your best ride(s) ever?

the past three days of a-line mega trains was pretty amazing, both for the great friends and stellar trail conditions!

best ride ever didn't even have any dirt. Down to Mexico last year is my best ride ever.

It's always great to be reminded how awesome and how many our trails are when talking to people who hop on planes to ride our backyard. Makes 'em ever better.

too many to choose from… chilcotins, various days in pemby and blackrock all come to mind though…

There are rides that are just awesome because of the people I ride with, or the trails, or locations - some exotic, some not so much - but thinking of it, the best rides were the ones when I had the feeling that I was completely in tune with my bike. And everything was just an awesome flow, reacting to the terrain instinctively.

So true, sometimes its not the trail but the weather, the people, or what goes down during the ride….

One of my favorites of all time was Neds in the snow - 8-10" of heavy wet snow that was nicely packed down by the time we rolled up the mountain. It was tacky as can be, til we got half way down and snow gave way to treacherous ice, and then tacky dirt and slippery roots at the bottom….

too many to choose from…

I've been fortunate to meet a lot of people in SD who enjoy roadtrips and have been able to take some incredible trips this year. Some highlights off the top of my head…

Phoenix - epic chunk on South mountain and white tanks
Palm Springs - Palm Canyon epic in the rain
Moab [HTML_REMOVED] Grand junction/fruita (w/Thunder mountain on the way home)
Sequoia national forest…twice
Brian Head UT and the Virgin River rim trail
Flagstaff AZ…Mt Eldon shuttles
Santa cruz…last weekend
Kernville CA…leaving tomorrow night!

Maybe its just new dirt but each one of these has been epic in its own way. Best ride ever? Seems to be whichever one I have just finished.

I've been meaning to post up some pics of these rides so you all can see what else is out there…hopefully I can get to it one of these days.

This whole summer has been pretty epic, being back on bike after a two and a half year break.

Finally being able to ride cbc top to bottom without having to dab my foot down or screw up anywhere.. fastest run down cbc was prob just this past friday.

My best day riding was my birthday in whistler.. it was extremly epic.

Also my last day up, tuesday the 6th of october.. 13 days in.. rode with a good friend and said goodbye.

don't know if i should mention this one on this website , but the best one i've had in recent memory was last tuesday .

we spent the morning doing cleanup in wbp , and then from 2 'til 5 basically had the lift running for ourselves . we had invited others to ride , but i guess the forecast ( for snow ) kept the interest down . i think the total rider count was maybe 25 , 15 of which were patrol . cool blue skies all afternoon .

the conditions were as good as they get and the vibe was so great . we were just ripping off laps as fast as we could . to ride without worrying about call outs , or first aid gear or even a radio was such a pleasure it is hard to explain .

the bike : good old S32 from the rental fleet with tires worn down to semi-slicks . one of my colleagues prepped it as good as it was going to get , and i was pushing that thing for all it was worth . it was easily the best riding i had done all summer , and probably for the bike too :lol:

i rode some trails i hadn't been on for a while , especially with the crew pushing the pace just a little , as well as a couple of solo soul rides .

end of season party afterwards at the glc capped off a memorable afternoon in the park .

gee thanks for the invite skid :cry:

kidding, sounds like you had fun :)

for me..i simply can't pick one riding experience over another - i've had so many good ones this summer. managed to find a new riding buddy that is subconsciously pushing me to be better; riding new trails with new friends; riding some old trails with old friends; doing patrol in the bike park and meeting/working with some really awesome people. it's been a BLAST. here's hoping it will continue.

gee thanks for the invite skid :cry:

kidding, sounds like you had fun :)

for me..i simply can't pick one riding experience over another - i've had so many good ones this summer. managed to find a new riding buddy that is subconsciously pushing me to be better; riding new trails with new friends; riding some old trails with old friends; doing patrol in the bike park and meeting/working with some really awesome people. it's been a BLAST. here's hoping it will continue.

so it sounds like you've been getting around this summer. good for you.

I was fortunate to have some epic days in Silverstar this summer as well as an amazing couple of days on Mt. Prevost recently…

One riding experience that will always stick with me was a road trip to the West Kooteneys in 2002 that saw us get almost 40,000 feet of vertical descending in four days! I was on a super stiff aluminum hardtail at the time and all of my buddies were on super squishy duallies… By day 4 it felt like my lats and triceps had been shaken so hard they were ready to fall off the bone! The upside of being that exhausted was that I slept almost the entire drive back to the coast. It's a weird sensation to fall asleep in Nelson and wake up in Seattle.

It's a weird sensation to fall asleep in Nelson and wake up in Seattle.

That same thing happened to me when I was abducted by the software aliens.

Best pedal ride this year? Ripping Bend OR singletrack with my 6yo and 10yo aboard a 45lb antique Stinky with only one working arm. Small spuds for the e-heroes here but significant for the way this year has been.

Best ride ever? Hard to pin down one specific example out of the archives but the ones where you didn't get a ride in the back of the GVWD truck and your picture taken at the gatehouse would be one of my picks :D.

Best pedal ride this year? Ripping Bend OR singletrack with my 6yo and 10yo aboard a 45lb antique Stinky with only one working arm. Small spuds for the e-heroes here but significant for the way this year has been.

I don't have kids (yet) but I can imagine anytime you get to rip with them it's a good time.

Shuttle - Forbidden - two lap day - hit some new trails.

Lap 1 was top of Punisher to Two Sheiks to Gecko - money
Lap 2 was Jake the Snake to Red Rotors to Tomato Creek - epic

Park - last day at Whistler!

Pedal - hmmm - I had a lot of good "pedal" rides. The day on Eagle last weekend was super fun. I also had a really good solo hard-tale ride on Bear Bait trail earlier in the season.

Shuttle - Forbidden - two lap day - hit some new trails.

Lap 1 was top of Punisher to Two Sheiks to Gecko - money
Lap 2 was Jake the Snake to Red Rotors to Tomato Creek - epic

Park - last day at Whistler!

woooot! I was involved with this!!

woooot! I was involved with this!!

maybe it's you!? maybe YOU make my rides so good:love::love: