Off Season Trips

This was a brutal winter for me. And TBH summers in BC are getting drier and bonier every year. For the first time I'm considering doing bike tourism to warmer places in the off season or maybe even during the BC summer. Top of my list are easter Spain/Ainsa/Pyrenees and NZ/Queenstown. Has anyone been anywhere cool? We need photos. The high end trips by companies like Big Mountain Tours to less developed countries don't make much sense to me - some of those places I'd rather just be a pedestrian traveler rather than parading my shamefully expensive toy around. 

Where have you been? Show up some photos and share the beta.

Posted by: craw

NZ/Queenstown

I spent a month in NZ in November 2018. 1 week in Christchurch and 3 weeks in Queenstown. It was a "workation", I simply brought my laptop and worked from airbnbs. Both places have trails close to town so no car needed, I just rode from my airbnb. In Queenstown I rented a car on the weekend twice to make a daytrip to Wanaka and drive up to the Coronet trails.

I liked the low key vibe in Christchurch and there are some cool trails in the Port Hills and they also have a bike park (you can buy a lift pass or ride up a climbing trail or the road for free). The bike park was still recovering form a devastating forest fire and only had a few trails open. Port Hills trails were nice but difficult to make a good loop without much road riding.

Port Hills, Christchurch:

Queenstown is the Whistler of NZ but it feels more like a real town rather than a resort. Again airbnb in town, ride to the trails. The Skyline lift gives access to a bunch of DH trails in the bike park as well as trails outside the park (with a little pedalling). You can also forego the lift and ride up the steep fireroad. Nice mix of flow and steep technical trails. Salmon Run is a classic double black, steep and exposed, I was terrified. Squid Run in the park was my favourite, super fun dark blue singletrack. 5 Mile area and Coronet trails are a little further out of town. Rude Rock is probably the best flow trail in the world, even if you don't like flow trails you have to ride it. There are shuttle companies but early season they are not guaranteed to run.

Rude Rock, Queenstown:

Wanaka has a bunch of super scenic XC trails and a small network of more challenging and fun trails.

Wanaka:

Nice thing about November in the southern hemisphere is you are doing Spring all over again, lots of light, and generally nice weather and good trail conditions. Downside is higher elevations can have snow. I had one rainstorm in Christchurch and one late snowstorm in Queenstown. Overall it was pretty good.

All 3 places mentioned above have added tons of trails since I was there.

The flight to NZ is long and expensive. I used Aeroplan points and only paid ~$250 in taxes. Bike was ~$100 each way IIRC. Once in NZ you can plan it such you don't need a car if you stick to the popular hotspots. Of course there are tons of other places with good trails. I'd like to go back and rent a campervan and do a proper roadtrip.

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Some other ideas:

Tasmania in Australia is becoming a real alternative to NZ to escape the norther winter with lots of areas developing trails and attracting the EWS/EWC. 

In Europe, Sintra in Portugal, Ainsa in Spain, Finale Ligure in Italy, Sospel in France are all popular "off season" destinations that are still on my list of places to visit.

I've done lots of winter road trips to the US and to Baja Mexico. Lots of fun places to explore that you can drive to. If you stay flexible you can dial in the weather you want by moving around as well as up and down in elevation. 

I don't really feel any urge to leave Vancouver Island in the summer, but if I did I'd head to Northern BC/AK/YK/NWT. Also areas you can drive to and enough variation to allow you to choose from a lot of different experiences. I did a bike tour up in the Yukon that was fun when I lived in Calgary.

New Zealand winter on the south island is a bit cold.  And chances of a lot of rain depending where you go.

Posted by: switch

New Zealand winter on the south island is a bit cold.  And chances of a lot of rain depending where you go.

I should specify that I mean going in Jan-March. 

The trails looks pretty dry and tight and IIRC for Aus and NZ it helps to show up with brand new tires on your bike. What's a suitable Queenstown all rounder tire setup?

Posted by: craw

What's a suitable Queenstown all rounder tire setup?

I would just use your usual preferred tires for BC but I'm a same tires all year anywhere kind of guy.

