These are rides, NOT races. They are for socializing and trying new trails while having fun mountain biking and getting exercise. See the ride page HERE.
09-09-2025 - Murphy Dome Scenic Scoot - Very Scenic!
Report by Eric
The Scenic Scoot did not disappoint! We had nice views and beautiful colors! Some clouds, but they were high. Best of all, no rain and fog like last year!
Four of us did the ride this year, the last official ride for the TNRs. We had a great time riding down the ATV trail, especially navigating the really steep and chunky part. Jonathan said he wished he had brought his knee pads for that, but no crashies, so it was all good.
We then checked out the stone sofa and chairs just off the 14-Mile Trail/Road, which had great views this year. Dean recalled last year, when I tried to describe the view to him while we sat in a cloud on the sofa and chairs huddled against the rain and wind.
While there, we were entertained by a pack of dogs, including one called Rambo, who struggled to navigate over large rocks. (He's ready for adoption for any Sly Stone fans who want a small wiener-ish dog!)
Unfortunately, as we were leaving, someone noticed that Kurt had rolled over some fresh dog doo. He spent the next few minutes, trying to clear his back tire of the offending goo. He didn't have much success. So, we head down the road, giving Kurt a lot of buffer room!
Eventually, we turned off the road onto another ATV trail, each of us making it as far as we could up the increasingly rocky and steep trail. No one made it all the way, but before we got to the top Jonathan got back on his bike after the worst part. The rest of us sighed and got back on our bikes. (We were enjoying the hike-a-bike!)
I led them to the far point of the ride, the scenic wow point, and they were all awed. That Minto Flats has a lot of water is well known, but, as Jonathan said: "There's just so much water!" It doesn't hit you until you see it. Everyone agreed the ride was worth the view from this one spot. (Dean had been there last year, but the only view he saw was white!)
We shared the view with some hunters, who had set up camp nearby, but they didn't bother us and we didn't seem to bother them. In fact, the whole ride was populated by a variety of other folks, some hunters, but others who just seem to be out enjoying autumn in the Murphy Dome area.
We started heading back, taking in one more spectacular viewpoint, this one looking out over the valley between us and Ester Dome. The colors were outstanding!
Then we headed back on the road, being entertained by Jonathan, who is practicing his bike hopping by hopping over puddles and such. He's getting pretty good air. Kurt tried to copy him. He might have cleared a pebble, maybe. Eric couldn't even clear a pebble.
Finally, it was time to climb the trail back to the cars. Each of us pushed the others to climb higher. None of us climbed everything, but we probably did more than we would have on our own.
Then it was back to the cars for some well deserved snacks. Everyone agreed that the drive all the way out to Murphy Dome was worth it for this ride with spectacular views.
Bonus safety warning:
A friend was playing a game with his daughter, but he wasn't looking where he was going and he fell down the stairs. He's in the hospital now in serious condition.
It's quite a tragedy. Straight from Peek-a-book to ICU.
Safety warning from a dad, that is.
Pics by Jonathan, Dean, and Eric
09-02-2025 - Waterford Trail Plus - plus some trees and puddles
Report by Eric
Great ride with Dean, Matt, and Kurt! The rainy morning turned into a nice evening!
Waterford was in good shape. Just some puddles here and there, some bigger than others.
The Old Murphy Dome Road Powerline Trail was interesting. GVEA had "mown" it a couple of years ago. Now it's starting to grow back and apparently hardly anyone on 4-wheelers is using it. The trail was barely there but rideable the whole way. Made for some interesting mini-navigation choices.
The connector down to the Eldorado Creek Trail was fine -- except for the dozen or so trees across the trail! Seemed fine at first, then tree, tree, tree, tree….. Almost all too big for my handsaw and I didn't want to be out until midnight. So, just lots of upper body workout lifting our bikes. Someone needs to get down there with a chainsaw.
Finally, hit the Eldorado Creek Trail. I couldn't convince anyone to go downstream (where there is delicious swamp!), so we went uphill and found a consolation prize -- a couple of mud holes. Then it was a long grind to the top -- literally and figuratively, as Dean's bike picked up a mysterious grinding noise. It wasn't too serious though, so we decided he needed to clean off all the muck and see if the noise was still there before getting worried. The ride up did include some slips and slides as the trail was wet from the earlier rain.
Finally, it was a hoot of a descent down Waterford back to the cars. (With some caution thrown in because of the wet, slightly slippery trail.) Is there ever a time when going down Waterford isn't fun?
Next week: the Murphy Dome Scenic Scoot. It's a bit of a drive, but the scenery can be awesome!
Pics by Eric and Matt
08-26-2025 - Moose Mountain Motoring - sort of
Report by Eric
Just Dean and me tonight for the second week in a row. Too bad, as the rainy day turned into an awesome evening!
