Our plan was simple and oh-so-promising. My wife and I set off on a three-day adventure to visit four lift-serviced mountain bike parks, starting with Mount Abram in Maine, and then looping through New Hampshire, with stops at Cranmore Mountain, Loon Mountain, and Highland Mountain Bike Park.
Disaster struck on day two at Cranmore in North Conway. My wife, Lauri, and I were jazzed to check out the resort’s new machine-built flow trails and the double-sprung enduro rigs that we were renting to replace our old-school hardtails. After crisscrossing the base of the ski resort a couple of times to get a feel for our bikes, we hit the chairlift.
Our first run along the loopy beginner “Learning Curve” trail was uneventful. Next up was the intermediate “Day at the Beech” run. The bermed turns were smooth and fast—maybe too fast. Fueled by a mix of overconfidence and inexperience, Lauri high-sided one turn, got hung up on the soft dirt, and panicked. Instead of pushing the bike away, she tried to correct. The front wheel jammed hard left, the bike locked up, and Lauri sailed over the bars. She hit the ground face first and scorpioned, her feet flying over her arched back in a grotesque, inverted somersault. My heart stopped.
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I flagged a passing rider and asked him to send a patroller. Lauri, an occupational therapist well-versed in spinal injuries, slowly did a self-assessment. After a few terrifying minutes (which seemed like an eternity), she began moving her extremities. The patroller arrived, and we gingerly walked Lauri to a trail intersection, where the Cranmore crew picked her up and brought her to first aid.
Unfortunately, Lauri’s weekend adventure was over. Happily, she escaped serious injury, though it would be a month before all her aches and pains subsided. And we learned a few valuable lessons about riding bike park trails, which I’m sharing now.
Here’s what you should know before riding a bike park, along with advice from Chris Chmielewski, training director at Highland Mountain Bike Park.
Have the right bike and gear, and learn how to use it
You can ride a hardtail or a short-travel full-suspension bike on bike park trails, but they aren’t optimal. And if you rent an enduro or downhill mountain bike, you’ll need to adapt. These burly steeds are typically heavier, with additional “squish” to soak up big hits. For the newcomer, these bikes can be humbling, as my wife discovered.
“Going from your cross-country rig to a modern enduro bike is a very, very different thing, not only because of the suspension travel but because of the geometry,” says Chmielewski. “You’re a lot further back, and that can be a foreign feeling.”
Keep in mind, too, that these bikes aren’t meant to be ridden while seated. That’s why most have a dropper post, which is an enormous asset once you get accustomed to using one.
“Even these modern enduro bikes that are meant for climbing and downhill will have a dropper post,” says Chmielewski. “If you’re sitting on the saddle of a downhill bike or enduro bike in a bike park, that’s going to be all sorts of wrong. Making sure that you’re not sitting is the first step to having the bike not feel so awkward. If you’re sitting, it’s just going to feel like the bike is driving you around.”
In addition to using a bike well-suited for that terrain, Chmielewski also recommends wearing a full-face helmet, knee and elbow pads, and full-finger bike gloves. Ideally, you should also wear grippy and sturdy shoes (skate shoes are a good substitute for mountain bike shoes) and eye protection like mountain bike goggles or at least sunglasses.
It’s okay to take a lesson, and you probably should
Lessons are often overlooked, says Chmielewski. If you’re new to downhilling or freeriding and you’re visiting a bike park, look into whether it offers private or group instruction. Unfortunately, some ski areas that offer downhill mountain biking don’t also offer lessons, which Chmielewski says is a mistake.
“You wouldn’t have a thriving ski area for the masses without having a ski school and readily available lessons for beginners,” says Chmielewski. “It’s the same with a mountain bike park… You’ve got this big, foreign-seeming bike, you’ve got a lift ticket, and the next thing you know you’re at the top of the mountain. There’s a very big missing link there.”
My biggest regret of our bike park adventure was not starting at Highland. We had signed up for one of Highland’s “Find Your Ride” lessons for park newbies, but after Lauri’s big biff, she was content to hang out on the lodge deck with her coffee. Meanwhile, I joined my group lesson, along with a pair of dads and four teenage sons. Our two young Highland coaches hit just the right balance–they not only knew how to ride, but they also knew how to teach.
“When I look to hire new coaches, I’m looking for ‘people’ people,” says Chmielewski. “The soft skills are so important, the human management. You’re dealing with nervous people sometimes. Or you’re dealing with overly eager people who are ready to just dive in way over their head and learn the hard way.”
Chmielewski acknowledges that mountain bike parks have yet to develop an industry-wide training program like the Professional Ski Instructors Association or the American Association of Snowboard Instructors, but it’s coming.
“Crashes can happen on the first run, and that’s why I keep saying how critical it is for parks to be enticing newcomers into a lesson, even if they need to disguise it without using the ‘L’ word,” he says. “A lot of dudes who know how to ride a bike won’t be too into taking a lesson, but everybody can have a better day with the right start.”
