Finding Flow in the Ozarks! (Bentonville, AR)

Bentonville, Arkansas has been on our radar for the past year or so as we've seen tons of YouTube videos from the IMBA summit last fall and lots of press lately. My wife also flies down there for work every couple of months but those are just day trips and a bit of a tease. We were supposed to go island hopping in the Caribbean this fall but the hurricanes took their toll and eventually that trip was cancelled for us right before departure which left us scrambling. With Bentonville being only a 10 hour drive and the the knowledge that Des Moines has some of our favorite food anywhere and is on the way(ish) it seemed like a no brainer. We decided to head down for 4 days and see what we could accomplish!

We gorged on BBQ in Des Moines and grabbed a dozen cupcakes at my wife's favorite bakery and headed south. We made a stop to a tri-state marker near Joplin, MO as I've never been to Oklahoma before and after a long travel day we made it to Bentonville. Well, a bit outside of Bentonville at a $40/night hotel by the airport (which was amazing BTW!) We wanted to get an early start the next morning, so we got our gear ready and went to sleep.

A hotel breakfast later and we're in downtown Bentonville to start our ride, after some coffees at Onyx! We basically rode 3 blocks from downtown to a bike path and 1/4 mile down the path we hit singletrack! Our first day would be spent riding the Slaughter Pen trails. The first trail (the All American) was an absolute blast! Tons of optional features and fun for the whole family. Every half mile or so was another trail system. We were kind of overwhelmed and ended up missing the Choo Choo trail which was one of the most featured trails on YouTube as we made our way to the slopestyle area which seems to be the center of Slaughter Pen. This part was amazing with the new downhill trail (flow/jump line) and Medusa being favorites in addition to the slopestyle trail in the grass (also from YouTube). We then headed north, there's a small trail system on the way to Blowing Springs with lots of names (Trail Forks calls it hangover, the maps called it Sally and Smuggler's Run; don't miss that loop for awesome views, riding and stunts). We hit blowing springs for some more fun trail that felt a little more old school but also had amazing flow. The end of that loop had some crazy rocks to navigate and I took a pretty nice tumble, fortunately the cliff was far from the trail at this point! There was also a cement pump track after this that we played on for abit before heading a 1/2 mile down the road for some slushies and food! Back at it, we hit the hangover bit again before heading to the main area of Slaughter Pen to work on some stunts! Then back up the bike path as we were fully worked...of course the 300ft bike path climb back to downtown was rough but overall a great 26+ mile first ride. And we even missed 2-3 trailheads and countless other trails that weren't even on our maps yet.

Even though we don't have the skills nor the bikes for the Rail Yard we headed over to Rogers as we had to see it. Wow! The jump lines were all crowded with local kids but the slopestyle course intrigued us. We had to ride through the rail car! The one slopestyle course we should've started on was closed for a bit of repair, so we went big, the biggest course that didn't require mandatory gaps! And it was a blast, I did it about 10 times and my wife 3-4 and we got to ride through the box car! Hit a few jump lines with the local kids too, it was a good day! Went over to The Rail after for pizza and beer...the garlic parm wings there were beyond amazing!

Woke up the next morning, sore, but The Back 40 was on the agenda! It was cold (45F) when we got to Blowing Springs to start our counterclockwise loop! We headed out and while impressed with the trail access, this first 5 miles was pretty boring minus one cool bridge. But once we got past the golf course, the trail was as nice as any XC trails I've ever ridden. And before long we hit the ledges! There is a lot of hype and warnings about the Ledges trail so we were nervous. But the nerves soon turned to adrenaline and awesomeness as this was one of the best trails I've ridden anywhere. Super flow trail to a nice climb to riding rocks to a nice climb to riding rocks and down some flow to the end. Amazing! I felt there wasn't much if any exposure and it was just a spectacular trail. After the ledges you've got some long singletrack climbing into the forest and then some fun traversing and ups and down on perfect trail, even saw at a road crossing we were 60ft from Missouri so took a quick detour for fun! All of this fun flow and then a gnarly downhill down to a beautiful waterfall and another break. The last part of the trail was tough with a hot unshaded climb to a fun flow trail down (with a fully stocked water station maintained by locals). Half way down there's a short cut (Buckingham Cut) that no one should ever take as you miss the best part of the trail (lakes, cliffs, etc.). On the next uphill which was the steepest one I cut a small hole in my tread. I CO2ed up for the next downhill, then back up, another CO2 and then the thrilling conclusion down to the car with a slow leak that was about 10PSI by the time we ended. Whew!

