Thanks Gordon, great pics and report. I was heading off to bed about an hour ago (off riding early in the morning) but just sat here and read / viewed your entire trip!

Must hook up and do that ride down your way soon..

I’ll have to get up to surrey hills again soon, trails donw my way are a bit slippy at the mo with all the rain

i’ve had to send mine back twice because of excessive bearing play after a few months of use – must be a known fault because everytime i’ve been given a new pair – no questions asked – At least theres a 3 years warranty on them , shame they are not as robust as the previous xtr predals

Mc

Yep arranged whole trip myself apart from the canyoning trip a mate of mine in st george put together

It really is very easy to get good info on the trails in USA before you go – so I plan out every day of my trips before i fly out

I usualy do at least 1 solo trip out to the states a year

check out my website

http://www.mtb-hol.com for some of my other trips out to the USA

My Favorite trail systems out in Phoenix are “Pima & Dynamite” and the “K-Trails” great flowing singletrack with enough rocky chuck in places to keep it interesting whilst – not needing body armour. – check out the links i posted more detail about the trails i rode over on mtbr

I also bought a bike from one of the german direct sale companies

I had one ride on it before I noticed a crack in the frame

It took close to 10 weeks until I received my bike back with a new frame.

I’m not naming the company as in the end they sorted it all out and everything has been put back on the new frame very cleanly.

Also I may need to send it back again at some point in the future, and the bike was much cheaper than anything you could buy from a bricks and morter shop in UK – so I guess you have to accept there may be some short comings in terms of service…

I think the moto from this story is dont buy a bike from a direct mail order company unless you have another bike you can ride for when anything goes wrong with your direct order bike…..

There no way you should need to go messing around dis-assembling pedals which are less than a year old

But luckily enough for me I bought the pdeals from a company with a great warranty department

2 Weeks after sending them back to chain reaction they have sent me some brand new ones

Hopefully this pair will last a lot longer like the m970 pedals did

Zinger, great website. Ive not really put a plan together yet just where id like to ride again im defo heading to moab as wanna do whole enchilada again as its awesome. Defo heading to Butte 401 is great trail, fruita yes there are a couple of rides there for sure. Some of the rides uve mentioned ive not heard of will look them up. Are you going out by yourself or as a group. Would be good to meet up on some rides. Im also heading out to California n nov you done any trails around san diago? mike

This trip is going to be another Solo trip for me
Not ridden down san diago way yet..

Hi Mike

I’ll be flying into Denver on 3rd September and will be flying home on 17th September

I’d be happy to do some rides out there with you – there’s a couple of rides that work best as shuttles that I want to do on this trip

Check out my website for some of the trips i’ve done out that way before

i.e. USA 2010 trip

I’m just putting together my trip , but i’m planning on riding in the following trails

Rough plan for my trip is

Denver – Vail – Breckenridge – Salida – Gunnison – crested butte -> telluride -> Cortez – Moab -> Fruita – Grand Junction – Denver

Some of the rides i’m planning on doing are

Vail ride – shrine pass -> bowmans short cut -> Two Elk Trail -> minturn

Copper Mountain to Searle Pass

Breckenridge – Wheeler trail -> Miners Creek Trail -> Gold Hill trail

Salida – Monarch Crest Trail

Gunnison – Hartmans Rocks

Crested butte – Dyke Trail / Trail 401

Telluride – Wasatch Trail

Cortez – Sand canyon / Phils World

Moab – Whole Enchilda

Fruita – Kokopelli trails / 18rd trails

Grand Junction – Lunch Loops , Butter knife, Flowing

there is some very nice riding around las vegas

Cottonwood canyon has some top singletrack trails

I’ve not ridden the cowboy trails – but have heard there some great techy singletarck there

And there’s a load of trails over at bootleg canyon from smooth singletrack to gnar downhill

Me and my wife are flying out to vegas this april and will get in a couple of rides in there before heading down to arizona

check out my web site for some maps and pics of rides we did out in las vegas

My MTB Website

Heres a picture taken over on the cottonwood trail system

climbingcragrat

I’ve got an epiphany and its got all the travel I need while still being nice and light – but I dont tend to go off down anything too gnarly

When your out on a long trip the last thing you want to do is crash hard on stuff that requries more than 4″ of travel, so I tend to ride in quite a timid fashion – getting off for anything I’m not 100% sure I’ll clear.

