What's on Your 2023 Bucket List?

[skaredshtles]

<snip>

But are they squiggly lines worth riding?

All Squiggly Lines Matter.

[grskier]

And don't forget the Roaring Fork Valley - there's enough stuff to keep entertained for 3-4 days.

Actually... please do


I kid.

We have a few hundred miles of singletrack now and the number will be more by the time you get here.

[MarcusBrody]

I just bought tickets for a few days in Tasmania on our NZ/Aus trip. I'm going to try to ride Derby if the weather is decent.

Annoyingly we will be right by Maydena at one point, but it will have closed for the winter a week or so before. Depending on our schedule though, I might try to ride in Hobart.

[DaHeel]

Living it now. In Lenzerheide with the family for the first stop on the UCI DH tour. Gonna ride the course tomorrow (Sans the final drop as they took it down) then headed to Leogang for stop 2.


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[goldenboy]

I don't know about biking in Guatemala. My friends own this place on lake Atitlan if you are looking for lodging.https://lacasadelmundo.com/hotelen/

Random- we stayed there as part of our tour after a big ride from Tecpan to the lake and then a boat to casa del Mundo. It's sweet.

Guatemala gets 5 stars from me, it exceeded my expectations for sure despite the dry season not quite kicking in on time for us.

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[BFD]

glad you made it there. 30 years ago that was a barren cliff. Bill and Rosie built that out of pocket using workers from Jaibalito. Bill had a vision for the place and made it happen. What is the deal on riding. I don't know if I would be comfortable showing up with my $6000 bike and riding trails. Maybe things have changed in 30 years, Or maybe just buy a cheap bike locally. Not a bucket list person but I did finally clean all of Penitente going clockwise.

[goldenboy]

glad you made it there. 30 years ago that was a barren cliff. Bill and Rosie built that out of pocket using workers from Jaibalito. Bill had a vision for the place and made it happen. What is the deal on riding. I don't know if I would be comfortable showing up with my $6000 bike and riding trails. Maybe things have changed in 30 years, Or maybe just buy a cheap bike locally. Not a bucket list person but I did finally clean all of Penitente going clockwise.

It felt totally chill there. At times I bet there was 60k on top of the shuttle van. Difficult, expert level descending for sure. Brendan has Giant Reigns and Trances for rent, and he said he had a bunch of new Comencal bikes to pick up at Customs, too. The riding was difficult enough that I was glad to have my own bike. https://www.mtbguatemala.com/

Some decent looking rentals at the Antigua bike park too.



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[Full Trucker]

Well, grand-father, at least.
FWIW, a good friend and mag, Full Trucker, just did a trip with the Oaxaca Bike guys, and apparently had an outstanding trip. So maybe some things have been learned.

We did a six-day tour with Oaxaca Bike Expeditions in April, for my birthday. We had a mixed skill level group including one gal who was barely recovered from MCL surgery. We had an absolute blast… the amount of riding, trails we rode, and the ratio of riding to “cultural” activities was pretty spot on for our group. We did get a couple of longer days with just “expert” level riders in the group.

That said, smmokan’s experience and commentary is still pretty valid. While we got an earlier start than noon each day, we were generally done by around 3pm. This worked just fine for our group as it was as much of a social trip as it was a biking trip. We filled our afternoons with seeing the city, checking out mezcalerias, visiting artist galleries, etc. and that was perfect for us. If our group was more solely focused on the riding, we may have been disappointed like smmokan’s group.

I talked with both TSN and OBE when planning the trip, and to be honest I had read posts from smmokan that had me a little concerned about going with OBE. But we ended up going with OBE for a few reasons… They were more communicative during the planning process, their package seemed to provide a bit more value for the same money, and they have a rental fleet of mad decent bikes. Everyone who went ended up bringing their own bikes, but there were friends interested in going initially that would have needed to rent so it was a consideration early on.

FWIW, my opinion is that if you really want to focus on the riding, the best way to do that is to go for the TranSierra Norte race. I have several friends that have done the race, including a buddy who went on my birthday trip, and that was his recommendation. The tour is more relaxed and maybe a bit less ride focused, the race is ride ride ride your face off.

That said, I can’t speak to what TSN provides with “The Ride” packages, but I did get the sense from one of our guides (who’s the main trail builder for the race if I understand correctly) that the crew who puts on the race isn’t exactly the same as the crew who does the tours.

[zion zig zag]

^^^ sitting in the airport on the way home from a week with TSN, so only brief thoughts for now. We started each day at around 9am and got back between 5-6 every day, so pretty long days of riding. We did stop and eat at the end of the day and the shuttles can be pretty long. I’ll have to check with friends who kept track but I think we were doing around 10k of vert per day.

Our guide told us that TSN has exclusive use of some of the trails because they build them for the race, not sure if that’s true. And our guide was part of the race crew and was a total ripper. Overall experience was great and the trails changed my perspective of what MTB could be. I’ll try to add more later but happy to answer questions.