I think I speak for 99% of mountain bikers when I say the purpose of climbing is to get to the next descent. Amirite? With that in mind, sometimes we have a choice: climb up the singletrack then bomb back down OR take a fire road to the top and ride singletrack down. Given the choice, we want to know which you prefer!
(And just to be clear, it’s never OK to ride singletrack up and fire road down. That makes no sense.😁 )
I think this survey needs a little more detail. I would love to climb the single track but I want to give my fellow mt bikers who are descending a clean shot without anyone in the way.
In my neck of the woods it’s fire road climbs and single track descents
If your trails are obligate directional due to the volume of riders that is one thing, but I have met people on the trail that will not yield because they think you’d be crazy to climb a certain trail. IMO this is super not cool. Just because you may be accustomed to park/shuttle riding does not mean that the same rules apply everywhere.
Riding up a techy black diamond is a killer core workout, and the skills and strength required to huck UP the drop are deserving of respect.
Singletrack UP, Singletrack DOWN.
In my area, the fire roads/jeep trails usually only lead to trailheads and do not intersect the MTB trails at all (or at useful junctions). So you’re pretty much forced to ride singletrack up and down. Personally, I like the challenge.
Singletrack! All singletrack, all the time…
Hey, I like the climb! I’ve never been an adrenaline junkie. I’m out there to sweat and work and enjoy the scenery. I probably have climbed the singletrack and descended the fire road more than once!
Singletrack whenever possible: I don’t gravel bike. I mountain bike.
My ego picks singletrack for the sake of making pleasant memories. Legs, joints, heart, and rest of body pick the least painful option. Besides stamina cost, the time, money, boredom, and inconvenience (coping with traffic) cost can be kind of painful too. Some bikes, like budget and mid/long-travel bikes, make singletrack climbs more painful. Brain seems to think in some return-on-investment kind of way, wanting a good reward for whatever was put in. If I put a lot of work into fitness and money into a high performance lightweight bike, I’d want to get more out of it, challenging myself on singletrack that forces me to ride a certain line up the trail.
SoCal’s Snow Summit/Big Bear, SkyPark, Rim Nordic, Snow Valley, Exploration Trail area give a choice, and I can say that climbing singletrack isn’t picked the vast majority of the time. At Greer Ranch, there’s at least one fireroad climb that I prefer. At my all-time favorite trail network, Riverside’s Sycamore Canyon, fireroads aren’t avoided. They’re the default choice, but we often pick diff routes to change things up, so things never feel old. Lots of Orange County Cali stuff is old school fireroad climbing, but I don’t think people consider that there’s much of a choice there, to conveniently access the descents they want.
I love the idea of uphill singletrack flow on an ebike. Had this experience at a Haibike demo event, hammering things in Turbo/Boost for a wild new experience, but I generally like long epic rides, so battery life would be an issue.
My ego picks singletrack for the sake of making pleasant memories. Legs, joints, heart, and rest of body pick the least painful option. Besides stamina cost, the time, money, and inconvenience (coping with traffic) cost can be kind of painful too. Some bikes, like budget and mid/long-travel bikes, make singletrack climbs more painful. Brain seems to think in some return-on-investment kind of way, wanting a good reward for whatever was put in. If I put a lot of work into fitness and money into a high performance lightweight bike, I’d want to get more out of it, challenging myself on singletrack that forces me to ride a certain line up the trail.
SoCal’s Snow Summit/Big Bear, SkyPark, Rim Nordic, Snow Valley, Exploration Trail area give a choice, and I can say that climbing singletrack isn’t picked the vast majority of the time. At Greer Ranch, there’s at least one fireroad climb that I prefer. At my all-time favorite trail network, Riverside’s Sycamore Canyon, fireroads aren’t avoided. They’re the default choice, but we often pick diff routes to change things up, so things never feel old. Lots of Orange County Cali stuff is old school fireroad climbing, but I don’t think people consider that there’s much of a choice there, to conveniently access the descents they want.
I love the idea of uphill singletrack flow on an ebike. Had this experience at a Haibike demo event, hammering things in Turbo/Boost for a wild new experience, but I generally like long epic rides, so battery life would be an issue.
You are always good for a novel 🤪
Singletrack climbs are more interesting, but it really depends on the trail. Some descents are simply too gnarly to climb up (Heartbreak comes to mind) without more hike a bike than necessary.
I’d love to have some fire road going up to ease some suffering but our trails are all single track and mostly steep and rocky with small amounts of flow here and there. Singletracks it is
does depend how tired I am, after about 6 or 7 hours I start to prefer firetrails or quite roads even
Climbing has become my passion, it has allowed for a much stronger approach to other biking disciplines to include better heart rate numbers and set intensity minute goals.
Yea downhill is fun however it’s easy for the most part at my +65 age I prefer challenging environments just because it gives me a sense of accomplishment.
It does not matter if it’s single or double track it all about riding
The thing with mountain biking is that you can always make it harder by going faster. Downhill is only easy if you ride the brakes and even then, some trails are not easy no matter how slow you take it.
Singletrack. I feel like I’m working half as hard because the fun tamps down the suffering!
The classic example is the way up to five points at bent creek, Asheville NC.
Sure, you can take the fire road up, or you can puzzle together the climb up Ingles field gap instead, watching for the riders coming downhill and giving them a clear pass and a hoot!
Then, keep on climbing up to the top of greens lick, descend that, back up to five points and down IFG again.
I usually choose the singletrack climb on that ride and never regret it.
so… why does the super geezer in the pic above have his dropper post down? Looking at those pec’s… he truly is super geezer.
I won’t say I have a preference. I’m planning large ride Sunday that will be a mix, self shuttling a bike park (NOT an eBike) and I will rotate between the ST, FR, and paved options. What I like about the FR is I can zone out for a bit, maybe enjoy the views or some audio, probably pace my efforts a little better (helpful on the bigger efforts). But a good ST is always enjoyable too.