The attached video is what I’d consider a 10/10 trail. It’s short, it’s huge, it’s not to lippy and it’s very easy (once you get over the size of the jumps they aren’t actually that technical)
What would you consider a 10/10 trail
byu/Neat_Nebula6250 inMTB
by Neat_Nebula6250
28 Comments
Black bear, Kingdom trails – Vermont
Love me some boomerang bike park trails, they’re all great.
Generically, one with enough pedaling for exercise but not enough to have thoughts of E-bikes and my age creeping in, enough flow to make the climbs worth it, and features that I can easily do 55% of, can improve on 25% of, and still working up to 20% of them for progression. Lengthwise, proportional to the previous run on sentence.
something that’s steep with lots of roots and rocks.
The trail on the vid looks to be a 5/10 for me. Its just too manicured. Great for a warm up.
Steep tech with no man made features aside from the odd piece of woodwork. Handmade or tire cut only. Ideally 1200-1500ft of elevation loss per mile.
I love a trail that is a mix of fast flow, steep gnar, rocks, slow tech you have to pick your way through semi-slowly and some natural features that allow you to get playful on the trail.
Handmade steep downhill singletrack
Flowy tech trails…or techy flow, idk where the line is. But roots, off camber, big rock rolls, jumps and drops, and the tech sections have to flow, too.
Well, not this bc I can’t hit most of that shit lol. But it looks fun.
I really love Sticks and Stones at Northstar
Captain Ahab, Moab UT
Check out Richfield UT Pahvant trails. 10/10 trail system. Amazing good uphills, with fun flow to techy downhills (Telegraph and Cairnage). Can shuttle the Spinal Tap trail. Upper half is manicured flow and the bottom half raw, rocky and tech. Super good stuff going on in Central Utah. Cedar City is also killing it with Boulder Dash/Lava Flow and Tombstone – they have lots of rock and know how to use it. Both of these areas are 10/10 trail systems – good ups and downs. Can be relatively short or long depending on you and your route selection.
Braille Trail in Santa Cruz hits every time.
Only natural trails can be 10/10 in my mind
Somewhere Over There + Green Spider
Holy shiiiiiiit. My 40 year old ass would be scared as shit of that trail.
One that goes straight up for 2k feet on a simple singletrack dedicated climbing trails and then back down for that length of time with a good mix of flow and tech.
Big natural chunk with man-made berms to keep your speed up. 1,000 feet straight up, 1,000 feet straight down. Repeat.
This is a really deep cut, but Enchanted Forest – Bolton Valley VT
Seymour: pylon loamer > CBC > cabin > cambodia > pingu > pangor > empress bypass.
Closest thing to my ‘perfection’ on earth.
Pick a stupid steep hillside. Find the rideable way down.
Steep, gnarly, lots of rock and woodwork
Lots of people talking about the riding characteristics of the trail, so I’ll just add in for me, to truly be 10/10, it’s gotta get you out in the wilderness. No bike park. No hearing cars. See very few people, only other MTB’ers. Either good views and/or way deep in a forest just surrounded by nature (or maybe way out in the desert rocks or something). Of course that’s not the *only* requirement, but it’s one I’d put on it I haven’t seen anyone mention.
The new saga at SDM, Quebec
Long flowy fast descents in the backcountry with epic views, solitude and a stream full of trout, swimming holes and hot springs. I.E. Grand Prize, Idaho.
The whole enchilada, literally has everything.
There’s a little local trail built on Titcomb Mountain in Maine. It isn’t anything amazing, but it does everything well and it was built by people who love mountain biking.
It snakes its way up the side of the ski slope through old growth forest with a healthy dose of pine needles on the ground. It’s a steady, not-too-aggressive climb with some quick punchy bits and worn switchbacks. There’s a couple of wooden bridges over some washouts, and plenty of natural features like small boulder climbs/rolls and rock gardens made out of collapsed rock walls that are ubiquitous throughout the woods in that area.
The top treats you to a little view of the town, with the local university gym popping out like a sore thumb with its modernist roof clashing against the otherwise New England sensibility of the architecture.
The downhill is the same as the uphill. Not too aggressive, a few natural features and jumps along with a big old collapsed pine trunk turned into a skinny. You might not even hear your tires running over the pine needles depending on how aggressive of a tread you have. It drops you out on a dirt MUT that was once a railway that took loggers further north into the woods near Canada. You can take some other little trails across the ski mountain from there, or ride the MUT back to the ski lodge/parking lot.
You can ride the trail in either direction, and both ways have their little treats and challenges. I like going up from the parking lot to the MUT, then turning right around and going from MUT to the parking lot.
I learned to ride on that trail, and for a long time I looked back on it with a sense of nostalgic superiority. I had been riding longer, faster trails with bigger climbs and more technical features, and there was no way my little home trail was as fun as I remembered. Then I rode it again after being away for 5 or 6 years, and I realized that the trail was absolutely as fun as I remembered it being, and perhaps the most important thing of all, it was extraordinarily peaceful.
Now, anytime I can get up there and there isn’t snow on the ground, I bring my bike and make the time to hit at least that one trail, even if I don’t have time to hit some of the bigger networks.
Any trail that I’m currently riding
Winsor at Ski Santa Fe… Chef’s kiss
Also, South Boundary from Angel Fire to Taos.