The ride started good, though I realized I had made a bonehead move. I filled my water bottle and then left it at home! So, grabbed one of the group fizzy waters and threw it in my frame bag.
Always a tough, long climb in the beginning. But when we got to the top -- surprise! -- Moose Mountain Trail had been rerouted away from the top of the Moose Mountain ski area. Not sure when that happened. It connected at the bottom of the first hill and we were back on the original route. I'll try to find out the reason for the reroute. It's fine, but the original downhill there was fun to bomb down and crank back up on bike. A little trickier on skis.
Then we found another side trail near the end of Moose Mountain Trail as you near the old Love missile site. I thought it was just a minor diversion, but it goes to the top of the ridge and then starts heading down into the valley to the east. Gonna have to explore that sometime.
Then we bombed down to and along Old Murphy Dome Road. As we started to climb and look for the Rabbit Trail, we were passed by the Goldstream Sports guys on their gravel bikes. We invited them to do the Rabbit Trail with us, but they declined. Wonder why?! But we should have followed them.
We soon realized we had gone too far. We went back down, searching for the hard-to-find Rabbit Trail and had no luck. Using my phone I called up the Ride with GPS route from the FCC website and that led us to the trail entrance, which was almost totally hidden from grass and some fallen alders.
We spent some time clearing out the alders and pushed our bikes through only to find three trees across the trail right away. I figured that was a sign of things to come if we continued down the trail. Dean agreed and we backtracked. Not sure if the Rabbit Trail will stay on the schedule. We'll see.
After getting back out to Old Murphy Dome Road, we had two choices: backtrack some more and hope that there was some sort of trail down the Fort Knox power line or be wise and take the guaranteed route down Spinach Creek Road. We did the latter. I must be getting old.
Made it back to the cars after some awesome bombing downhills on Spinach Creek!
Sadly, though, by missing the Rabbit Trail, we had no real swamp this ride. 🙁 But at least Dean had a nice slow motion crash!
08-12-2025 - Cache Creek Cranking - No disasters!
Report by Eric
Great ride with four of us. Should have been more, because it was a great night out and it's a great trail!
First ride of the season with me back. I did not disappoint completely. No, I didn't find any swamp, but I did get us lost a teeny bit. Took a wrong turn and rode to Abraham Road on someone's driveway. And this with me using the Ride with GPS track and app. The app even told me I was off course, but I was yacking too much to notice until it was too late. The app tells you you're off course with a little tone that ends on a high note, like a question. It does it occasionally when you are off course. When you get back on course, it tells you with a tone that ends on a low note, like a statement. I felt like R2D2 had taken over my phone!
This ride has a nice -- mostly trail -- climb. It appears to be a roughed-in road that was never completed. (Google Maps shows it as a road - Seward Road.) The first part is a rough road. The second part is a nice trail with a gentle climb, though there were some trees we had to duck under. Generally, though, it's pretty clear.
Then you're back on subdivision roads for a while, then back on trail (unless you ignore your Ride with GPS and you end up on someone's driveway - whoops!). (On the first group ride of this route a couple of years ago -- which was unofficial because the official ride was canceled due to smoke -- I took Tony down a grassy trail that headed down when we should have been going up. We finally figured it out and backtracked. Didn't have Ride with GPS back then.)
The two-track trail descent was as awesome as it has always been. Someone keeps it brushed out. Down lower, we ran across a logging operation and thought the rest of the ride had been turned into a logging road. Not a big deal, this is state forest land after all. But then the newly built logging road turned off the trail and we had more fun trail to complete down to Cache Creek Road. And this time Glenn didn't catch a stick and explode his derailleur (like happened last year). He was very happy about that!
From there it was a ride and chat back, though we did stop at one intersection and discussed the possibility of adding on one more logging road that heads down from Cache Creek. I've ridden it before with Corrine, but it just dead-ended in a loop. However, a little higher on Cache Creek we saw a rough road/trail heading down in that direction! Maybe we can add that in as an option. Unfortunately, I know there's no swamp down there, but it might be a fun add-on anyway.
08-05-2025 - Pandora Pounding (There's a reason for the name!)
Report by Glenn
So 4 of us met at the Eldorado Creek Trail pullout to right the vaunted Pandora Pounding. Infamous for Spankies, and last year's add-on of Kurt’s Knut Buster. Luckily with Eric still somewhere other than overseeing FCC rides, we cut the Knut Buster off right from the start!
Kurt wisely decided to swap out the front brakes on his bike today. Sadly, they rubbed the whole ride. He should be good next week.
We started riding, got to the fire house, and it was only Dean and Glenn. Kurt quickly joined, but we had lost Ben! How do you lose Ben in a mile-and-a-half along the road you ask? We had no idea either. Suddenly, Ben pulls up in his car. “Ride without me guys, my derailleur battery is dead.” Ah mystery solved. For a second we were all bummed, then Glenn remembered: "I have a spare right here!" So quick battery change and off we went.
