Planning mountain bike weekend getaways is the ultimate fun way to enjoy – or CRANKJOY your weekends . This is especially true after a particularly cold, wet and or snowy winter away from the bike. Some of the best times on the mountain bike are quick getaways with a few great friends – weekend warrior style! To have these amazing adventures you do have to plan the best mountain bike weekends and not just roll into them. Immediately, this is something that I am horrible at sometimes. Luckily I have a wife that is an amazing planner of the weekends on the mountain bike.
Chances are that visiting the mountain bike mecca of your dreams is more than a quick weekend getaway. Or maybe you just want to try somewhere new and branch out to different areas. I’m totally BLOWN away by how many cool spots out there are overlooked. The incredible riding that folks drive right by on their way to destination is surprising.
The desire to explore the singletrack world has been a passion of mine for many years. Unfamiliar trail systems can be challenging to find the best trails, but also the best way to stitch them together. Finding the sweetest trails has become easier with trail guide apps for sure.
Where should you go?
The popular trail apps Trailforks and MTB Project are very useful aids, but definitely ARE NOT comprehensive trail guides. The amount of old data/closed trails and roads recognized as trails on these sites really sucks sometimes. Nothing is worse than going somewhere new and having to look down at your phone for half the ride only to find that you’ve climbed up the best downhill and descended the climbing trail.
7 Tips for the Best Mountain Bike Weekends
- Plan your trip on a long weekend, or better yet take an extra day off to make a three-day adventure. Life is too short not to ride all the trails. You’ll never be sad having an extra day to ride.
- Consider attending a mountain bike festival, especially if you’re looking for a new bike and want to demo it on real trails.
- Fun races such as poker rides, endurance events and group mountain bike rides are also a great way to find the goods if you don’t have a local friend or don’t want to pay a guide.
- Decide routes and consider past and future weather conditions as well as possible closures. I’ve been denied rides on trail systems more than once that were open strange hours, closed for just hiking or too wet to ride responsibly.
- Recruit a friend or 5 to enjoy the fun with. Riding is 100% more fun with friends, when chosen correctly.
- Consider hiring a guide or bribing someone who has good knowledge of where you want to go. Places like mountain bike clubs and bike shops are great places to find guides. A guide split amongst a few friends could be a little as $50/day/person with a group of 3.
- Consider all-inclusive weekends – like our friends at Chasing Epic – all you have to do is get yourself to the location – they provide the rest including bike, food, accommodations and guiding.
It’s our desire to make all your weekends awesome!
This is why we exist – to help you have more fun while exploring the world by mountain bike. We are currently working on guides for some of great mountain bike areas that are more difficult to find the 411 on. We will include video footage of some of the popular trails, suggested routes as well as basics on lodging/camping and eating. Please let us know if you have any suggestions or ideas on what would help when forming a plan to your best mountain bike weekends.
