Report from Thursday, August 1:
Located just on the outskirts of the bustling town of North Conway, New Hampshire, Cranmore Mountain Resort offers a very family-oriented experience with many different activities, from skiing during the winter to mountain biking and scenic lift rides during the summer.
On August 1, my dad and I decided to go downhill mountain biking at Cranmore. Neither of us had ever done it before, but I had bought a bike the season before, hoping to finally try it out this summer. My dad did not have a bike, though, so we needed to find the right place for him to rent one for the day. Sun & Ski Sports in North Conway seemed to be the right place, as an adult bike rental only costs $39.99 for the day.
We arrived at Sun & Ski Sports at about 9:45 a.m. in an attempt to be some of the first ones there for the 10:00 a.m. opening. The staff there opened the doors slightly early for us, at 9:55 am, which was great, as we wanted to pick up the bike as early as possible. The rental process was very easy, as we only needed to fill out a waiver and then pay. The staff then found my dad the right size bike and sent us on our way.
We pulled into Cranmore’s parking lot at approximately 10:15 am, slightly later than our anticipated arrival. We quickly put on our gear and set off for the lift, which was very conveniently marked, with signage pointing to it from the parking lot.
Once we found our way to the lift, we were greeted by a lift attendant, who showed us how to load our bikes onto the lift. Once our bikes were secured, we hopped on the chair after to ride up the mountain.
We unloaded our bikes at the top and pedaled over to look at the trail map. We chose the trail “Day at the Beech” because it was a green flow trail, which we thought would be good for our warm-up run.
Day at the Beech was amazing. The berms were perfectly placed to carry speed and the rollers were just the right size for pumping over them. In my opinion, it was pretty much a perfect beginner trail.
After Day at the Beech, we decided that we should try out another green trail before attempting a blue. Our only other option for a green flow trail was The Learning Curve.
The Learning Curve was pretty awesome too, with very similar features and berms as its sister trail, Day at the Beech. The rain from the night before was much more noticeable on The Learning Curve, though, as there were multiple large puddles and areas that were washed out on the trail. We both agreed that overall it was still pretty fun, regardless of the puddles.
Once we reached the bottom off the mountain, we took a quick water break. We were both worried about dehydration, because it was about 90°F outside, and we were just sitting in the sun and sweating on the lift.
After our water break, we took a few more runs, on some of the blue flow trails before calling it a day. The blue trails were all pretty fun, and one of them, Twister, even had a jump line, which I enjoyed thoroughly, until I crashed on the last run.
Overall, Cranmore is a great bike park, especially for beginners. The bottom line is that it is a pretty small bike park, with only nine trails, but out of those nine trails, eight of them are greens and blues, which means that there are still quite a few options for beginners. The runs are also not very long, only taking about five minutes from top to bottom, which would allow beginners with less endurance to enjoy it more.
