Your ass will get used to it. I can ride now with no problems but I'm the early spring it's like I'm going to die. Just work through it.

I hope someday my ass can take a good pounding like yours bud :thumb:

ROFL fair enough.

ROFL

Love my Giant Roam III

Just picked this up yesterday....

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/17...g?v=1485892803

Masi Giramondo 27.5. It is like the riding fun of a ten speed when I was a kid. You just go anywhere you want, jump stuff, ride through puddles. You smile a lot.

As I was looking at choices, I realized that in many ways these gravel/adventure bikes are much the same as the early mountain bikes from thirty years ago, which is why I first got into MTB way back then in my mid 20s. It's that ten year old me on a bike feeling. Anyone else here feel this way?

That's how I feel on my fat bike. I feel invincible and that I can just roll right over or through anything. It's a blast.

Time for another NewChief goes mountain biking with his kid video. Please excuse dorky dad encouragement for the boy. I like this video for a few of reasons:
1) It shows the boy's progression in flowing on his bike, which is a result of the work he's been putting in at the pump track. You can really see him flowing with the trail in a few places (punctuated by me encouraging him)

2) Shows off some of the typical "features" that we get on our trails in the area with bridges, berms, step-ups, catwalks, doubles, etc..

3) The boy decided to use the catwalk to head back to the top toward the end of the video, which surprised me.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HXmrcWMRkyA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I plan on making a trip over to the Bentonville area soon. Any suggestions on which trail or trails would be best to hit up first?

What sort of riding do you like to do? The Back40 (and Blowing Springs) is probably the most fun with widest variety of options, currently. Coler is really great and has the highest downhill difficulty. Slaughter Pen is the oldest and has a huge variety of different rides as well. The good news is that you can hit good portions of all of these on a given weekend.

If you're more into a XC style without too much technical difficulty, then Hobbs State Park is awesome (also best place to ride if it's been raining a lot, which it looks like we're entering a dry pattern now). If you like really technical climbs and descents with a really natural and "wild" feel, then check out Mt. Kessler down in Fayetteville. The Railyard bike park is also a lot of fun with 3 different flow lines of varying levels and a jump park (its opening is highly weather dependent, though, and it closes with just a little bit of rain and stays closed until completely dry).


Are you camping or staying in a hotel? There are also some MTB friendly AirBnBs right on the trail. I'd highly recommend staying in downtown Bentonville (21C is your best bet for a hotel... really nice boutique artsy hotel that isn't crazy expensive), because you can literally get everything you need and want to do without ever getting into your car again once you get to downtown Bentonville (barring deciding that you want to ride Kessler in Fayetteville or Hobbs State Park).

I'll be happy to answer any other questions you have about suggestions for places to eat or other things to do.

Oztrails has become the sort of "catchall" branding for the overall area, and their website has pretty good overviews and maps. Everything is also on MTBProject and Trailforks. If you have questions about specific trails or rides, I'll be happy to answer.

Yeah...I would've skipped the catwalk. Those things freak me out.

Nice vid of you and your boy out on a trail, NC! But I'm not going to lie - your arms off to the side in the video made it disconcerting, like I was playing some weird FPS game or something. lol

He did a really big one today over a gulley that was basically a step up (really steep downhill then steep up then flat landing) and was about 10 feet off the ground in places. I've started shopping around for full face helmets for him. Hah b

Yeah. I need to figure out if I can somehow narrow the field of view on the GoPro. I think it's on wide screen capture currently. Weighed using chest mount vs. helmet mount and went with chest because helmet mounts really distort the terrain. I may get a gimbal one of these days.

I use a handlebar mount for my GoPro. Hated the helmet mount.