Mammoth Bike Park 8-3-16

Just rode Mammoth today. Super bummed! I had fun last year but I think I just didn't know any better. I can handle the kitty litter. I can appreciate a 2 wheel drift but the trail maintenance is non existent. After riding Angel Fire, Keystone and trestle this summer Mammoth was hardly worth riding. Recoil is closed due to "run off damage" and the bike park has been fully open for more than a month! Before I came to Mammoth their website showed some new trails that are also not open yet. According to a bike patroller they should be done in 6-8 wks. Doesn't snow start falling in 8 weeks? It seems clear to me that the management is not serious about having mammoth be a world class bike park. Also the mountain is so large that you cannot lap the trails. For example pipeline is a fun trail, although it looks like no one has done anything to the lips of the jumps in over a year, but in order to get to lap it you would need to endure a wait for the bus, a bus ride, a gondola ride, a mile of XC fire road then 2 miles of a super beat up blue trail for 1 mile of fun jumps followed by a cruse down a condo lined road for another mile to start the "loop" over again. It takes an hour to complete this if you are fast going down. I spent more time waiting for a bus, riding a bus, riding a tram than I did riding my bike. Honestly. Fore example I have a problem with my hands blistering when I gravity ride but this didn't happen last year or this year when I "rode" Mammoth because I don't actually ride very much. Maybe Mammoth can rescue itself but I will not be riding there tomorrow as I had planned nor will I be returning anytime soon. Stay away for now if you have any place else to ride


Sent the above comment on to Mammoth when they sent me a survey asking how my visit went. Below is their response and the email exchange..

Dookiedoodle,
Thanks for the feedback, you bring up some really good points. Running a bike park is a pretty crazy operation, especially when you’re open for skiing until July 4th, which seriously impacted Recoil and early Bike Park operations. Recoil sits right underneath the ski run Broadway, which is the main artery to get skiers down to Main Lodge during late season. This meant that there was massive runoff on a daily basis which carved trenches through the clay that Recoil is built out of.
As far as lapping Pipeline goes; we get it, it’s a long lap if you’re using the shuttle and not taking the gondola to the top. (My Edit - you have to take the shuttle and the gondola to lap pipeline)
This season we’re operating chair 16 on Saturday’s (I was there on a Wednesday), which makes Flow, Pipeline, Bullet and Follow Me super easy to lap. Hopefully we’ll be able to expand operating hours/days moving forward.
You mention Trestle, Keystone and Angel Fire, how would you rank these three parks?
I’m sorry you had a bad time and want to assure you that management is totally on board for improving the park, hopefully you’ll be able to see the results in the near future.

Gabe Taylor
Marketing Manager


My response to the question of "how would you rank these parks?"

Briefly,
Keystone- great variety of trails, loads of super fun wooden features (ride arounds on all or progression options), flow from top to bottom (minimal riding blue trails when connecting blacks although you had to take a fire road for a 1/2 mile near the bottom of every run) Lips on jumps had been payed attention to. A huge positive was a "skills park" at the bottom of the lift. a progression of jumps a few berms was a great way to end every run. It was right in front of the lift so it was fun to watch others as well. Summary - good flow but not as good as trestle but better variety.

Trestle - amazing flow trail from top to bottom (Rainmaker) linkable to a few black and double black variations at the bottom. My son and I did 8 laps a day for 2 days on this trail alone, all berms and jump, perhaps 100 med sized jumps (10-15 ft table tops). Other than this trail mostly chunder and not as fun. Expanding to 2 entirely new areas next summer. I could see the trail crews working as well.
Summary - amazing single trail but needed more variety.

Angel Fire - great variety, multiple fun lines to link up to get to the bottom. I have ridden her 8 times this year and never gotten bored. Fantastic trail maintenance, I have seen 2 crews each with an excavator working with each visit. Every time I ride there I see the work, smoothed out jump lips, new jumps, little re-routs. My criticism would be it's rough. There are lots of rocks in hard pack dirt more than colorado so hard on the hands.
Summary - great variety and maintenance but rough

All of these places seemed to me to be working hard to make their bike park better. Mammoth bike park just seemed to be satisfied with what they already had and lazy about maintaining it. Perhaps snow is more important to Mammoth.


Response #2Thanks for the detailed response Dookiedoodle, I really appreciate it.
All of these parks sound amazing, 100 jump trail at Trestle?! Definitely going to have to check these out.
We are dedicated to improving our park and hopefully we can win back gravity enthusiasts such as yourself in the coming years.
All the best and thanks again for the detailed responses, extremely helpful.
Gabe

All in all a great response to my concerns. Not that it made the riding any better but at lease they seem to want to make the riding better. I will have to go beck to see if the words are backed up by action. Mammoth could be super cool. The mountain is huge, the location is beautiful.

Thanks for reading.