Cycle
Report from Saturday and Sunday, September 21 & 22, 2024
What a wonderful summer it has been.
But all things must come to an end.
The weather aligned this past weekend in Northern Utah to make for some of the best mountain biking conditions you could ask for on Deer Valley’s closing weekend for its bike park.
On Saturday, we made the short drive from Salt Lake to Deer Valley to kiss off the bike park’s season the best way we know how: by riding mountain bikes round and round and round with your friends.
Spread over six mountains and featuring up to 3,000 vertical feet of elevation change, Deer Valley Resort offers nearly 60 miles of mountain bike trails.
We started the morning by riding up Silver Lake from the Snowpark base area to get to Sterling Express, where we would spend the day riding.
A friendly lifty recommended to us to warm up on Naildriver, which is exactly what we did.
It was smooth and not chunky with a nice flow—great first trail of the day to get comfortable with the trails.
The top section had an incredible view of the Wasatch with an ominous Mount Timpanogos looming in the distance.
Trees were starting to change colors and as we descended through the middle section of the trail, the forest turned into a kaleidoscope of fall colors.
Red, pink, orange, yellow.
What a lovely way to die.
From there we rode the blue trail Tidal Waves, which also had great flow to it and a long series of fun jumps.
With speed, you could catch good air on the jumps but there was also an option to go around them if you pleased.
By mid-afternoon, we were feeling good and decided to try the black trail Twist and Shout.
This was a super fun trail that had a fast, flowy upper section with a big jump line followed by a tight, twisty, and techy path through thick forest.
The crux of the run was an ultra-tight hairpin turn over a tree-root system that we had to walk our bikes over the first few times.
I was determined to flow it, and after several attempts, I found a narrow line on the right side of the root system that plopped me squarely onto the other side.
Success.
We hit Twist and Shout and Tidal Wave again but were chased out by an incoming thunderstorm, narrowly dodging the downpour.
We left Deer Valley still hungry for more.
On Sunday we showed up with an appetite.
We went back to Sterling Express, took one warm-up lap on Naildriver, and got straight to business.
From there were hit Tsunami, a black trail with an exciting jump line to start.
I hit the jumps with speed, chasing after my buddies who are much better at riding than me.
The day was starting off real good—and the weather was perfect.
It was sunny, no clouds, and cool but not-cold-at-all all temperatures.
This was Closing Day, and the people were stoked; everyone was seemingly laughing, having fun, and sending it hard on Deer Valley’s trails.
After Tsunami we took the Carpenter chair up to the other side by the Snowpark Base area and rode Undertow.
Undertow was an open and fast track that held big, wide, ultra-smooth berms that you could take at speed.
It also had some floaty jumps that you could air with grace.
This was my favorite trail of the weekend.
After that we hit another on Regulator, a trail similar to Undertown but a bit mellower.
The berms were pristine and the dirt was smooth as butter.
We were having a lot of fun at this point.
After that, we went back to Sterling, where we rode Twist and Shout.
This time I went into the crux at the root system a bit too cocky and crashed, breaking my rear brake pedal.
Better a brake than a wrist, I told my riding buddy.
My day was done at this point so I hung out near the Sterling Chair while my buddies got a couple of more laps, eating ice cream and working on my tan.
Not a bad place to chill at all.
For the run down, we biked up to Regulator and cruised down to the Snowpark base.
I took it mellow since I only had my front brake.
I still ended up crashing one time.
All in good fun.
In the parking lot, the people were stoked and celebrating the end of a beautiful summer season at Deer Valley, drinking, laughing, and smiling.
The sun was getting low, illuminating the fall colors on the mountainside, making the whole area come alive with a firey glow.
We were stoked for knew it wouldn’t be long now until Deer Valley’s next Opening Day to kick off the winter season.
All good things must come to an end.
But with every ending, there is a new beginning.
