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How many of you (DH Board), have taken a trip to go riding??

841 views 16 replies 15 participants last post by  P-Funk 
#1 ·
And I am not referring to going a few hours away. I mean packing up and taking a flight.

For the past 2 years my friends have put on the Jamaica Fat Tire Festival in Jamaica. We have had some of the best riders attend ...like:

Cameron McCaul
Robbie Bourdon
Thomas Vanderham
Jay Hoots
Katrina Strand
Kathy Pruitt
Kyle Ebbett
and more.......


They are working on next years event and would like to increase the attendance. When I suggested that they made the trails a little more XC friendly, they were totally against it. My reasons for suggesting this is that the people that are into the DH and Freeride scene are younger than the XC scene. Frankly, I don't think they have the $$$ to go on a trip like they have organized. If we take a look at the numbers alone, the XC/AM crowd is 10x as big.

Let me hear your thoughts....
 
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#2 ·
Yeah the XC/AM crowd is definitely older on average. Also there are so many amazing places to ride downhill in the US or Canada it's hard to justify paying for international flights. I personally would think about flying down if it was DH oriented but I fly for free or close to it.
 
#7 ·
I try to go to BC once a year and I typically go to Quebec (Bromont, MSA) once or twice a year too. I have a bunch of friends who go on biking trips as well. We're all mid-30s or so. It seemed to me that there were a good number of riders my age or so at Whistler and definitely on the North Shore. I'd certainly be interested in riding in Jamaica... :D What time of year do you have the festival?
 
#10 ·
I would have to agree with you in saying that the majority of the DH crowd is on the younger side and either dont have the money to race in Jamaica or they dont want to spend it becuase they are short on money due to college etc...Even if you made it more XC/AM friendly there might not be a huge increase in attendees just because airfare is getting so expensive. I know United is charging an extra $50(each way) for each bag after your first which gets pretty expensive fast, I wouldnt be suprised to see other airlines add on addtional fees like this(although $50 seems pretty steep, I could see maybe $25 each way or something) in the near future.
 
#11 ·
I have, but it's getting way more expensive with all the overage fees on baggage. Some buddies and I are planning on going to CO in the end of summer or fall and I am planning on driving. Even with the price of gas, if I figure in airfare, rental car, and renting or transporting a bike, driving is still the cheaper alternative.
 
#12 ·
Hey YaMon, thanks for posting this up. THe comments so far are interesting. As one of the Jamaica based organizers I kinda disagree with YaMon's description of our festival being DH based, it really is already more AM, it just happened that we ended up with a bunch of freeride people here.I already recommend riders to bring an AM bike, Enduro,575 etc cos it would be a ***** trying to ride up some of our hills with a full on freeride bike. We do some shuttles [there are definitely no chairlifts],but we do not have races and we also do a fair bit of uphill stuff. Our trails aren't for beginners but they are not packed with stunts or big drops/jumps, just lots of fun! If you saw Hoot's write up on NSMB he said nothing was too difficult for the average rider. Anyway it is somewhere fun to ride in February and Jamaica is kinda unique!!
 
#17 ·
I'm 40 years old and I ride DH/FR/XC/AM, etc.... I have never flown anywhere just to ride. I have driven from the L.A. area to Keystone to ride DH for a week. Not a fun drive, but worth it. For DH I would probably only fly to Whistler or maybe the Portes Du Soleil area. I will ride both of those someday.
 
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