skate park. The day we went they had an afternoon pass that was about half price which was nice since we got there later in the day. The next day were were able to catch a dirt jump jam. It was great watching people who are much better at dirt jumps than I am. If you are into action sports, you need to check this place out.

The next place we rode was Deer Valley. To my knowledge, Deer Valley is the only legit downhill park on Park City. By that I mean it has jump trails with table tops, drops, doubles etc. It’s huge an well built. There are trails for every skill level. Tsunami was our favorite trail there. This is the type of place that you want a full face helmet. Check out the Tsunami video below in Video of the Week.

The last day we rode Park City Mountain. The trails here are basically lift service XC trails that are mostly downhill. They are a ton of fun, and great for most skill levels. There are no jumps or drops, just fast flowy singletrack. It was a nice change of pace after riding Deer Valley and Woodward.

The views from all over Park City are amazing. The peak of Deer Valley is just over 9500 feet of elevation. You feel like you are on top of the world up here.

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Video of the week

Deer Valley POV Tsunami trail