Sometimes it starts with a picture in a magazine, and the thought "Oooh, I wanna ride there!" Sometimes you just need to get out of the cubicle, ditch the tie, give the finger to your daily commute, and have an adventure, something more exiting and dangerous than eating at that sketchy Chinese restaurant down the block from work . Whatever the reason, the Mountain Bike Road Trip is something anyone who calls themself a mountain biker should do AT LEAST once before they die. It's part of our culture, seeking out strange new trails, finding sweet little hole-in-the wall bars and dives with cool food and interesting people. Riding new trails helps rejuvinate the excitement and love that got you into riding in the first place, and when you return home, your local trails seem new again, you see different lines, you ride them with renewed vigor. You can go solo, or with a group. You can make it a guys only Brocation, or a girls only Bracation, or you can take your non-riding family. The point is, you should get out there
Here are three tips to make your road trip something you want to do again and again.
1 – Make a plan, but don't feel like you have to stick to it.
“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” – John Steinbeck
You need a plan to guide you, what trails you want to ride, where you want to stay, how much you will spend on food, booze, schwag, etc. Google is a big part of this. Read reviews, do research, see where a cool spot to eat is, where the best campground is, it's all on the internet. Plan your route, perhaps on the way you can vist the Worlds Largest Air Guitar Collection or something offbeat and fun. Just understand, real life is not conducive to plans, and know your plan is just a loose guide, your trip won't go like you expect, and that is quite alright. Weather may make a trail not rideable, where you want to stay may be full, or no longer existent (as i've learned happens), you might not get to do all the things on your list. That is OK, don't let it ruin your vacation, just roll with it. Take a day off, walk around the town, if you don't ride all the trails you wanted to you still got to ride somewhere new. Enjoy the trip for what it is, don't get upset because of what it isn't.
2 – Bring a camera and take photos constantly.
You don't have to buy film, digital pics are free. Take pictures constantly. Take pics while you are driving, eating, sleeping, riding, all the time. Some of the coolest pictures are when you just take a random picture of nothnig special. Ask any professional photographer the trick to getting the perfect picture, he or she will answer "Take all the pictures you can, somehere in those 5000 pics will be the good one." Memories are excellent, but the pictures will last and later remind you of stuff you forgot.
3 – Be an anthropologist
“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” – Bill Bryson
When you travel, be it to another state or another country, don't expect the locals to act like the people back home. Be open to how they may do things, and don't have any preconcieved notions. Observe and get the vibe and feel of the town, see how the locals act, and try to act like them. The customs and culture may be different than what you are used to back home, roll with it and see how it feels. You might find a new type of food, or a new way of doing something. If nothing else, you might appreciate your hometown a bit more when you return. Be a traveler, not a tourist.
There are amazing trails all over, some famous, some you've never heard of. No matter where you are, there are some new, sweet trails that are worth taking a trip to go ride. The weather is getting better, summer is coming, there is somewhere you have always wanted to go, now is the time to make that happen. Make your plan, pack your camera, and hit the road. We hope you get to come to Fruita, and we hope to see you out on our trails. Wherever you travel to ride your mountain bike, or road bike, we just hope you get out and go and ride somewhere new and have a memorable adventure.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. ” – Mark Twain
ROADTRIP!!!!
