These are rides, NOT races. They are for socializing and riding the trails while having fun mountain biking and getting exercise. See the ride page HERE.
(To see other Tuesday Night MTB Ride reports, click on the link above.)
Reports by Eric unless otherwise noted
07/14/2026 - Ester Dome Singletrack
Great turnout and great ride tonight! We had 9 this evening.
Todd showed up to the start after parking at the EDS trailhead. (He didn't read the ride start description.) But then Ben asked me why we don't start at the trailhead. I fumbled around for a good answer and only came up with a lame one. Guess we may have to change the ride start for this ride!
One nice thing about starting down low is that you finish on a downhill. Of course, that means you start on an uphill. After a short discussion, we decided to do the Outer Loop clockwise. Fortunately, doing it that way means that we had some downhill a short ways into the ride.
We had a great time cruisin' and crankin' until we finally had mostly crankin' as we made the big climb to the top. We stopped for a bit of rest and chatting at the Inner/Outer kiss and at the bottom of Henderson Drop-in. I got Mike to tell a great story about a buddy's explosive…well…maybe I won't go into details. Let's just say, it prompted Dave to then tell a story about a big bottle of Pepto-Bismol.
Once we topped out, we had a blast diving downhill through all the banked turns until we got to the Inner Loop Then we did the Inner Loop counter-clockwise, once again have a blast with some of the new features. (Some, but not all. Some of us aren't ready for some of those drops and hops.)
As we finished out the Inner, Ben led us UP Helter Skelter. We were confused at first, but when the rest of us figured out what was happening we turned around. Ben has his quirks. Instead, we climbed the to the top of Helter Skelter the proper way and had a blast going down. It was Dylan's first time down. He didn't crash, though he did a bit of yelling as he dropped into that first really steep corner.
Finally, it was time to do the Tight-and-Twisty, my favorite! Not sure everyone else feels that way about it, but they all came along anyway. Unfortunately, it needs a bit of brushing and had a couple of tree across the trail. Glenn found one and put an exclamation point on it, but not being able to unclip in time and falling over. I quickly made sure he was all right, then I took a picture. Then we cleared out that tree and another just down the trail. (It was Glenn's second crash of the evening, but he and his bike survived both.)
By then, Dylan had had enough of the TnT and was walking his bike. By the time the last of us finished, Glenn and Dave were also walking their bikes. (Maybe the TnT is not everyone's favorite.)
After that it was a raucous downhill back to St. Patrick's. Too raucous for Kevin at one point. He took a turn to shallow and his front wheel slid out. He went down hard. After quickly determining that he was OK, I took a picture. (Yeah, I'm that guy.)
We also found out that Ben had had a crash earlier. Four crashes in one ride. That's a high count for us. We usually don't have more than one and often it's none. Fortunately, everybody and their bikes survived.
At St. Pat's we said goodbye to Todd, who had to bike back up to his car at the trailhead. (We really should change the start point for this ride.) And the rest of us headed back to the cars for drinks and snack.
07/07/2026 - Birch Hill Ski Trail Skoot
We did almost all the ski trails in the official Birch Hill Recreation Area. It was a really fun ride (mostly).
The "mostly" is because Priscilla took a bad spill at the bottom of the Blue Loop. There was a slick spot at the very bottom of the first hill. Kurt's wheel slid out, but he was able to recover. Priscilla wasn't so lucky. Her wheel slid out and she went down hard. Fortunately, she came off her bike, which hit a tree. In the end, she seemed OK, if a bit sore. She decided to call it a night and head back to the cars. Nikki went with her. (I texted her later and she said she was doing fine, just sore.) Oh, and her bike survived, too.
The rest of us finished the Blue Loop and then did the Relay Loop and came back to the Stadium to look for Nikki. But she was already back to the start of Outhouse by then. Mike called her and we finally all got connected at the top of Stadium and then did all the blue trails: Outhouse, Relay, and Tower.
The sky, which had started sunny and turned darker as we rode, spit on us a couple of times, but it never rained. We decided to finish out the night by doing the rest of the trails in the official Birch Hill Recreation Area. That included doing Medevac and then looping back around to do Roller Coaster, though Glenn charged ahead on the looping part and ended up taking a different route than we did. Fortunately he was within shouting distance and we regrouped before Roller Coaster. On the first hill on Roller Coaster you can go fast and get some sick air, but everyone passed on that. Good thing. One bad crash a night is enough!
A downed power line at the top of White Bear Access nixed that trail for us. Instead we did Skadi and Loki and then did the Warm Up Loop, with a quick diversion in the Terrain Garden.