When I went I put on fresh 2.5 Maxxgrip DHF and 2.4 Maxxterra HR2 and they worked fine. I usually run a 2.4 DHR2 in the back, the only reason I used the HR2 was that it was on sale.

Edit: your bike must be clean when entering Aus or NZ, they don't want any foreign dirt. They check!

I was itching for a warm spring trip this year so I flew down to ride Sedona with some friends at the beginning of March. Unfortunately, there was a massive snow storm the day we arrived so we had to stick around Phoenix. Fortunately, the riding in Phoenix was better than expected and we still had a great trip with great weather.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDKCIh52WWQ&ab_channel=DangerousDave

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSNVJqz0-1s&ab_channel=DangerousDave

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgKGKtjSXFA&ab_channel=DangerousDave

So I've committed to doing a trip with Basquemtb in October. This looks super promising. I've never done a trip like this before, never even really bothered bringing my bike anywhere before (besides a couple of road trips to Moab back in the day). Given how long/wet/unpredictable winter has become getting one last dry high alpine hit in the fall seems a good idea. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRhwhVhhtMA&list=PL6S33eGYiEG0P--jG1hWtsF3BWQLXgxRF&t=233s

If that goes well I'm going to do a trip to Madeira in March. Right now there's something about showing up to a new place and having a local show you the goods, especially in the Canadian off season. Both of these zones have hosted EWS events so I think that's a good start.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfdJAHa0ij4&t=32s

Has anyone here ridden Finale Ligure? That looks like another great spot to hit in the Feb-April window when conditions in Canada can be super variable.

Wow, sounds awesome! Heard great things about both places, but no specific useful details to share.

Finale and the surrounding areas are sweet. Did a trip there a number of years ago with Big Mountain and would love to do it again (I think we went April or May-ish). I enjoyed the not having to think about where we were staying, how we were getting around, and what trails to ride; the guides were awesome. Food was also fantastic. A big help was that our group was all similar enough in skill and fitness (all were friends or friends of friends).

Posted by: mudhoney

Finale and the surrounding areas are sweet. Did a trip there a number of years ago with Big Mountain and would love to do it again (I think we went April or May-ish). I enjoyed the not having to think about where we were staying, how we were getting around, and what trails to ride; the guides were awesome. Food was also fantastic. A big help was that our group was all similar enough in skill and fitness (all were friends or friends of friends).

Hauling bikes is a hassle. Boxing them, getting them through the airport, risk of damage, reassembling them. If I go through all that I don't want to spend my trip doing trial and error out of a rental car. In a lot of places not everything is on Trailforks.

I found these guys in Finale which seem like a good option if I didn't want quite an end-to-end trip as the Big Mountain: https://www.finaleligurefreeride.com/. It was 24' in Finale in March this year so it's definitely an option during Vancouver's dark Feb-March-April.

I was in Ainsa a couple of weeks ago, coincidentally staying in an apartment owned by Jorge who is one of the main guys behind the explosion in MTB/MTB tourism in the area. There's a ton of trails in the surrounding area (he gave me four different maps aimed at different areas and users) but I only did one days (self-guided) mountain biking on a pretty ropey Giant Trance rental bike.

There's a pretty famous "badlands" area in Zona Zero but the photos make it look more impressive than it actually is, though admittedly I'm spoilt living on the NS and having Squamish slabs just a short drive away.

I did check out BasqueMTB before I went but, as I was touring and mostly road-riding, that wasn't going to work out for me.

There were a couple of guiding operations in Ainsa but they looked geared to families and casual riders rather than hard-coded mountain bikers...

Also, many years ago (at least 20 yrs ago!), I went on a week's guided mountain biking around Bagneres-de-Luchon in the French Pyrenees. That trip was mostly part van-assisted, xc riding. Great fun winding down ancient trails linking shepherd trails from high mountain pastures thru tiny old mountain hamlets and a long way away from full-bore "enduro" style riding.

If you want to combine an mtb vacation with a more traditional vacation then I would seriously consider Peru and https://www.inkasadventures.com/. It would be worth your while to put Bolivia on the list too. Otherwise the US southwest offers a relatively cheap mtb experience and because you can fly there in about 3hrs, short riding excursions of 3-4 days are plausible.