[VMARTINEZ]

Me and some friends went up to Big Sky this weekend and that place rules. Lots of fun tech trails and long.
The only downer was some F@#K Stick with then biggest head I have ever met. Riding a Black HT with a 888 on the front
(AKA Brian). He is a local and is a good rider but man what a D|(k . Here are some pictures from the ladder drop.

 

[downhillracer]

i've been looking into this place since i heard about it from matt on the khs team this last weekend. how are the trails there? rocky, smooth, loamy, steep? details please. thanks

 

[1soulrider]

Big Sky is a lot of fun for sure.
Good range of trails, not super rocky but lots of fun. Some fairly steep sections, some decent jumps a few stunts, plenty of good stuff.
We were there last year and met the local you mention, yeah a total d!ckhead. He spent the whole day trying to ride with us (we avoided him as much as we could) and bagging on suspension bikes.
The only thing that sucks about Big Sky is the lift shuts down regularly due to wind and afternoon storms.
Ride early cause the afternoons are iffy.

 

[dexter]

big sky and the surrounding area has some plai nnnasty trails if you look around or ask around enough. one of my top 3 fav spots to ride out of everywhere i have been. that guy has been there for years and everyone hates him. he tried telling me two years ago that he was faster on his ht w/ boxxer at the time than i was on my 38lbs sinister r9 chainless. beat him down the mtn by a solid 3 minutes. yea the lifts shutting down blows sometimes but i plain love the trails and the dh course that they only open for races is sooo money

 

[discombob]

I just started riding Big Sky this year and it is incredible. Extremely varied terrain within the paradigm of it all being tight, skinny, and steep with trees and rocks absolutely everywhere.

I particularly like it because there is no groomed dirt and just about every trail is a black diamond. It has this raw quality to it like you're riding on a trail that was just hacked through the woods with a machete and off you go.

Yes, Brian is very touchy with people when he first meets them... basically almost caustic, but deep down inside the Grinch lies a heart somewhere and he is one of the few people up there building and maintaining trails on an almost daily basis, so in a way we are lucky to have him.

BTW, anyone here from Billings?

 

[VMARTINEZ]

We drove in from Utah to ride up there. We did meet 3 guys who ride Sunday and Monday who where cool. One of them was a Shop guy form Billings.
We are going back up the weekend of Sept 15.
Anyone in??

VM

 

[chriscarleton]

Place looks cool. Good news for us here in the northeast. The Boyne Group just bought Sunday River (they also own Big Sky), and word on the mountain is that they want to take SR in the same direction as BS. Should be great.

 

[Mountain_Dewd]

haha wow i experinced black hardtail dude last year and he was defantly the biggest a hole i ever met in mtb.

fun place though.

 

[discombob]

So has anyone been up to Big Sky so far this year? (2008)

What do you think about the new trails? I haven't been yet due to breaking my hand early in the summer, but I was thinking of checking it out.

 

[discombob]

OK, I went and checked it out.

The new trails at Big Sky are so-so. Africa, Blue Room, Wardance and Revenge (DH race course) are the best ones. Africa particularly features some neat freeride features, although it is very short. All the other trails are laughable or boring, basically, like XC trails with unvelievably tight hairpin switchbacks that are difficult to take on a dual-crown DH bike with a long wheelbase.

Ambush provides a line to the "bike park", which is OK-ish. You'll all know what I'm talking about, but the good news is that the resort-peeps are completely open to suggestions from the riders and actually asked my opinion about things, so I'd say that the overall vibe up there and attitude towards the future is excellent, and they will likely re-open the original trails they had, which were burly and technical (ie. awesome).

So there's at least one opinion for anyone who was curious...

 

[dexter]

i rode there a month and a half ago or so and they only had one real dh trail open, revenge. still super fan to bust hot laps on, has some tech sections, some really fast sections that are rough as **** bombing them fast. revenge also has one of my all time favorite sections that has been there for a few years. you come out of the trees into this loose rocky shale area thats tough to keep speed through, you bomb through an open space with lots of little trees and rocks picking your own line. from there you double over this really sketchy sections, then you hit the trees and shoot down this roller (more like drop) that airs out pretty well, hit a right hand turn uphill then a left into a lont straight loose downhill run thats pretty steep into a SHARP right hand turn that they finally got a good berm on this year. when i hit the berm, im practically humping the stem, bike laid sideways drifting the back end shooting up roost with a huge **** eating grin. problem is i only make it through about 2/3 times beacuse its so fun to hit as fast as possible. i rode with one of the builders (brandon) that day and he showed me this sick trail that was barely cut (after 5-6 runs down it, it looked as if there was actually a trail, first run or two couldnt really tell where you were going). it was super fun, fast and gnarly bumpy and choppy. also got a 2 sweet rock/shale bomb sections full speed before hand that make your butt hole pucker up a wee bit if your not on the brakes from the start.

big sky is super open to new trails and features which is sick. they are starting to build a bike park and will have it running by next season which will be rad! they talked about building a hip line through the half pipe next to the chair which i cant wait to go play on with my slopestyle bike.

 

[ridenorcal]

I was there early on in the season, and there weren't too many trails open but we spent the pretty much the whole day doing laps on Revenge and it was super fun. Great flow with some nice tech stuff. Definitely seems like a fun track to race on, I'll have to make it out for the race one of these years.