All in all, it was a great night for riding (outside of Priscilla's crash). We had some blazing fast downhills and some steep-but-fortunately-short uphill grunts. Jonathan even got some air in the Terrain Garden! From the whoops he got from the rest of us an innocent bystander might have assumed he flew several feet in the air. But we won't describe how much air he really got. You can just use your imagination and let him soar high in your mind!
06/30/2026 - UAF Hidden Trails Trot
Fun outing, though there wasn't as much Type 2 fun as it used to have. Many of the downed trees have been cleared off the lesser known trails. A bit sad, really, but I guess it was fun to mostly just ride. It was good riding. A mix of easy and challenging, smoother trails and trails rooty and really rooty. Had an even dozen on the ride tonight.
The pond north of Range Road is slowly shrinking. The lower bypass trail around the pond is just passable now. Just after that we started to follow one wrong trail and Ben nearly got pierced, but he quickly turned around before going out into the archery range (which was active at the time!).
We made a stop at LARS and got so see some wood bison and muskoxen.
Then, we rode the section of Skarland Trail that apparently has a nesting goshawk that can be aggressive, but we didn't see it at all. We figured we were probably safe from attack since we were in a big group. Plus, we were all wearing helmets! In that section we lost Kurt, who dropped a chain. By the time he got it back on, we were out of sight. We thought he knew which way we had gone, but apparently not. A couple of us backtracked for him, but he had been led astray by a couple of well-meaning runners and went down a different trail (which a different group of bikers apparently went down). Fortunately, Kurt knows the trails. We finally caught up to him back at the cars.
We finally finished up by going up Bicycle Bumps (and up a hidden trail to the West Ridge Ski Hut). We've done Bicycle Bumps twice now and both times we've gone up it. Something's not right about that.
The UAF trails are finally drying out a bit. The lower ones are still wet, but the higher and well-drained ones seem mostly good.
Pics by Nikki and Eric
06/23/2026 -- Birch Hill Bombing
What more could you want from a ride? We had no rain (just humidity, like, 100% humidity falling from the sky), mosquitoes, and thunder and lighting. Oh, and a little bit of swamp!
Seven of us gathered in the Birch Hill Rec Area parking lot, including Ellie who is visiting from Colorado. We took off before the rain started (and after we had sprayed liberally with DEET). We climbed up Tower and headed over to the downhill trails just off the ski lift at Birch Hill downhill area. Just before getting to the downhill trails, we started to feel a bit of the humidity from above.
Most took the jump trail, but I wanted to check on the condition of the flow trail. And it had been brushed! For about 100 feet. After that it wasn't too bad, but I did have to do some dodging here and there to avoid the overgrown brush. Dylan followed me down and reported that he didn't fall, though he almost did a few times. The trails were a bit slippery with all that humidity falling on us. Fortunately, the rain hadn't started. Just lots of humidity.
Next, we headed to the Sonot Connector, though Matt and Jonathan decided to take a more interesting route up the tubing hill. (Interesting in that in takes a bit of bushwhacking at the end to connect to the SC.) The humidity from the sky had ceased for a bit, but then started up again.
We did Chinook amid multiple peals of thunder and occasional flashes of lightning. Fortunately, we were deep in the forest with many tall trees above our heads to distract any lightning bolts. Then back out to the Sonot Connector, a short climb, and we did Blackhawk. These were all new trails to Ellie. It's fun to show someone new the great trails we have here in Fairbanks.
It seemed like the thunder and lightning had mostly left us behind by the time we finished (though not the extreme humidity, nor the skeeters), so we had to choose what to do next. A brief debate ensued, but doing the White Bear won out. (I was hoping for a bit of swamp on the far end.)
We rode out to the far end where I was disappointed by the lack of any serious swamp. But Dave and Jonathan, never having skied these trails in winter, got to experience Heartrate Hill on bikes. (It's easier on bikes than on skis, IMHO.)
We stopped at the top to regroup, but the stop was brief -- a most of our stops. We each had hundreds of tiny little coaches urging us to keep pushing! Matt quickly had enough and took off before a total regroup. Ellie asked, "Are we leaving?" I just laughed "I guess so!" Some of us waited for the tail end of the group. They didn't want to wait around for long, so we soon chased after the others.