The normal trail we take was overgrown and brushed in from last October’s snowstorm. Quick detour on a dirt road and we were back on track. Waterford Trail had quite a lot of washout on it from some heavy rainstorms. Still rideable but now you have to avoid ruts and deep washout.
Got to almost the top of Waterford and the skies opened up. No rain was in the forecast, it just happened to be a passing cloud, reminding us that it’s not a ride without water of some sort. Got to the Murphy Dome trail along the powerline. GVEA had recently brushed both sides of the powerline. Both Ben and Glenn were not thrilled about the potential of having to buy new AXS derailleurs due to the large debris getting jammed in them. So we continued along Old Murphy Dome road. We found the turn for the trail and got back on track. Started down the trail to Spankies. About half through Spankies, Ben cursed Glenn for having a fully charged spare AXS battery.
We rode Spankies until it came out on Green Leaf. So far Glenn’s Garmin kept us on track. The Garmin led us to Cranberry Trail, which none of us had ridden before. What a pleasant and delightful surprise that was! Went back to the start point and had our usual post ride snack. Oh yeah Ben is probably getting rid of his AXS for mechanical XT.
And this add-on from "I never learn" Ben:
I've been riding the Spanky's trail for like 25 years. It sucked on my 1999 Stumpjumper 26x1.9" 80mm travel bike.
Now with my 2024 29x2.5" 140mm travel bike, it still sucks.
07-29-2025 - Mr. Toad’s Wet and Wild Ride
Report by Glenn
Three of us showed up for tonight’s ride. Just call us the three Mudstakeers! After raining the last two days, the clouds broke and the rain stopped as the ride began.
We started off heading toward St Patrick’s. Garrett was taking the night off from the campaign trail to ride the local trails. Like all politicians, he lied. He dropped off a campaign sign at SAD’s (Slow Ass Dave) house. From there up St Patrick we went. We hit the Equinox connector to Outer Loop of the Ester Done Single Track. We decided to stay on the Outer Loop until it connected to Ester Dome Road. Trails were wet but firm so we decided on the longer “easier” climb vs the short, steep, rooty climb. Once on Ester Dome Road we went down the road looking for the Equinox Trail. We turned left, and started to climb, for about two miles.
Got back on Ester Dome Road and then turned left onto a nice downhill (Little Italy according to Strava) that took us to Henderson Road. We missed the right turn to JARR, but we were good with that. Hit the Henderson Drop-in and took the Outer Loop back down to St Patrick.
Quick wash of the chunky and sticky stuff off at Goldstream Sports, followed by snacks. Was a great ride even with all the rain right up until the start.
07-22-2025 - Get Lost, Get Wet, Have Fun!
Report by Matt
Oh the importance of having someone pre-ride the route. Six of us showed up, myself, Dylan, Dean, Garrett, Miles, and Kurt. After some initial confusion with the group following Dean out to the highway and over to Eva Creek Road we realized that we weren’t headed out on the planned route. At least I had the foresight to load the route onto my bike computer, so we turned around and headed towards downtown Ester.
Because nobody had done anything other than give a cursory look at the route, we ended up making another wrong turn onto Stone Rd instead of going through downtown Ester and hopping onto the Eva Creek Trail. After a couple minor disagreements about which way to go (my GPS kept trying to re-route us back onto the planned route) Garrett and Miles consulted the map and determined that they were heading the right way. It wasn’t until we left the road and started descending on a trail that we realized that we were in fact doing the route backwards (like my GPS kept telling me). So I stopped the route, and re-started it reversed so at least everyone would be using the same route plan.
Lots of wet puddles that would have made Eric happy, and enough steep and rocky climbing/pushing that it made it feel like my 4750’ Denali Park ride a couple days ago feel like a walk in the park, and we finally reached the top. Kind of. We re-grouped and made the final push up to the towers where several people debated the merits of following the trail as planned vs. just taking Henderson Rd. back to the park in Ester. Garrett, myself, and Dylan (like he had a choice 🧐) took the trail down while the rest of the group opted for the road.
The trail down wasn’t any better than the trail up, just instead of rocky steep pushing, there was tunnels of low hanging trees that you had to just push through while crouching low enough that they wouldn’t rip the helmet off your head. Finally we met back up with a clear section of trail at the 4-way split, and we bombed back downhill to the park. Not the worst ride I’ve ever done, but I’m not sure it’s one I want to do again unless the trail has seen some badly needed maintenance. Pretty sure Dylan agrees with me on this one, and he’s usually pretty tolerant of my “forced family fun” rides. 🤷♂️
07-16-2025 - Get Wet, Get Dirty, Get Clean
Report by Glenn
It was a dark and stormy night. Well not really, but there was enough rain that most of the riders wore light rain jackets at least. Six riders on two wheels showed up. We did have a rider on one wheel and two dogs tag along.
