Mountain Biking
Welcome to my biking site! The idea here is to put whatever info I think might be useful to people on this
site. The main thing here is going to be descriptions of various rides I've done. Hopefully this'll give
you some ideas on where you can ride...
About the Ride Info & Ratings:
OK, first off, I make no claims for accuracy on any of the information given herein. I do my best to keep it
correct, but I might mess up. Plus, sometimes you just can't be precise on the measurements. So, when I
state how long a ride is or how far it is in between points, remember that that's approximate. Some of the
numbers come off maps, but even then they're not always right. Elevation changes in particular are generally
total guesses based on (often not very good) topo maps. So just use the numbers as a guideline. The
elevation gain/loss numbers indicate how many vertical feet you'll climb total (not net) and how many feet
you'll descend total (not net), respectively. Normally you would expect these numbers to be equal, but if
a trail is a shuttle or something they may not be, so I'm specifying both for clarity. The time is simply
how long it took me to do the ride, which probably means almost nothing to anybody else.
Now, about the ratings... I give each ride three ratings using a 5 point scale, with 1 being the easiest/worst,
and 5 being the hardest/best. These ratings are entirely subjective. Here's how I rate them:
- Technical Difficulty: This is my rating of how good your technical skills need to be to be
able to handle the trail. A 1 means anybody that can ride a bike should be able to handle it. A 5 means
that you better have the bike handling skills of a trials rider or you're dead. OK, so a 5 is not quite that
bad, but you get the idea. And the other numbers in between you can figure out on your own. I also try to
give a quick note about why the trail got that rating.
- Fitness Difficulty: This is what I like to call the "butt-kick" factor. As in how bad
will it kick your butt. A 1 means even if you spend half your time on the couch drinking beer (not a bad
way to spend time) you should be able to handle it. A 5 means I felt like I was going to die - or at least
wished I would - when I rode it. Note that unlike most books/sites I've seen, I do not necessarily base
this on a formula about length, time, elevation gain, etc. While longer trails with more climbing are
generally harder than shorter, flatter trails, it is certainly possible to have an 8 mile ride that climbs
like crazy kick your butt way more than a flat 15 miler, so I don't think formulas really work. So the
ratings are purely based on my impression of how much I suffered.
- Rating: This is my overall impression of the trail, taking into account such things as
scenery, number of other trail users, amount of horse crap on the trail, singletrack vs. fire roads,
sheer fun, etc. This is just my opinion...
Ride Descriptions by Region: