Go forth and ride, then bring back pics

[sethschmautz]

Sweet loop! ... If you were doing it on one bike would you take a mtb or a cx bike be okay on the way down?

I've been thinking about this quite a bit over the last few days. The descent on the Blacktail to Foys trail is really fun. The first 1.5-2 miles is a little bit chunky with loose, sharp rocks and some little drops off of roots. The trail on the whole is pretty flowy and fast singletrack, and the new trail work about 7 miles in adds a bunch of banked turns and overall better route from Blacktail down to Heron Park.

Could it be done on a cx bike? Probably. You'd probably be happy you had that bike on the climb, but I don't think it would be as much fun on the way down. Your HT in the pic above would probably be a pretty fun bike to have on that trail. I honestly think that my Tallboy is about perfect for the descent. The suspension and tires allow me to really rail the turns and pop off the roots and rocks on the way down. I have a really firm lockout on my rear shock which made my time on the road more efficient, but on the trail, I rarely used it.

That said, I think riding my TB on the road out to Lakeside would have felt really slow and inefficient. Since I live in Kalispell, I just had my wife (and kids) meet me for lunch and let me swap bikes. If you were going to shuttle it, you could probably figure out a way to leave a mountain bike in Lakeside and leave your car at Herron park.

One other variation: There is a singletrack section above Lakeside that you could take instead of riding the road. It's a pretty steep climb (there were some climbs I had to get off and push) and you turn toward Herron before reaching the top, effectively missing the upper 1.5-2 mile "chunky" section from the top of Blacktail Mountain. Most people I've seen riding that trail are shuttling it so they can ride down only, but there are some who ride it. I've only ridden it once.

I have an idea of how I'd want to ride it the next time, but it may take me a little while before I want to ride that road again. :-)

Feel free to PM if you want any other info.

Seth

[WaistDeepGroomers]

A few from a burning hot endurbro race with Anospa at Killington this weekend. Just for those of you who don't follow the EC thread







Nice having it dry and dusty so my intermountain west-trained ass could actually ride competently!

[zion zig zag]

^^^ I can see tire tracks in that last photo. You've forgotten what dry and dusty is

[dfinn]

unfortunately this is now covered in over a foot of snow


seemed like a good time to get out of town for a few days

[jamal]

I've been thinking about this quite a bit over the last few days. The descent on the Blacktail to Foys trail is really fun. The first 1.5-2 miles is a little bit chunky with loose, sharp rocks and some little drops off of roots. The trail on the whole is pretty flowy and fast singletrack, and the new trail work about 7 miles in adds a bunch of banked turns and overall better route from Blacktail down to Heron Park.
Seth

Thanks for the info. Yeah, the mtb rolls pretty well so sounds like the best bet. I have no problem riding my cx bike down a lot of trails, but it's not exactly fun, especially on rocky stuff since I still use tubes. And I didn't realize that wound up in Heron either- still haven't ridden there. I wanted to go to go to the race this summer for Ben but was up in Canada.

[Norseman]

I've been putting a lot of miles on this rig lately. It's just so easy to ride from home and it's a blast on most of the dirt close by too.

What crank is that?

[sethschmautz]

Thanks for the info. Yeah, the mtb rolls pretty well so sounds like the best bet. I have no problem riding my cx bike down a lot of trails, but it's not exactly fun, especially on rocky stuff since I still use tubes. And I didn't realize that wound up in Heron either- still haven't ridden there. I wanted to go to go to the race this summer for Ben but was up in Canada.

Herron is getting better and better. I only live 3 miles away so ride there often. If you end up coming up this way and want to ride, let me know.

Yeah. A lot of people around here miss Ben. I was looking at pictures from the Blacktail hill climb last night after your post and for a split second thought I recognized him in a photo with his back to the camera. Uggh.

Seth

[wkd-rdr]

lower gut

[biggins]

One more from the ESC:

[crashidy]

Mind blown today. I knew loam was fun, amazing day.

[grinch]

Dang! MTB' equivalent of skiing pow

[crashidy]

I had no idea, at one point my breaks did nothing, so i started wiggling and carving. Amazing. 1000m vert of this or so.

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[TahoeJ]

!

Nice shot!

[kidwoo]

Always a riot showing friends this alpine treasure and watching their disbelief

I don't believe it!

Where is that? Looks awesome.

[mmmm...pow!]

Having never experienced loam, I kinda have some ideas in my head of what it must be like. Looking forward to experiencing it firsthand someday, but hoping it lives up to my imagination. Until then, I'll settle for the hundreds of miles of dusty trail in my front yard, all while wondering what it would be like to lean more than a few degrees into a corner without flying off the trail.

[smmokan]

A few from Crested Butte over the weekend:

[grinch]

I don't believe it!

Where is that? Looks awesome.

Can't tell if serious, but sol mt trails/sol mt lodge/ monashee provincial park. It's a couple hr drive out of town so I usually have to sell it a bit but in some regards it's hard to oversell. Mainly the amount of man hrs it took to scrape in the bench cuts and move rocks into sculpted bridges and rock armour and rock slabs and the pitch of the trail(endless body English moves over slabs and tech climbs with perfectly placed recovery sections between each move), but the views are very nice, very little traffic(great mid summer option when it's busy closer to town especially). No big airs or crazy steeps just constant obstacles or options

https://m.pinkbike.com/news/south-ca...l-is-open.html

[WaistDeepGroomers]

Rooty flow

I remember that feature! Espresso right?

I gots to get back that way

[crashidy]

Good eye Dunfee

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[homemadesalsa]

There's no place like home.

[joetron]

What crank is that?

Rotor 3D+ INPower with black on black Aero ring

[Whiteroom_Guardian]

Super nice up on Bangtail today.

[ridinshockgun]

[crashidy]

Beauty, where abouts?

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[grinch]

^^frame that first one and out it on a wall