Plus the trails i like in the states usually require quite a bit of uphill riding to earn any downhill and my epiphany goes really well up hill

Hey ps44
Could you email me your mates contact details (my emails on my website) – if he’s interested in doing a a ride or two in september – mind you he will need to put up with me gasping like a fish going up the hills :D
A denver contact would be very handy
thanks
Zinger

We did a a trip out to Canada back in 2008 started in Calgary and flew out from Vancouver

here the route we took

If you check out our web site you’ll see maps , loads of pictures etc for the trip which may help you out on your trip

http://www.mtb-hol.com/Canada2008/Canada_2008_MTB.html

here’s a trip report from a trip we did to California back in 2005

http://www.mtb-hol.com/California2005/cal_2005.html

My Mountain Bike Holidays

Hey Spooky

As other have already said get up to the Chilcotins the riding up there was some of the best XC I did in Canada that wasn’t too extreme – other than the high chance of death by Grizzly Bear

Check out my web site for the trip me and my wife did out there in 2008

Canada 2008 MTB Holiday

Expect to do riding like this in Chilticons

The riding out in Idaho is Pretty Nice but with all the time you should think about taking in a few locations rather than just one

Park City in Utah has some great riding and is not too far from Sun Valley, and Bend Orgeon isnt too far away either

Once we did a great trip starting in Seattle and and ending in Denver

We rode some fantastic trails along the way and most of the riding was wife friendly

Check out my web site for a full trip report – plus trip reports to other parts of the states
Seattle to Denver MTB Rode Trip

Have a good Trip

i bought a 2800 last x-mas – it was terrible :( compared to a garmin – as has already been said its an old pda stuffed into a waterproof case

I’ve just bought a Garmin Orgeon 450 as an upgrade from my Vista Hcx and its great !! – you can get loads of maps for it free off the web – you can even download ariel sat maps onto it – Plus it takes 2 AA batterys – so you can always carry a few spares and never worry about running out of battery power on the trail :-)

just a canon ixus 200is point and shoot

My Maxxis Ardent 2.3″ LUST worked well for me a few weeks back in Moab – good grip and dont wear out too quickly on rock

more pics on this site

Whole Enchilda part 1

whole enchilda part 2

Make sure you do the whole enchilda – and dont forget to check out Fruita & GrandJunction for some sweet singletrack – as opposed to moab doubletrack

I’ve still not got my mag – just found section on their web site to report a missing issue https://www.circsource.com/store/csreport.html and filled in the form

I've just packed my bike for a trip to usa next week

Take rotors and qr's off wheels – put plastic end caps on hub cones – bike shops should have them spare – and put in wheel bags

Take off crank set & chain

Remove rear mech – put in jiffy bag and attach to inside of frame

Remove rear hanger

Turn handle bars to one side

Rotate brakes & gears downwards on bars – dont tighten up too much

put spacer's in between disk pads

put plastic protectors in front and rear dropout – bike shops will have those spare from bikes they have assembled

Make sure you put plenty of protection round rear of frame, and bottom of forks and BB

Put pipe lagging and all tubes on bike – then wrap in bubble wrap

dont let air out of tyres of shocks – but say you did if asked at check in counter

wrap bike in bubble wrap – then tie down in your bike bag

I've done this on loads of trips to states with no issues

gravity dropper multi drop with remote – been using mine for over two years fantastic bit of kit – just had to clean and grease it a few times and replace the remote cable after it got a bit sticky inside

thats the thing i dont like about these cranks – you have to use a lot of **** force to install them and to remove them – there's a reason why xtr 2011 has gone back to using two allen keys

bootleg (Boulder City) is further from central las vegas than Cottonwood (blue diamond) neither are rideable from the strip, as others have said you will need to rent a car

Boot legs quite good here's some pics from the last time i rode there

Bootleg canyon Trip

But I prefer the xc trails at cottonwood canyon

are you sure its not your saddle rails creaking where they go into the saddle ? – thats the only place i get creaks on my gravity dropper setup..

keppoch

As others have already said you'll be pushing your luck with riding the high trails in Colorado in October, This was us on the Monarch crest trail early October in 2004

But the weather in September can be superb – theres no afternoon thunderstorms, most of the bugs are dead as it gets cold in the evenings and the aspens will have started to turn so will be nice and pretty !!

