Competition MTB (XC)

Choosing to ride is all your choice, but a new bike might give you more motivation. It's a decent bike, i'd say go for it, but i'm not a great at deciding things like that

Bumping this thread up for winter. Any of you racers training in the offseason? I'm really stoked about next year's season already...

lol, offseason

move to WA

I think i parked my bike for the winter, time to go skiing!!

Buuut on the topic of mtn bikes, i race Enduro's (dirt bike) so i do a lot of training (usually 4-5 days a week) on mountain bike because there isn't really places for me to ride dirtbike around me but plenty of mtn bike spots!


here's my bikes:

/threads I started riding my dad's bike late in the summer and got hooked to long rides so needless to say I'm purchasing a MTB in the spring..

any idea of what?


and I ride in MN guys so I can't ride year round consistently, I don't have a fatbike either (I wish)

Love the year round "bike season" out here in WA. Although when I still lived in MN, the winters never stopped me from mountain biking either. I used to ride at least once a week in the winter. I found the icy sidewalks way more treacherous than the trails.

I have not the slightest clue yet man. After some research, I bet I'll have a few questions..

Probably aiming for just a standard intermediate bike for around 500 if that sounds feasible? Mostly road use but the option for off road use is there..

Man, I wish I had a fatbike to. They look like so much damn fun.

Totally feasible.

Just hit up several local shops to see what they have in stock and test ride a few to get a feel for what you like/don't like. Don't even bother looking at full suspension bikes on a $500 budget though; stick with a hardtail (front suspension only).

Just saw you are from my hometown; there's no excuse not to ride in the winter now! I did for years before moving away from that place.

Where do you ride at mostly? And which local shops are you supporting/avoiding?

it's been rainy/snowy this past week, so conditions are horrible. I also have broken brakes so I need new ones before I go out on the road. I'd love to ride, but indoor training/running has to do for now.

I ride eastwood. There's a new trail system in the Gamehaven scout reserve just south of town, it's pretty cool and I helped build it so that's even better. I'll ride around the cities (leb, river falls, elk river) and red wing.

I support Bicycle Sports wholeheartedly, best shop out. A friend of mine works at Honest, but meh, Giant. and FUCK cycling & fitness. their service blows.

And we have an Erik's, been there a couple times, I support them too

$500 is pretty good. My first entry level bike was around $650 stock, it was a Trek Marlin. It's a solid bike. You can definitely get some good hardtails for 500.

Check out Trek


Also, everyone visit r/mtb on reddit! good sub.

Thanks for the info guys. Will use it!

My family still lives in town, so I've been tuning into the weather quite a bit.

I have heard of the new trails at the camp too. Maybe I'll get out there next summer if I make it back home.

I used to love Eastwood too, I was a 10 minute ride away from the trails so I rode there daily. I haven't ridden the trails since they put the road in, but there were some really cool trails back in the day. Almost got out there earlier this summer, but I was ill equipped on bikes chilling in my parent's garage. From the new maps, it looks as though they killed most of the trails I was familiar with and kept some of the lamer ones. Did you ride there before the road construction/trail destruction when there were trails on both sides of the ballfields, and the steep bootleg trails that dumped you off onto Eastwood road?

We used to ride Indian a ton too, but I heard they closed that down to bikes. Which is a shame, because there were some really good trails (I don't want to call them DH trails, but they were all downhill flowy trails from the upper rim back to the parking lot) up there. I would probably chance a ride at Indian if I were you...late night adventure or something.

Also, Quarry Hill has some sick trails if you are up for the risk. One of my friends got caught riding on dirt out there and they took his seatpost from him and made him ride home standing up.

I also know of some secret trails a few minutes outside of town. I know the guy that built the trails, but when I was hiking out there a few summers ago it looks as though he let the good trails grow over and they built a bunch of terribly constructed features on new trails. If you're up for a trek, I could probably give you some insight on how to find these trails. They were way better than anything else I've ridden within 30 minutes from Rochester.

I actually worked at Bicycle Sports when I was in high school. Good shop, but they definitely don't carry the shit they used to. Still, Bob's a good guy and I would support his shop before any of the competition in town.

Yeah those older Eastwood trails are still accessible. They've fallen into some disrepair, but they're still pretty rideable. There's still trail all by the baseball field and by the ski trail and such. There's an official 7 mile loop still. The stuff across the road (original/old stuff) still has the signs and everything, and is fun. It's all still there as far as I know.

I rode indian a couple times when I was first getting into mtb. I sucked, so it was ok but there were a few times that I got frustrated. I could probably try again one of these days.

Quarry hill, i'll stick to running those trails. They're ok I guess. I could see them taking a seatpost.


Is the guy you know Neil? because I know he has his own trail system he's built over the years (with sketch features) and they have a lot of trails. I've never gotten the opportunity to ride them, but I could maybe go there with friends next summer. sounds like an adventure.

Well, be that as it may about B. Sports, they're still the best in town, haha.

it's always good to talk to a local about Rochester's scant MTB scene

There's some old bootlegs that are on the side of the park closest to the Post Office. Basically if you look at those sandstone cliffs above the Post Office, there used to be a ton of random trails back there. Some where really steep and basically just ended in a thicket of thorny bushes. Took a while to make sense of the area, or which trails to avoid is more accurate. I'm pretty sure they killed the old loop though. We used to do time trials there back in the day just to push each other.

Indian is really lame unless you know which trails to hit. If you are riding around in the middle looking around, you're definitely doing it wrong. If you want to find the good trails, enter at the main entrance and go up the wood chip hiking/walking trail. As soon as you can take a left, make that turn onto a singletrack trail. You should be able to look down into the "bowl" or depression that makes up the actual park. Any of the trails that head into the trees on your left will be a flowy but way too short downhill back to the wood chips. They were some of the better trails in town back in the day.

Yeah, I wouldn't push your luck at Quarry Hill unless you thought it was worth it. There is one or two trails deep out there that were damn worth it and had very little risk of getting caught. One of them dumped you into the back entrance closest to Silver Lake. Sledding there in the winter is more fun than biking in the summer.

I don't know of any Neil in the area. The guy that built these trails is way older, probably pushing 50 now I would guess. We stumbled onto him and his dogs one day literally bushwhacking trying to find the elusive trails. He showed us around and then gave us permission to ride there whenever. Lots of cool trails out there too, more tech climbs with longer sustained pitches than we were used to, that's for sure. It would only take some sheers, or a weedwhacker to get them cleared up...except for removing the ghetto features. I stood on one and thought it was going to come down. Lots of different types of trails there though, it's quite the place.

I've lived in Winona and Red Wing too, so I have definitely gotten some good riding in in MN. Holzinger's Lodge and Memorial Park are very quality. I imagine you didn't get to ride lift access biking at Lutsen before they killed that? The North Shore has the absolute best trails in the state. Go up to Grand Marais and just disappear into the mountains.

I still have and use my old Bicycle Sports waterbottles on occasion, and probably have one or two uniform shop shirts somewhere. Good times for sure.