By the time we neared the biathlon range, we started getting a bit strung out as a group. Dylan led Jonathan into some good swamp, but most of the others went high toward the biathlon range to avoid the swamp, But I, of course, stayed low and Dave followed me. And I led Dave into swamp! Sure it was just a short, little swamp, but it was swamp and I was content. Got my shoes nice and muddy. (To be fair, all our shoes were a bit humid. Matt noticed the squishing about halfway through the ride. Jonathan even videoed himself squeezing water out of his shoes just by squatting and bending his toes.)
We regrouped in the Stadium and headed back to the cars. We waved at some disc golfers who seemed to be very happy to see us with all their waving. (Or maybe it was just all the skeeters.) We waved back just in case they were being nice.
Our social stop back at the cars was brief, since we were wet from all the humidity and our coaches insisted that we get in our cars and go home. All in all, a great night out riding!
Pics by Jonathan and Eric
06/02/2026 -- Ester Mine Mingle
First time doing this Tuesday Night MTB Ride with the reroute. It worked out pretty well.
We had seven on this night out. And we found some "uphill swamp" right off the bat -- which made me happy -- but it was very short -- which made me sad. Had very little after that.
But the climbs were to die for. Especially with the skeeters, which have come out with a vengeance. The little ones who don't screw around. They just land and bite. I loved introducing the gang to the one "special" climb on the reroute. It's bikeable, but it's long and steep and you can see it coming from a long way off. We had a few hike-a-bikers on that one. And the moaning and groaning from Kurt and I kept building until we finally got to the climb-ax.
Then up Henderson to Ester Dome Road, with a stop along the way to do some tamping on the Henderson Drop-In to the Ester Dome Singletrack Trails. (Joel had filled in a badly eroded spot, but it needs more compacting.)
We dropped into the Corner Singletrack and were going to take the JARR trail over to the Equinox Marathon Trail, but at the entrance to JARR we could see at least a half-dozen trees across the trail. We decided to bypass that for now.
Then it was a mostly fun descent on the Eva Creek Trail into Ester, though a couple of trees have fallen across the trail and are big enough to need some chainsaw work. The trail also needs a bit of brushing in places. If you want to do some trail work, that would be a good place for it.
Overall, a great ride, but don't forget your bug dope these days. The skeeters are nasty. We doped up a couple of times on this ride, since we sweated off much of the first application.
06/02/2026 -- Skarland 12-Mile
Great evening for a ride! We had 10 total on this ride, including Nessa, who was new, and Kevin, who hadn't come in a while, and Priscillla, who apparently likes the rooty trails we keep taking her on. And during the ride we saw Malcolm, who used to ride with us. Of course, we had a bunch of regulars along. Good to see new and old faces!
The lowland UAF trails are still fairly wet. We tried hard to ride around the wet, soft spots, and there were quite a few. Fortunately, there was almost always a way around.
The higher ground is fine. The trail is awesome, as it usually is thanks to Stan Justice. We did find one downed tree. I walked my bike over it and saw that my chainring just barely cleared it. I told Kevin, who was right behind me, that he could probably do it. He tried. He didn't. Caught his chainring and went backward. It was a slo-mo fall. For a half second I was torn between taking a photo and rushing over to make sure he was OK. I chose the latter, so no photos of his crash.
We checked out LARS and got to see a couple of musk oxen up close. They even butted heads, very briefly, for us.
We crossed over Yankovich and caught a quick glance at the work DOT is doing there. Looking forward to that work finishing up. It will make Yankovich much safer for biking, running, and walking.
Then it was back down into UAF, where the T-Field is a still a bit soggy -- really soggy at the bottom. We rode Bicycle Bumps up. A few lobbied for turning around to go down and then back up again -- since BB is much more fun down -- but most were ready to head back to the cars, so we did.
Overall, a great ride. Sun, cool temps, only a few bugs, and a whole lot of good companionship! And we did it quickly with Ben and Nikki at the pointy end setting a good pace. Jonathan said he was glad because he needs to be whipped into shape. Kurt just said, "I'm dying!" but he kept chugging along. Apparently long days in a mine don't translate well to bike rides. Who'd a thunk it?
(After he left us, Jonathan rode through the UAF trails back to his car at work. On the way he saw a fox!)
Pics by Nikki, Jonathan, and Eric
06/02/2026 Skyline Ridge Skedaddle
Great ride tonight! We had 11 total on the ride. Mike came back after having a good time last week and Priscilla -- all the way from Tennessee -- came for the first time. She had an experience!
The night was beautiful. The temps were cool. The mosquitoes were minimal. And the roots were many! But mainly on the downhills, so that our teeth got nice and rattled. After we were mostly done with the roots, Priscilla exclaimed that she had never ridden anything like that before. Not sure if she was in awe or shock. We were glad to introduce a newbie to Fairbanks "singletrack trails." But she had a smile on her face and says she's coming back next week.
