Mountain Biking

For the first time, Liftopia, the largest online marketplace for reduced-price lift tickets, has begun to offer lift tickets for mountain biking at resorts across North America. It makes perfect sense, since the sport has been growing in popularity in recent years thanks to expanding terrain, green and blue cruisers for riders of all ages and levels. Many of the top lift-served bike resorts are working with Liftopia for this new initiative, including Mountain Creek (NJ), Mammoth Mountain (CA), Schweitzer Mountain (ID), Grand Targhee (WY), Plattekill Mountain (NY), Sunday River (ME), and Waterville Valley (NH). To coincide with the launch, Liftopia is partnering with Teton Gravity Research, TheFeed.com, and Specialized Bicycle Components to offer sweepstakes and giveaways throughout the season, including a Specialized Enduro trail bike (retails at $3,400) and $500 in gift credit from Liftopia. 

It took more than two years to design and build a 205-mile mountain biking trek that crosses Thailand’s Malay Peninsula. But now that it’s complete, fat wheelers are calling it some of the best riding in Southeast Asia. Starting in Surat Thani, you bike through jungle, rubber and palm plantations, and small villages from the Andaman Sea to the Gulf of Thailand. Leaving the masses behind, you’ll get a chance to see the real Thailand on a weeklong trek offered by Thai Cycle. There’s also a shorter 5-day ride that gets you halfway across, zipping up and down numerous singletracks along the way. Cost for the 7-day trip starts at $817 per person, including food, guides, lodging, camping, and bikes. Don’t forget your Camelbak. 

I was fortunate in 2015 to spend 5 days in Acadia National Park and 5 days visiting all the huts on the Maine Huts & Trails route. Seven years after the Poplar Springs Hut was first built, the nonprofit group is making good on its lofty goal to build 12 eco-lodges in the Maine wilderness. There are already four huts in the system across a 45-mile span. I loved the entire route, especially the chance to not only hike, but also mountain bike and paddle through the dense woods. 

Charlie Woodworth didn’t take the helm of Maine Huts & Trails to sit behind a desk. He knows these trails in western Maine like the back of his hand, as he showed Lisa and me on Day Three while riding the 11 miles over to the Flagstaff Hut. We would soon learn that he also happens to be a helluva biker, taking the roots, rocks, and turns easily and offering pedaling pointers for us along the way. Much of the land we would be traversing today is part of the Penobscot Indian Reservation, including our first leg, the Sticky Trail, a technical singletrack through a forest of hemlocks.

We said goodbye to Charlie at the Flagstaff Hut, snagged one of Megan Costello’s heavenly chocolate chip cookies, and exchanged mountain bikes for an Old Town canoe. We were surprised to find that we’d be paddling with a frog that was camping out in the canoe. Canoeing along the shores of Flagstaff Lake, the 4th largest lake in Maine, the mighty ridge of the 4,000-foot Bigelow Mountains soon came into view. Adding to the allure was a bald eagle that flew overhead. The waters were even more magical that evening when we watched a perfect orb of a reddish-orange sun set in the notch between Blanchard Mountain and Pickled Chicken Hill. Living the dream. 

In September 1996, a relatively new magazine called Men’s Journal gave me an assignment to write a story on mountain biking in Vermont. I biked with extreme skier John Egan in the Mad River Valley before heading north and meeting Jeff Hale, a route designer on a network of singletracks he was calling the Kingdom Trails. On a spongy mat of trails dusted with pine needles, we cruised past century-old barns and small, dilapidated sugar shacks lost in the countryside and I immediately saw the potential for an off-road biking route in this sylvan slice of the state. Well, the Kingdom Trails has exploded, with more than 60,000 visits just this past year. 

We rested our legs on a downhill run on the Narrow Gauge while watching families swim in the boulder-strewn river. Then had our last taste of singletrack that connects with the Maine Huts Trail and led uphill on a tough climb to the Poplar Stream Falls Hut. Lisa and I said goodbye to Jon and thanked him for a memorable day of riding. To top it off, we walked down to the waterfalls and watched the water careen down the craggy old rock into a cool pool of water. There was no one else enjoying this serene scene. Well, at least not yet, but word will spread. 

Tennis players and mountain bikers of the male persuasion, take note. The Topnotch Resort is now offering a guy’s getaway that includes a two-night stay at the upscale property with breakfast daily, a local Vermont brew and pretzel amenity delivered to the room after check-in, a burger and beer dinner at The Roost, and a $100 resort credit per room to be used towards tennis, spa treatments or food/beverage. Consistently listed among the top 10 tennis resorts in America, Topnotch offers daily tennis instruction by seasoned pros at the property’s six outdoor courts and four indoor courts. Surrounding the property is also a good 50 miles of stellar mountain biking trails like the technical singletrack, Kimmer’s Trail. Afterwards, you’ve earned your 80-minute deep tissue sports massage at the spa. You can also play a round of golf at the highly touted Country Club of Vermont. Rates start at $279, per person for two nights, double occupancy. 

Now that Columbus Day has come and gone, along with much of the fall foliage traffic in Vermont, it’s time to hit my favorite mountain bike trails in New England. Uou know how much I cherish the Kingdom Trails. They’re even sweeter when the last maple leaves are clinging to the trees before the first snowfall. That would be right now! Spend the night at Burke Bike Barn. Located on the White School Trail, just outside the village of East Burke, this timber frame barn first went up in the 1840s. Recently renovated, it now features two units, each with full kitchen. The larger unit has three bedrooms and sleeps 6 (starts at $150 a night), while the smaller unit has 2 bedrooms and sleeps 4 (starts at $120 a night).