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<\/p>\nSo this weekend the family\u00a0spent a couple of days in Big Bear at my brother-in-law’s cabin.\u00a0\u00a0 I brought along the bikes just in case we could carve some time out for some fun in the dirt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Turns out we did grab some time one morning so\u00a0the boys and I headed for the lazy boy chairs at Snow Summit for lift to the top of the mountain.<\/p>\n
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This was my first time doing the lift assisted riding on the mountain as well.\u00a0 I have done stuff in the area\u00a0and on the back side of the mountain but had never taken any of the stuff into town.\u00a0\u00a0From the top of the lift we took 2N10 west along the ridgeline for a few miles and then took the short singletrack out to the Grand Viewpoint.<\/p>\n
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While I think the views from here are pretty cool (been here once before), the boys were like, “Yeah Yeah Yeah, is it time to go downhill yet?”<\/p>\n
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Lucky for them it was time to point the bikes down the hill.\u00a0 After a quick bit of backtracking to 2N10, we took the Pine Knot Trail (1E01) down the hill.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We had discussed doing the\u00a0traditional Grandview Point Loop that used the fireroad 2N08 to go down the mountain and the\u00a0Towne Trail to cut back over to the Snow Summit\u00a0parking lot.\u00a0\u00a0Taking the Pine\u00a0Knot trail would have us needing to ride an additional\u00a0three miles back through town.\u00a0 \u00a0In a rare moment of\u00a0sibling concurrence the boys asked\u00a0“who would want to go down a fireroad?\u00a0 Let’s take the singletrack!”\u00a0\u00a0 (Ahhhh, I was so proud, some of my parenting has been\u00a0getting through. \ud83d\ude42 )\u00a0\u00a0 After this point we did not see much of\u00a0Will except\u00a0for regroups.\u00a0 We\u00a0wanted to blaze ahead and I wanted to keep Jake\u00a0within earshot.<\/p>\n
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Jake is gettting quite a bit faster.\u00a0 On a couple of occasions when I zipped ahead\u00a0 to get setup for a\u00a0shot of him\u00a0coming by\u00a0I was surprised\u00a0how quickly he caught up.\u00a0\u00a0 I was also surprised at how long it took me to catch back up to him after I put the camera away and got back on the bike.\u00a0 He is working that hardtail really well.<\/p>\n
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Once down at the bottom at the Glen Aspen Picnic area we worked our way down on the streets to Highway 18 and cruised back through town.\u00a0\u00a0 To add a little more trail to the return leg, after going through the village, we hung a right on Knickerbocker Street and after a short bit we hung a left onto 2N08 and back onto the dirt.\u00a0 There was some steep fireroad climbing to be done for a bit and it wiped the smiles of the boys’ face.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It was good for them.\u00a0 I don’t want them to get used to the whole chair-lift lizard thing.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All was better once we got up to where the Town Trail comes off of 2N08 and contours it way back to the Snow Summit parking lot.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The boys had a good time and I was glad to get some quality\u00a0time out on the dirt with them.\u00a0\u00a0 We celebrated we some post-ride sodas.<\/p>\n