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Bandera Bike Park


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Hey everyone, just wanted to take a minute to talk about Bandera Bike Park. Lots of trail work happening there, and the place needs everyone's support to make it into something great for the Texas mountain biking scene! the place has great potential, but seems to have a tarnished reputation/history within the Texas riding community. 

Building a bike park and multiple trails to satisfy everyone is a GIANT undertaking. lots of labor, time, and money have already been invested to bring Bandera Bike park to where it currently stands. Myself, and the Bandera Dig crew have been working hard recently to add new trails to the park for all of you! here is a map of Bandera Bike park. as of this last weekend, ive designed 6 new trails at bandera. Trails 1-3 are ready for tires (not at all finished but totally rideable from top to bottom), the 4th trail is being worked on, and trails 5 and 6 have only been flagged. these are all .7-1.0 mile, 2-6 minute descents! varying difficulty. from moderate blue to advanced black

BBP has - 

12 miles of XC singletrack
5-6 jump lines
and now 6 *upcoming* enduro lines
-and more will continue to be added

In summary - Lets try as a community to give BBP a fresh start give support to make it into something awesome! Everyone in the San Antonio and surrounding areas would surely love more options for good mountain biking close to home

please let me know of any suggestions anyone has that would encourage more support for Bandera Bike Park 

THANKS!

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Hey Seth - I'll be honest, I had never heard of 'Bandera Bike Park' until I saw you start posting up that you were building some trail out there.  Even then, I didn't have any context.  My wife and her trail running crew have trail races at "Bandera" but I'm not sure if this is the same place or something completely different.  Anyway, knowing it is billing itself as  bike park changes things.  I would have to drive past a LOT of awesome trail to get to 12 miles of XC so it's a hard sell.  However, since they are now offering something different (jump lines, enduro lines, etc.), I'm interested.

Quick note, I go to their website to see where it is and how much it costs and the first thing I see is an image of a rider and bike that doesn't scream 'bike park'.  Do they understand the people that go to bike parks like this or am I just out of touch?

image.thumb.png.bdea5cc3b91e87bb80efbcc621d7dd77.png

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11 minutes ago, Tree Magnet said:

Quick note, I go to their website to see where it is and how much it costs and the first thing I see is an image of a rider and bike that doesn't scream 'bike park'.  Do they understand the people that go to bike parks like this or am I just out of touch?

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This bugged me too. The face of their website is a guy with V brakes, reflectors, and a dork disc... I am all for riding what you have, but dont make that the image you are greeted with on a website if you are trying to appeal to mountainbikers on a whole. Just my opinion.

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11 minutes ago, csmceuen said:

This bugged me too. The face of their website is a guy with V brakes, reflectors, and a dork disc... I am all for riding what you have, but dont make that the image you are greeted with on a website if you are trying to appeal to mountainbikers on a whole. Just my opinion.

To somebody who sits at a computer making web sites all day everyday - this might be "a good picture" to use. At least it is a fat tired mountain bike instead of a road bike.

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I remember looking into this place a while back, but the pictures and videos were not that impressive at the time.  One piece of advice is to make sure their website is accurate, up to date, and gives people the information they need if they are considering a visit.  At a minimum, I'd like to see a trail map with (at least) a short description of each trail and pricing information (maybe it's already on the site, but I can't find it).  They are presumably going after many of the same folks that would go ride Spider.  Spider has a lift, so it better cost way less than $50 a day to ride at Bandera...  Spider Mountain's website was not great at first, but it has come a long way.  

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7 minutes ago, AustinBike said:

Put in a travel requisition with AustinBike headquarters for an exploratory trip, hopefully it will get signed off by corporate so that I can get it on site before I leave the country. 

Gotta hate it when the corporate hierarchy follows you into retirement.

At least the company has a good benefit package. 🥓🚲🌮🍺

Edited by Ridenfool
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23 minutes ago, AustinBike said:

Yeah, and if anyone wants to tag along, it would probably be next Monday

awesome. I would love for an unbiased group of riders to go check it out and give me plenty of feedback on the lines I put out there so far. and also just to get an updated review of the place as a whole by someone else.

