Snow Summit Bike Park
Opening day 2020, hell ya!.. It actually happened. Definitely a shaky start to 2020 but the Snow Summit Bike Park is officially open. In years passed they have opened towards the beginning of May.
That means we’ve only missed out on a month of talking about how bad the breaking bumps are. All while being gently whisked up a hill on a chair lift.
Snow Summit Bike Park Review
My opinion
The bike park is good.
Compared to other bike parks around the world it’s not so good.
But for California, it’s good.
There are some factors in play limiting what they are able to do with their land at Snow Summit. Taking that into consideration I will cut them some more slack in regards to their shortcomings.
As far as I know their land is leased from either State or National Park inteties. It makes it a difficult and slow process to add trails.
Breaking bumps
The biggest complaint I hear from people about the bike park at snow summit is:
- Breaking bumps
And yes while this is very true, there are breaking bumps at the bike park.
Seemingly they do nothing as far as grooming because the breaking bumps from last year somehow survived the winter to still be there at the beginning of this bike park season.
Yes, it gets bumpy
And
Yes, it seems like they never do trail maintenance.
In my opinion it is never as bad as people make it out to be. Having said that though if they did do maintenance it would be so much better!
Bike Park Layout
What’s new for 2020!? drum roll….. nothing??!!
They are in fact working on a new trail called “Blue Steel“. This looks to be a intermediate level jumpline to bridge the gap between “turtle” and “party wave”. So that is will definitely be a good addition for the majority of riders. And with “double black diamond” “10 ply” being added last year. That looks promising for the future of improvement of the Snow Summit Bike Park.
Thursday Season Pass Holder Day
Being a season Pass holder I was able to make it up to the bike park on the day before the official “opening day”. They had chair 1 open and the stoked level was high! I’m really happy I made it up on Thursday because Friday was terrible.
Quick overview:
Lips of jumps are all in perfect condition. Trails are loose. After flipping through IG it seems like a lot of people were struggling with that. I saw a few epic yard sales from the lift.
Miracle mile
Is running good! for whatever reason to me it feels like the upper half is rockyer or rougher or something. But it’s good, that trail needs to bring the gnar.
10 ply
I like the loose sandy soil on 10 ply. I’ll call it SoCal Loam. The rock gardens are feeling rocky. For me it’s just missing a few ruts to rail in the corners but those will come in time. It didn’t seem to be getting much action when I was up there. see video below..
Party Wave
As to be expected.. good .. see video above
Friday “Opening Day”
What made Friday terrible was a 40+ min lift line wait time. I think I did 2 runs on friday and decided to be done. I could only imagine Saturday and Sunday being worse.
Big Bear, Past, Present and Future
Big Bear has a rich mountain bike history, hosting NORBA and MTB world cup races up until the beginning of the 2000’s. In 2019 they had the FOX US OPEN on the west coast for the first time in some 14 years. As I understand that is a 3 or 4 year deal as well. Snow Summit is investing more time and effort into their trails. While progress might seem slow, the long game is looking good. If I live to see another World Cup at Big Bear I would shit myself in excitement..
Conclusion
GO RIDE! The weather is nice and you get your money’s worth $55 smackers for the day or $299 for the season. not too shabby. Mountain bike trails get beat up, embrace the unexpectedly sandy berms and chop.
Could they do a better job grooming the trials?
Absolutely they could.
But, there is a chair lift, some jumps and some otherwise fun trails.
