Downhill Bike Park at Bryce Resort

[Steve85]

I've been going to Bryce since I was little kid and my parents live there full time now. We spend a lot of time there and this year they opened up the bike park. It's a lift access downhill park. I invited a friend to head down and check it out and we had an absolute blast. Neither one of us are very experienced riders (he rides Wakefield every once in a while) so we didn't go too hard and came home in one piece as planned.

I have this Fuel 100 that I picked up off ebay many years ago that I ride off and on. They require disc brakes and I think full suspension for you to ride your own bike. My friend has a similar level bike but we decided to rent for convenience and safety to rent. According to my dad "the rental bikes were $3500 each"...so nicer, newer bikes too!!



Trek Session 8.8's. Dual piston calipers and much larger discs than I have. Bryce has a deal with Shenandoah Bicycle Company which seems to essentially be a satellite office for them on premises where they can perform maintenance and repairs on personal bikes and maintain the rental fleet. Full gear is included with the rental but only helmets are mandatory. We went with full gear.





To get on the lift you stage on the downhill side of the lift at the bottom, when a bike carrier comes, you lift/roll the bike right onto it. Then just walk behind the carrier until you hit the person loading point and the chair a few seconds away. At the top there are two attendants that unload the bikes. Easy peasy...

Some pics of the features and trails you see along the ride. Not to mention the zipliners that go just a few feet above your head at one point.





This little bridge / drop is on the double black trail. At the bottom of the landing is a terribly skinny, severe off camber trail that turns back up the hill. The trail under the bridge is the 2.5mile winding green trail.




Another bridge / drop and again the green trail winds you through many of the features without putting you on them.


A small section of the upper portion of the double black. This run starts with a "rock garden", not big and didn't look real fun to us but definitely seemed to challenge many of the riders...and turn one around.



View from the top


Quick overview of the trails...
Sundowner (Green) - not terribly challenging but can be fun at speed. It's 2.5 miles and winds through giving you a look at everything else the park has to offer. It was great for getting used to the bike. It has some really nice berms but is relatively wide to give some margin for error. A relatively new rider could quickly gain experience and confidence on this run while getting to see almost the entire park.

Brew-Thru - fun jump trail with lots of table tops and some fun switch back sections. You can roll all the jumps and the fun quotient goes up as you get faster. There is a heavily cambered bridge that scared the crap out me first time through, because it's not a hard turn...you just have to trust you won't slide off.



I hit this nice little jump between the trees with a lot less air than this guy (pic pulled from FB)


Screwdriver (Blue) - I guess this would be a "technical" trail with mostly switch backs, turn and burn. It starts off wider and then the channels and berms get tight. Again, intensity directly related to speed. There is a break in this trail and then you hit lower screwdriver - VERY tight and technical turns...we basically did it with one foot off the pedals in a half walking style. :oops:

Snake-Bite (Blue) - Basically a longer Lower Screwdriver, really tight turns. I don't feel like a soft full suspension full downhill bike would be right for this. I'd be more comfortable doing it on my little BMX bike...I dunno, just the feeling I got looking at it. I don't ride enough to know whether stiffening the suspension would have helped and I wasn't about to experiment.

Copperhead and Car Bomb are black diamond runs we did not venture on but seem to have some nice features and really technically challenging sections. This bridge I believe is on Car Bomb, and the trail below is shortly after the merge of Brew Thru and Sundowner to get you back to the lift.



I don't have anything to compare it to to say whether it's a good park or not, but it was sure as hell fun. 8)

Cost - 4 hr bike rental, full day pass (no half-day passes yet), and full gear was $80. Bring your own gear and the lift pass is $30 for a full day. I think we were doing about 9-10 minute round trips.

And a Video of us going down Screwdriver, my friend has the helmet cam chasing me. At the 2:23 mark Screwdriver ends and you're on the green Sundowner trail. There are ways to trail hop, I'd prefer Screwdriver to give you an easy option to finish on Brew Thru, but that stuff will come in time I'm sure, if not just from people making their own way.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/70712396[/vimeo]

A lot more pics on Bryce's FB page including build progress shots from the builders 402 Trails and Gravity Logic.

[CaptainHenreh]

Looks awesome! I don't think full suspension is required to ride, my buddy has only 29'er hard tails and rode up there recently. Said it was fun, but he also really enjoys climbing, so I think he's crazy.

[NTIman]

Oh man, I can't wait until I get a full suspension bike. That looks like so much fun! :thumbup:

[Evan]

That looks like lots of fun. I used to go to Snowshoe and Timberline a few times a summer, its great to have lift access riding closer.
Thats a great price for a bike rental, doesnt make much sense to buy your own when rentals are that cheap. (and btw Session 8.8s are more like $6k!)

Id really like to get stoked sometime in august or september, Steve you up for a repeat?

[JPolen01]

This looks awesome. I'd love to try it out. No experience on anything like that, but I think I could pick it up pretty quick. I used to ride a lot of trails when I was younger but they were not very difficult.

[ispoonwithmugen]

I've been riding Hillendale a few times a week. Been waiting to hit Bryce all summer. Hopefully will get out there soon! Looks like a blast.

[Evan]

everything looks better in slow motion with hipster music
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[PDenbigh]

MM should do an outing there. I'm in. Evan, I'll bring my headlamp again ;-).

[ispoonwithmugen]

I would love to do that. The only thing is it's expensive (for a college kid). I'll see what people post on MM's page.

[Sully]

So I have to pay like $80 to seriously hurt myself?

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[PDenbigh]

For your own protection, it's not something that should be done if you haven't biked quite a bit. Sorta like you don't go on track the day you learn to drive a car. Chances are good that even those that have biked a bit will come back bruised :-).

[Steve85]

Back from travels up north...

Yeah, I'm up for another trip. I'll see what weekends I can do and hopefully we can get a little group outing.

[.RJ]

Id really like to get stoked sometime in august or september, Steve you up for a repeat?

I'm down.

[Sully]

I mean I know how to ride a bike.

I would be comfortable doing most of the course on a dirt bike. For some reason though I tend to hurt myself when you take away the motor. For example any type of boarded object

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[ispoonwithmugen]

I mean it may not look tough but some of those trails are pretty gnarly. If you haven't done mountain biking before then I would skip. Mountain biking and riding on the street are two completely different things.

[Evan]

you would definitely want to be comfortable with your average cross country trails before downhilling.

however, the downhill trails at bryce look to be pretty easy as far as DH trails go. they are machine built which means they are pretty smooth and have the big rocks taken out, so most riders would be able to handle the beginner and maybe intermediate trails.

as opposed to snowshoe and timberline which are natural terrain with huge rocks that kick your ass. (example:

[Steve85]

Agreed, I'm not a very experienced rider, this was my first "downhill" experience, and had no problem with the green and blue trails. The jump trail has a bunch of tabletops and 0 gap jumps. We got exactly zero inches of air first 2 runs feeling it out and then you just start adding speed in places you're comfortable.

The green trail is is great for someone just learning, take it easy and you won't have a problem. And seeing the other trails and obstacles along your ride is a real motivator.

[.RJ]

you would definitely want to be comfortable with your average cross country trails before downhilling.

Maybe I should reconsider :lol:

[Evan]

you would definitely want to be comfortable with your average cross country trails before downhilling.

Maybe I should reconsider :lol:

[.RJ]

I hate you