I'd aim to ride some of the higher trails in sept and then head over to fruita in October

I've not done an organized trip myself to colorado or utah But there are so many good guide books you dont really need an organised trip

I'm flying out to Las Vegas on 17th April for a 2 week trip on my own – i'll be riding around Vegas, Flagstaff, Sedona, Prescot, Fallup, Cortez, Moab, Fruita, Grand Junction, thunder mtn, St George before heading home – it would be hard not to have a good mountain bike holiday out there 8-)

Check out my web site My Web site i've posted details of quite a few of my trips out to the states – It should give you some good pointers

As already said by CC get a Santander Zero credit card (No charges) – nationwide started charging for using their credit card outside of Europe last year

Ive got a Garmin etrex Vista Hcx which is great for recording and following routes – 2 * AA rechargable battery's will give you over 20 hrs of life

I did try an adventurer 2800 at x-mas but after 2 days it went back for a refund – complete bobbins compared to the garmin

You can get free topo maps from http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/view/133/%5B/url%5D

Used to run it with a garmin handle bar mount – but that left it too exposed to crash damage (although garmin do have a good cut price crash replacement policy)- i've now stem mounted it using this mount which is very good http://www.buybits.com/product/sku_3753.aspx and http://www.buybits.com/product.aspx?id=4653

As has already been said go ride over at CottonWood canyon great XC trails and fantastic scenery, The cowboy trails are near there as well I've not ridden there yet But i've heard the trails are quite rocky and technical in places – I'll be riding there this April :D though

Bootleg canyons has some more technical trails but its a bit further from the centre of Las Vegas

I've got more info from my last trip out there here

USA Trip 2008 Trip Report

We did a trip to Canada a few years back

Canada MTb Trip Report

Make sure you get up to the Chilcotins – the best XC trails i rode while out there were up there – as long as you don't mind sharing the trails with Grizzly bears !! – expect to be scared about riding around every corner !!!

Some pics from up in Chilcotins

just for info i bought a adventurer 2800 and within 4 days i sent it back to get a refund

IMHO its rubbish – ok so it displays nice 0S50 maps – but everything else on it is dire

You cant do basic things like set an onboard clock, see elevation data, speed, distance travelled etc

You even have to use a stylus to navigate round the interface

The user interface is pretty poor, and there seems to be nothing but complaints on the mm forum for the device

I bought an adventurer 2800 just before x-mas – after reading some good reviews and thinking that having os maps on a gps would be good

But the Adventurer 2800 device software is rubbish

Looks like they have taken an old windows ce 3 os , ripped anything useful out of it and then pasted in port of their PDA software

You cant even change the time on it – so my unit was saving all the files as 2017, you have to use a silly stylus and a minute on screen keyboard to enter any text on your waypoints etc

It has no useful screen like garmins have for average speed, distance , speed etc

The only good thing about it was the os50 maps displayed on screen nicely – although you could only zoom to 200m

Take a look at the MM 2800 forum its full of people moaning about the unit

I took mine back to evans and got a refund today !!

Its made me appreciate just how good the Garmi Vista Cx I have is – even though it dose not have pretty OS50 maps on it..

Hi Nice pics,

Where abouts are the elevated woodwork pictures taken ?, I've never managed to find the sections you took photos of , on my various forays around that area

If you cant post here please drop me a email on emailus@mtb-hol.com

Cheers

Zinger

South Downs near brighton

Cambria Bikes
Speedgoat
Beyond bikes

have shipped to a hotel for me on previous visits to the states

FOX Shocks & Fork are better value stateside, along with chris king stuff

Totally agrre with you the moment you ride your bike in wet gritty conditions – hey thats EVERY ride at the moment it starts making a right old racket

Not just my bike either my mates hope does exactly the same.

Plus the seals on the bearing themselves are naff – my bb had grit in the bearings after just a couple of rides (its just not sealed well enough) – once its completly knackered i'll be going back to shimano – or I might see if Santa will get me a chris king BB

should have mentioned its the first week in June – which most likely rules out most high altitude places..

twosheds – any nore inforamtion you can give other than just Lake Garda, the top end ?

thx

fantastic packs – I've got a Hyper 3 and it takes a standard camelbak bladder