The Bandera property is huge, great views, and multiple 300' hills. great potential for kick ass trails although the terrain and dirt composition is hard to work with. sandy rocky soil, lots of rocks, steep grades.... but they have a 5 man dig crew that is following my guidance for the new trails full time 40-50hrs/wk, and heavy machinery to work with also. but plenty of it is hand cut also where its too steep to access with heavy machinery.

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5 minutes ago, Seths Pool said:

The Bandera property is huge, great views, and multiple 300' hills. 

The terrain sounds like Hill Country Natural Area right next to it except with real trails and not fall-line climbs and descents. Do they also have plans to fill the north-east and north-west sides with sidetrack like the south side? Given the area, it looks like they could push upwards of 25 miles of xc trail. At that point with both DH lines and significant xc trail, they could be a real competition for Flat Rock given their location--assuming the trails are good. 

 

And someone needs to post the trails to ProjectMTB or TrailForks. I know that's how I find places, so I imagine they are still quite a bit off the radar. 

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30 minutes ago, HoneyBadger said:

I'd love to check it out sometime, but with all the building going on at Brushy there's no way I'll be able to get down there until after summer. 

yeah, I'm trying to juggle cat Mtn, bandera, racing, bike park season is about to start, my day job, and life as usual so I've been super busy lately. and awesome what youre making happen over there at brushy! you know I'm always happy to help when I can. I'll hit you up

22 minutes ago, Barry said:

The terrain sounds like Hill Country Natural Area right next to it except with real trails and not fall-line climbs and descents. Do they also have plans to fill the north-east and north-west sides with sidetrack like the south side? Given the area, it looks like they could push upwards of 25 miles of xc trail. At that point with both DH lines and significant xc trail, they could be a real competition for Flat Rock given their location--assuming the trails are good. 

 

And someone needs to post the trails to ProjectMTB or TrailForks. I know that's how I find places, so I imagine they are still quite a bit off the radar. 

yes, the entire north side of the property is still undergoing complete cedar tree removal. lots more potential on the backside of the ridge I am already building on the face of. 

I am also doing all of the GPS mapping for the place, and will continue to add to the place for the foreseeable future at this point. I believe the place will be badass with more time and a lot more work! we will get the trails on trail forks and mtb project 

Edited by Seths Pool
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It looks like it'd be a good place for a break from the monotony of riding the same trails over and over. I'm gonna take the wife out there before it gets balls hot next month or so.

Agree the website blows dog. Most of my exposure to bandera has been from other riders on YT and Instagram.

 

Keep up the good work Seth

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755927464_Bandera2018Photos097.thumb.JPG.0e2c97d9ee35229f022387d162de58c3.JPG

Just before Thanksgiving a large group of us went to Hill Country State Natural Area to camp and ride.  Because of the extraordinary amount of rain they had received, the trails were almost all closed but the ranger suggested we try the Bandera Bike Park.  So we rode from the State Natural Area to the bike park on the road and checked out the bike park.  It definitely has a ton of potential.  Lots of topography!  We lean more towards cross country and while there was some, we spent a lot of time trying to find trails that they told were out there.  I hope they get more trail built and get a little signage going.  I would happily go back there.   This photo is from the top of one of the big hills.  

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2 hours ago, Seths Pool said:

yeah, I'm trying to juggle cat Mtn, bandera, racing, bike park season is about to start, my day job, and life as usual so I've been super busy lately. and awesome what youre making happen over there at brushy! you know I'm always happy to help when I can. I'll hit you up

Yes, it's crazy what's about to happen. Who would have thought we could get a machine built flow trail for mountain bikes in the middle of a City park. The machines start digging next Monday. There's a big volunteer day on the 27th.

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1 hour ago, HoneyBadger said:

Yes, it's crazy what's about to happen. Who would have thought we could get a machine built flow trail for mountain bikes in the middle of a City park. The machines start digging next Monday. There's a big volunteer day on the 27th.

One thing I wil say is that all that about not allowing the machine builders  to really “change the trail as it currently sits” is a huge  counterproductive thing. Kinda defeats the whole purpose of the machines showing up IMO

 

you should cancel that whole part and let them work their magic 

Edited by Seths Pool
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