Help me/my friend out?

blue · Jun 12, 2004

Check the lounge post

Kornphlake · Jun 24, 2004

Get in touch with Mark Widmer in the RMYL department at BYU. He instructs a mountian biking class in spring and knows alot of trails in the area. If you can get into his class for the first half of the fall semester you'll get to ride alot of the nearby trails and meet people who like to ride. www.utahmountainbiking.com has a really good list of trails, although the directions once you get onto the trail are at times a bit inaccurate or difficult to follow. Feedthehabit.com is a good site for news and such, they sponsor alot of the video premiers and such with Go-Ride, Jason is the owner and posts here from time to time under the name Powderboy.

I like the Bonneville shoreline trail from rock canyon to the Y parking lot or slate canyon for week day rides after class or whatever, ride up to the rock canyon trailhead 1/4 mile past the temple on north temple, at the trailhead follow the pavement up the canyon and there'll be a trail branching off to the right at some point with a sign saying "Bonneville Shoreline Trail" follow the singletrack around the side of the mountain where it'll turn into doubletrack, there's some good climbs and fast descents before you get to the Y parking lot, if you like you can ride down the road from there back to campus or continue on to slate canyon or even on to springville. Just past the Y parking lot you'll curve around on the fire road and intersect with another fire road, just around the corner to the south on the intersecting fire road there's a barely visible trail that leads straight down the mountain if you follow it you'll get into a steep tech section and drop in then you reach a flatter section where the trail branches, take a right to get to the road or go left and explore the abandoned golf course.

Rock canyon trail is a tough climb and the descent is really rough but everybody should do it at least once. Ride to the Rock Canyon trailhead just east of the temple and continue past two locked gates, you'll probablly see rock climbers near the second, follow the trail as long as you have muscle power to do so, at about 4 miles there's a campground that I always turned around at. Supposedly there's a trail at some point that branches off and will take you to the summit of squaw peak.

There's a fun loop you can do heading up provo canyon on the multiuse trail you'll find where the bonneville shoreline trail connects and heads southwest. Follow the singletrack to squaw peak road then head up squaw peak rd to the summit, or split off where the sign for the bonneville shoreline trail is. You can bomb down squaw peak in about 15 minutes if you know where you're going and end up at the riverwoods shopping center. Squaw peak is a fun shuttle but it takes longer to drive down squaw peak rd than it does to ride down the trail. So get a group of 4-5 if you plan on doing more than one or two shuttles.

Talk to John the owner of Aardvark cycles (he's the oldest looking guy in the place, kind of a hippy looking guy) on 450 N just off of 9th east. He knows the trails really well although you kind of have to pry to get him to talk about them. Travis the mechanic knows a fair amount too. If Jared is still working at Outdoors Unimited in the WILK you can talk to him, the rest of the workers are wanks and don't really know anything, although there should be a flier in one of the boxes outside the entrance that has a list of trails in the area, I found it to be useless.

If you're into urban there's lots of stuff on campus to ride. The Marriot center has a few sets of stairs that are fun, there's a long stairway from Kimball tower to the SFH that's open to bikes (at least there aren't signs prohibiting them) while the ramps are closed to bikes, people always get really freaked out when they see a bike riding down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs you ride across the quad separating the SFH from the building next to it (I don't remember it's name) and there are some grass hills, if no hot chicks are sunning themselves there you can catch air on them. Also there's a stairway on the south west end of campus behind the Maser building. Check out the stuff around DT and Heritage, there's lots of little hills and stuff you can play on. There's a cool jump right by the parking lot across the street from the MTC, head up south temple or whatever it is, to where you're just above the water tank on the north side of the road, follow the sidewalk gaining speed untill you're about 30 yards from the entrance to the parking lot, veer off onto the grass and that hump makes a great hip. There's a lot of stairways in the Wymount area and some other little drops and stuff but you always have to be on the look out for pregnant women and their children.

If you've got transportation go ride the ridge trail up in american fork canyon from the summit to tibble fork reservior, it's one of the most famous downhills in the area, also the blackhawk trail in payson canyon is a good trail, don't follow the directions on utahmountainbiking.com, shuttle up to the blackhawk campground and go down from there, the loop reccomended on the website has you climbing the best downhill sections. There's a really fun singletrack in south fork canyon. To get there head up provo canyon to the park just past bridal veil falls, that's south fork road, drive up south fork road past a second park and you'll eventually get to a national forest access parking lot, from there a trail heads into the backcountry for miles. I've only been up the trail about 3 miles, it's a lot of climbing but it's some of the fastest singletrack you'll ride in the state coming back down. If I recall you'll want to keep to the right at every trail fork on the way back down reguardless of the way you went up and you'll end up crossing a hidden alpine meadow that's uber fast, I crashed there once going ~20mph and rolled/slid forever before stopping, I got up and everything was okay but it kind of spooked me since one minute I was on the trail jamming along, the next minute I bumped off the trail a little and my front wheel dissapeared in knee deep grass.

There's really alot of great riding that is within riding distance. I rode almost every day for two years while I was up there. Don't let the winter time scare you either, you can do a lot of urban riding while there's snow on the lawns. I don't reccomend trail riding in the winter time or any other time the trails may get wet because the mud is so sticky you'll spend more time poking sticks in your chainstay yoke trying to clear mud than riding. I've had my wheels get so gummed up I seriously can not turn them anymore. August is notorious for thunderstorms that come without warning, so remember to take a light rainjacket unless you like riding soaking wet.

Kornphlake · Jun 27, 2004

Jeez... no thanks... no response at all... it took me a long time to type that all up.

blue · Jun 29, 2004

Eh, he emailed me and said he'd tell his friend to email me but he never did. Guess he must just not like riding buddies or something

Kornphlake · Jul 6, 2004

Typical Zoobie... "Oh, sure I'll work on that group project, how's tonight..."

(next morning) "Where were you last night?"

(Vacant expression)

"We were supposed to work on our project."

"We were?"

"You wrote it down in your Palm Pilot."

(fumbles around with electronic gizmo)

"The project's due today."

"Hu, I was going to go but then my hometeacher came over and brought his girlfriend and her roommate, we watched southpark then went out for icecream... I'm just taking this class so I'll have 12 credits and qualify for financial aid anyways, I really don't care much about my grade."

(to self) "I am a child of God..."

Typical day of life in Provo... man am I glad I graduated on the 4 year plan.

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Help me/my friend out?

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