CycleKrieg

Local here with some thoughts/suggestions: 1) You should absolutely come as this is a fun event. There is a lot of lodging in the area, from campgrounds, resorts to hotels. Brainerd is 15 min drive time away. This is the place the start looking: https://www.cuyuna.com/ 2) Its not just MTBs. There is lots of great gravel and road riding in the area. The Paul Bunyan Trail isn't far away either, going from Brainerd to Bemidji (115 miles long). 3) There is a lot of good MTB riding in the area and not just at Cuyuna. Duluth is 2 hours away. There are the range trail networks (Giants, Tioga, Redhead) and the North Shore (Tofte). 4) Unlike some locations *cough* Bentonville *cough* the trails up here where created organically, without sucking off the teat of some megacorporation. Therefore, there isn't an artificially or pretentious to the trails or the area. The people are going to be truly happy to see you visit their area.

I've tried for years to get them to come, but no dice. Especially since Outside bought them.

Lems. They got you man. +1 foot shaped shoes, -1 on zero drop.

@solarplex: Sorta yes, sorta no. Depends on the company. Yes, most company's do have rebuild kits for current model items. Where it gets hard to get is individual parts or discontinued models. But Wolftooth has more than rebuild kits, they have individual parts available. So you don't have to buy a whole kit for a $3 part. See: https://www.wolftoothcomponents.com/collections/replacement-parts

Quite a bit actually. See: https://www.ridetherange.com/ and https://www.coggs.com/trails