Headed back to downtown for another iced coffee and some tire repair, we thought some Stan's would hold it but I ended up needing to plug it the next morning. Ate at the Pedalers Pub which had amazing pizza and local beer! We were going to do upper Buffalo (IMBA Epic) the next morning but the 2-1/2 hour drive and the lukewarm support from the employees of the bike shop (words used: beautiful, fun, wet & muddy, doubletrack, steep, remote) we decided to instead give Coler a run and then head to Two Rivers Bike Park in Springfield, MO on the way home.
The next morning we were really sore and got a slow start but Coler is shorter and not that far from the hotel. We pulled up to the lot and it was almost full at 10am on a random Friday (the south lot was closed so that might have something to do with it.) We know they just had an enduro race, opened up a feature called the hub and built a new trail within the last month. This seems to be where the local adults ride. There's a cool trail that circumnavigates the park called Oscar Loop, which half way through got us to the hub! We couldn't resist playing around on top for a bit doing the Cease and Desist drop a few times. We then went to finish Oscar Loop (which is a pretty techy & rocky XC loop) when Jess had a slow speed crash into a downed tree. She had a very deep thigh bruise and rode on it for a bit but once we stopped it stiffened. We finished our loop, had a snack and then climbed back up (walking) on Rock Solid to take some berm photos. We ended up walking the trail to the top to scout it for a run down. We then hit Fire Line, a machine built blue flow trail with amazing table tops! It was a great run for me as the jumps and berms all felt familiar so speed was super high! Jess bailed after and went to the car as I climbed back up. I wanted to check out more of Cease and Desist so I rolled that and ended up doing the whole thing (minus the optional diving board road gap) and it was fun. I thought I'd end on Rock Solid, it seemed tough but doable on my Pivot Mach 429 Trail. The drop in from the hub is amazing, a true test of nerve but pretty easy once you did it. Rock Solid ended up being fun but tiresome. The 1st minute I flew through rock gardens but after that there were some slight uphills and tougher rock gardens which I got through but were sapping my strength, speed and stamina. I made a mistake before the toughest rock garden and lost all of my speed, so I ended up taking a weak line down that garden before regaining the flow and speed as the trail pointed back down. Railed berm 1 but took a horrible line into berm 2 for a footdown slow roll of it and down to the lot. Awesome trail!

We packed up the car and considered skipping Two Rivers due to Jess' leg. It turned out to be a good thing as once we ate dinner she couldn't get up or walk. Definitely a deep thigh bruise (it's 2 weeks later and the bruise continues to grow!) We headed back through Des Moines and spent the night as we love it there and ate more amazing food before the final trek back to Madison. Can't wait to get back to Bentonville to hit the couple trails we missed and to better my skills for more fun at Coler!

Tips:
-Bentonville traffic is pretty crappy. The infrastructure definitely wasn't built with what it would become. Rush hour was worse than most medium sized cities.
-Phat Tire bike shop in downtown knows mountain bikes.
-Onyx coffee lab was the hippest place I've been, anywhere. But amazing (I could live off the nitro cold brew alone).

-Bentonville is the home office to Wal-Mart. And there were various Wal-Mart stores everywhere!
-Bentonville area has at least 5-6 skills parks/bike playgrounds/etc including 3 with children specific zones. If you bring the kids, bring their striders and bikes! The bike parks would blow our kids minds. Ours too!
-We come from a friendly state (Wisconsin). Travelled through an even friendlier state (Iowa). But wow, the people in NW Arkansas were even more friendly.
-Outerbike will be there in fall of 2018. Hopefully I will too!