The ride up to Saint Patrick’s was uneventful, but we were excited for Dylan as he was on a new to him MTB. His usual steed of a great front suspension fatbike now put away for the summer. The connect from St Patrick’s to the singletrack was really only greasy right at the start. The rest was damp but firm.
The group started with Jonathon leading and taking us clockwise on the outer loop. Somewhere in there was BAD (Bad A$$ Dean) with SAG (Slower A$$ Glenn) and SAD (Slow A$$ Dave) brining up the rear. Oh and Moe on the Onewheel.
The group road to the kiss and then went counterclockwise on the inner loop. After a quick detour on Helter Skelter the group split up. Matt and Dylan left to eat dinner. Rumor has Dylan is really a Gremlin and needs to be fed by 9pm. Moe also broke off. Luckily his dogs went with him. The group continued along the Inner Loop, doing a quick hike a bike on a bandit trail to get to the Outer Loop. From there we proceeded clockwise along the outer loop back to St Patrick’s.
Once on the road back to where the cars were Jonathon reminded us the Goldstream Sports had installed an outdoor wash station. We all went and cleaned the mud and debris of the bikes before heading back to the cars for snacks and a soda. Was very nice not having to put a muddy dirty bike in the back of our cars.
Pics by Matt, Jonathan, and Glenn
06-17-2025 - Hot Times on Ester Dome
Report by Jonathan
Three of us braved the 80F+ heat for the Eva Creek Event up and then down Ester Dome. Thankfully it was overcast and windy. But not windy enough to take care of the swarms of mosquitoes. Sorry Fairbanks, we just fed the next hoard. We decided on a couple of short deviations from the route including a steep one. Thankfully we all had opted to bring bigger travel bikes with big brakes! All in all a good ride with much fun to be had on the way down.
06-03-2025 - Setting Up For a Fall…And a Fall…And a Fall…And…
Report by Jonathan
We had 11 brave souls embark on this expedition up Skyline Ridge…only 8 returned.
Glenn was forced to head home early when his rear brake decided to give up the ghost on the climb. The rest of us successfully reached the top where we were only lightly snacked upon by mosquitos before pointing our bikes downhill for some well earned fun. After Hours and Overtime were fantastic and everyone had a great time!
Until Secret Trail that is…. That was the beginning of the end. The next two to fall were Matt and Dillon. They had to leave for some reason, something about food as that was the fastest we had seen Dillon ride all evening. (Matt replies: Hey now, Dylan wasn’t hungry until after we did Secret Trail. He’s like a gremlin, I have to feed him by 9pm or he turns into a monster. 👿)
Then on the way down Secret, Dean fell over on and became one with a tree. Then Dave fell over and became one with a tree. Dave and Dean proceeded to have an unspoken contest for the rest of the ride, who could fall over the most as we entered Heart of Darkness. At this point I'm playing caboose as Dean is a bit more disoriented than usual and I'd rather not have either of them be the caboose for the ride at this point.
It's a good thing I made that decision cause Dave smashed his fork mounted water bottle into a tree and broke it. This was a rather frustrating mechanical cause neither of us had enough straps or zip ties to get the cage out of the way of the front wheel. Eventually he just strapped it to his top tube and dealt with flopping all over for the rest of the ride. Then he fell over. Then Dean tried to fall over, then Dave, then Dean clipped a tree…. I think Dave fell over again. It took a while to get out of Heart of Darkness.
Finally reunited with the rest of the group, someone said something about checking out a bunker down the hill from us. So there we were, 8 dudes on bikes in the woods looking at a concrete bunker in the hills above Fairbanks. Sketchy AF. Thankfully we didn't die and no one crashed heading back to the cars.
05-20-2025 - A SAD SAGa full of FAD and wet roads but no SEE
Report by Glenn
The first Tuesday Night MTB Ride went as well.
FAD (Fast A-- Dean) lead most of the way. SAD and SAG (Slow A-- Dave and Slower A-- Glenn) brought up the rear. Kurt had a mechanical, or it could have just been Kurt.
No one loaded the ride into their GPS/phones so we initially missed the right turn to the river. Ended up on the bluff first. That was good as we were able to see that large portions of the river road were still under water. Much more than last year.
We ended up riding to the first underwater section, but without SEE (Swamp sEeking Eric), we stopped at Kurt’s request, because Kurt didn’t want wet feet. We found the UAF experimental board walk. That turned into a short hike a bike.
Then we started the long a-- climb back up, that's when SAD and SAG showed why they are called that. All in all a good ride.