Those are can be pretty intense trails. Kurt found the ground once or twice. But we cut him some serious slack. He told us he is now 80 years old. And riding on a 26-incher that is almost as old as he is! I almost found the ground once or twice. Glenn stepped off a couple of times at some "tree-gate" pinch points and told Kurt and me that his handlebars were 800mm wide and that the a few of the trees on the trail were only 810mm wide. That, of course, garnered all sorts of sympathy from us: What? That gives you 5mm on either side. How much more do you want?! Also, there was one big rut on the ridge trail climb right before you get to Ski Boot Hill Road. Apparently it has some gravitational pull, but apparently only Glenn was susceptible to it. Poor Glenn. No slack.
At the end of the ride Nikki supplied us with some homemade brownie cookies with Reese's cups. The brown and yellow bars looked like brownies and scrambled eggs (yuck!), but they tasted divine!
There is one downer about the ride, though. After Hours and the Goldstream Connector trails weren't ready for biking. 🙁 After Hours is a blast to go down. We'll have to find a way to get back to those trails again!
Pics by Nikki and Eric
05/26/2026 - Roșie Creek Ramble
Great ride! We had eight total. We started out with a fun downhill. (You pretty much have to on this ride.) Unfortunately, Mike found out quickly that he had some brake issues. We tried a couple of quick fixes, but to no avail. Fortunately, he still had his front brakes. And we were mostly done with the downhills by the time he found out.
I tried to talk the group into taking the "blue" shortcut (as shown on the trailside trail map), but unfortunately Mike, Nikki, and Tony all knew that swamp lay that way. So we diverted to the longer but drier route (sigh).
At the next "choice" intersection we decided to take the short, steep route up Otter Slide since it would mean Mike would have to use his brakes less on the more gentle downhills.
On Harrington's Long Shot we stopped at the "long shot" viewpoint. We also cleared some deadfall from the trail. (Nikki would like me to point out here that it took 5 guys to clear one deadfall while she cleared two all on her own. Clearly, she's tough!) At the end of Long Shot, we discussed old back injuries. Mike had the best story, since he figures his was due to lifting airplanes. (We reminded him that some people use them for flying.)
Along the way, Nikki shared some "Smash Balls" snacks, which led to some restrained testosterone-laden jokes. Though we did like the snacks.
Then it was up Lookout and the long climb up Alden's Pine Road back to the cars. Nikki led. (As she did on all the climbs.) On the climb, I decided to be a jerk and asked a huffing and puffing Dave to tell me about his life. And then he proceeded to do just that.
For the last pitch up, most took the Rosie Creek Harvest Access Road out to the Parks Highway, while only Remi and I took the Trailhead Access Trail and its several mud pits. But we were able to mostly avoid them and we beat everyone else back to the cars.
Back at the cars, Nikki discovered that the snacks were actually call "Smash Bites," which led to more jokes. I guess many of us are still adolescents inside!
Pics by Eric and Nikki
05/19/2026 - Bonanza Bluffquest
Report by Eric
First TNR of the season! Me, Glenn, Dave and Remi. We rode to the bluff. Remi had never been there before. That's always fun, because newbies love that view! Then we headed down and checked out the road to the Tanana River. It was wet. Really wet. Dave and Glenn didn't want to do it. I didn't want get wet feet unless we were going to go all the way to the river.
So, as a consolation prize, we checked out another road I had done years before. Back then I had connected that road to another forestry road higher up via an old fire line dozer cut. I figured that would be fun to do as a lollipop loop, but I remember that there was a little puddle at the bottom of the dozer cut that required some wading. For some reason, as soon as I used the word "wading" I got some skeptical looks. I promised that there might be potential for a short reroute around the wet part. Despite all that (and my reputation), the guys followed me anyway.
We rode on that lower road for a long way. A lot longer than I had remembered. We finally stopped at a puddle that filled the entire road and I checked the Google Maps satellite photo. We still had a ways to go. And then when I looked at the photo I realized that the "little bit of wading" I had done way back when was probably a lot longer than I had remembered. Ah well. Anyway, the dozer cut is probably really clogged up with fallen trees and stuff. We decided that was probably not a good TNR option for the future.
Then we turned and did the long climb back to the cars, tossing out many puns to keep us fueled. We also got had a nice tailwind for the climb. It was still a grunt, but a temps were cool and the skeeters were slow.
Pics by Eric
