Fun day with beautiful weather in Big Bear today. Started from cabin on Metcalf bay with my Full Face strapped to my pack. Up 2N10, up Plantation, then more of 2N10 BUT WAIT! Skyline trail - what a great addition to the area. This gem is really taking shape as a nice XC trail. Berms, a few rock features, logs and such, not much gradient, lots and lots of fun. All by myself riding a superb single track in the woods at 70*Then, presto chango, XC lid and glasses off, elbow pads on, full face and goggles on, seat down let's hit cruiser to Miracle Mile. Nice little conservative recon run. Not supposed to do it without a lift ticket - liability waiver and all. Signed my waiver, bought my ticket and joined the 40 minute lift line! Holy crap - lots of people out there today. One more run on the same, this time with more pace, and a bigger smile. Then I dropped into town to eat lunch with my wife, kid and sister-in-law. Back to the base, a couple more runs - but still chickened out on the big step up - too many spectators. Fun trails though. The lines diminished a little after lunch.Then, back to the top,presto chango, FF and elbow pads to the pack, XC lid and glasses on - Skyline trail to Pine Knot and back to the cabin. BEEEEEEER! Great day, friendly people, and Skyline is such an amazing improvement over riding 2N10! Cruiser and Miracle Mile are fun and I look forward to SS expanding uphill bike carrying capacity and more trails. I'm gonna hit the lifts only tomorrow. No XC. Oh, and the Knolly Endorphin was better than it should have been on the DH! What braking bumps? Sorry, no pics.
Glad you had a good time!! I was suppose to be there but alas had a garage sale to make room for hubby's new SS; made over $263.00 so I'm not going to complain. I'll be there next month - hope the novelty has worn off so the crowds will be minimal. Happy Father's Day Chris!! - what a way to spend it!
Was I BB there doing a similar route except we rode up Fern the full length of completed Skyline then down trails I can not post. If you were lucky enough to get the Folett Map before the Forest Service made them take many trails off his map you would fine very nice stuff. Skyline is nice but needs rain and traffic...some sections will always stay sandy. Will be up here often this summer as homes are very cheap to rent for the weekend. I will put up some pics later but today more BB riding.
Steppie: PM when you go again cuz I want to ride w you guys, OK?? Ray and I will be up there at the end of July, maybe we can make a plan to ride during that time.
how crowded does it get? I was thinking of going for the first time this year on friday. But I hate crowds. How are the crowds compared to Mammoth? Thanks.
On the last few saturdays it's pretty crowded. Two lifts going and you have lines around 30mins long. Sundays are less crowded and during the week I wouldn't expect it to be to busy.
I did the Skyline trail with Steppie and a big group on Saturday and we had a great ride. We took another trail down though and what great trail it was. Only problem I had is my bike has 2.2 tires on it and it's set up with tubes so I can't run the low pressure I like (20-25 psi)without the risk of a pinch flat and with the lose composition of the soil a 2.2 tire was just to small. I washed out 4 different times but was able to recover every time (not sure how that happened). I'd recommend nothing less then a 2.35 up front for these trails up there. Start of Skyline Trail with Scott, Dean, Quinn, Liz, Jerry, Jeanine, Rachel, Bihn, Dave, and Gwen (not all pictured here)
Skyline is riding in nicely. Raced it 2 weeks ago as part of the US Cup (east to west) and it was brutally loose. Raced it today (west to east) and I like it better that direction. Its firmed up a little bit with the traffic, although some of the berms for people flying down the hill from East to West are blowing out...but they're damn near perfect for pedaling West to East. Inbounds, Snow Summit is (rumors unconfirmed) to have two additional trails cut in before the end of the summer, and Skyline is scheduled to have another several miles completed all the way to the lodgepole pine parking lot. You can see the rough cut off 2N10 (your mind tends to wander a bit when you are 3 hours into a 50 mile race and are on 2N10 for the second lap). With any luck (and some monsoon moisture), we could see nearly 8 miles of Skyline singletrack by the end of September. Oh, and this weekend was the grand opening of Snow Summit's zipline and other activities, so the lines should die down. +1 on adding a second hook to the chairs to carry two bikes instead of one...they used to carry two at a time in the 90's.
Another fantastic day today! I got a call from one of my buds (JohnnyGent) that he and a small group were coming up this morning, so I met up with the six of them in the parking lot and off we went. No lift lines all day. What a difference from yesterday. Many on here have said they like Cruiser to Miracle Mile better than Miracle Mile. I road MM today for the first time and loved it! It's a little more challenging than Cruiser, more features, steeper turns - a nice floaty step up then a cool little rock garden at the top. Great fun. I liked it better than Cruiser, although the SS crew watered the Cruiser berms around 2:00pm making them feel very British Columbian! We all agreed that the straight ahead wood ramp on Cruiser was the most fun jump - all of us clearing all of the wood! Bonus: SS offers a meal and lift ticket package that gets you a delicious burger/pulled pork/beef dip sandwich and drink for an additional $7 when you buy your lift ticket. Great views and good food. Four of the seven hit the turf in some manner including a spectacular head first dive into home plate from Johnny - thankfully nobody got hurt. I stayed upright (luckily). My big little Knolly trailbike was a champ soaking up all of the braking bumps, handling rock gardens and holes and even landing smoothly off jumps. I could almost keep up with the big bikes. After about 7 runs including a long lunch, I headed back over Skyline trail to Pine Knot and back to my sister-in-law's cabin. GREAT DAY! And again - no pics. Eddie got some footage from his GoPro, so maybe I can add some images. Happy Fathers Day to all you dads! :beer:
7 runs? ! ? That's a lot! Definitely a great day. My first time there was on a Sunday too, and it seems Sundays are indeed less busy. I think my next trip will take note of this piece of intel. Thanks
BTW, I havent been able to clear all the wood in a couple of those wood jumps. I can't seem to get enought traction to make the slight right that you need to do to set up for the steep left turn berm. I need me more deep loose dirt turning skillz