Get to know the trail rating system
Another advantage of taking a lesson is that coaches can match you with the right trail for your ability level. A good bike park will be well marked, often with a key or map that identifies trail intersections and breaks down the trail system into beginner, intermediate, advanced, and expert terrain. Many use the ski resort system of green circles for beginner, blue squares for intermediate, black diamonds for advanced, and double black diamonds for expert.
“The way that trails are marked is becoming increasingly universal, but it’s not universal yet,” says Chmielewski. “No matter what network you’re at, whether a bike park or municipal trail network, really try to understand how those trails are labeled. Because the distinction between the blue square technical trail and a blue square freeride trail is a very important distinction. It’s not apples to apples.”
Highland is divided into “technical” and “freeride” terrain, and as Chmielewski says, those two aren’t the same. A technical trail might be significantly more difficult than a freeride trail with the same rating.
“The beginner should start with flow terrain, or what we call freeride terrain,” Chmielewski says. “A thoughtfully designed freeride trail is going to be built in a way that has water management, in a way that is tailor-made to provide that engineered experience. A similar green circle technical trail, just by nature, is going to be more difficult… It’s going to have loose surfaces. It’s going to have irregular surfaces, like roots. And you may have sections where water tends to flow down a section of trail, so you’re dealing with the ever-changing erosion.”
Learn how—and when—to use your brakes
Imagine driving your car in a snowstorm. You enter an intersection where you have to turn left. If you hit the brakes after starting the turn, you’re likely to skid. You’re also likely to miss the turn altogether. This was Lauri’s gaffe at Cranmore. It’s a typical mistake. The key is to scrub speed by feathering your brakes before the turn.
“It’s really easy to carry a lot of speed into a really nice turn, but if you’re going too fast, you can get thrown out of the top of the turn,” says Chmielewski. “Or, more commonly, your survival instincts kick in and you’ll panic brake. When you grab brake, it can easily either cause an accident or cause a skid… Just go slower in a straight line before you start your turn, and work on actually accelerating through the turn. That’s going to give your bike and its suspension the best chance at holding traction.”
Use both brakes judiciously. To avoid the dreaded nose wheelie or going over the bars (like my wife), go easy on the front brake. Don’t be afraid of it, but remember that it’s more powerful. The more front brake you use, the further you need to get behind the saddle, with your derriere over the rear wheel, to counterbalance those deceleration forces.
Find your center of balance
One of the biggest, and most common, mistakes a beginner or intermediate skier can make is “getting in the back seat,” or leaning too far back on your heels, so your weight is no longer centered over your skis. The same holds for downhill mountain biking.
“Stay centered. That’s a big one,” says Chmielewski. “Everyone’s got the instinct to get defensive, moving to the back seat when they’re scared about going over the handlebars. That’s like holding onto a runaway train. You’re not in the driver’s seat. You’ve got to stay centered.”
A good way to judge whether you’ve got the balance right is assessing your grip on the handlebars. “Are you feeling like you’re leaning on the handlebars, or do you feel like you’re hanging off or pulling back on the handlebars,” asks Chmielewski. “Those are signs of imbalance. When you’re in the center and your weight is over your feet, even if it’s a heavier bike, the suspension is going to work as intended.”
Look where you want to go (not at that tree)
Learning to mountain bike on New England’s technical, rooty singletrack in the late 1980s, I realized early on to “look where you want to go, not where you don’t want to go,” as Chmielewski advises, and let your body respond accordingly. That’s even more important in a mountain bike park, where the machine-built trails are designed for speed.
“It’s easier said than done, but your eyes will dictate where you go,” says Chmielewski. “If you fixate on a tree that you’re trying to avoid, it’s actually going to draw you towards it.”
“Learning to trust your eyes, and lead with your eyes, is the trick,” he says. “It’s always going to be easier if you’re going slower.”
Take your time, and look before you leap
“There’s an adage that came from the snow-sport world and terrain parks, and the same goes for mountain bike parks: ‘Pre-ride, re-ride, and freeride,’” says Chmielewski. “When you approach a trail of any kind, you should go with that mentality. You first go to check things out at a slow speed, check out the features, check out the terrain, do an observation run. That’s the pre-ride.”
“Then you’re going to lap that trail, and you’re going to repeat it,” he says. “Once you know what’s happening on that trail, you can slowly come to terms with it, and work up slowly. Then the last step is starting to crank it up, if you want to. So that’s the freeride aspect.”
And if you do crash, do this…
Finally, if you ride bike park trails, you’ll probably crash eventually. (As a skiing buddy likes to tell me, “If you’re not falling, you’re not trying.”) After all, the inherent risk is part of the attraction, right?
If you take a digger, the most important thing is to get yourself off the trail. The second most important thing is to take your bike with you, if you can.
“If you’re riding with a partner, have somebody go uphill from where you are and alert any oncoming traffic that there’s a rider down,” says Chmielewski.
If you’re at a quality park like Highland, the bike patrol’s number will be listed on the rental bike and the wristband that serves as your lift ticket. Highland’s trails are also dotted with mile markers that identify the trail and location, so patrollers can find an injured rider quickly.
“So if you call, I’ll ask if there’s any signage nearby,” says Chmielewski. “It’s the next best thing to putting GPS on everybody.”
