Best Place to Get a season pass

If you like wooden berms, definitely Keystone.... so many epic wooden berms everywhere!!! You can get in there and just go beefy on wooden berms all day long. Also they have a lot of good beginner terrain, so probably there.

In Colorado, you need to try Sol Vista bike park near Granby. You will not get bored, guaranteed. This is the only bike park actually designed and built by pro downhillers. It will test your skills, and allow you to progress at your own pace. There is something for everyone, and new trails all the time. Parking is great, and the vibe is real cool.

solvista's 2010 pricing is up. get a season pass before may 26 and it's only $175.


friday lifts run from noon-7pm too


www.bikesolvista.com

Um. Yes please. $175?!?! So cheap!

The long answer...

Winter Park should be getting quite a few new trails this year. From what I hear they have a pretty stellar long term plan. I know it got a lot better over the course of last year and there should be another black diamond or double black going in towards the beginning of the season.

Keystone is cool and has some gnarly trails, but they didn't really maintain much until the very end of the season last year, but this is probably because of their bridge construction and I don't know what they have in store for this year. Overall it's less flowy than a lot of trails at Winter Park, but more technical.

Sol Vista is good, but the runs are shorter (by about 700' vert) and some the stunts there will make you shit your pants. I know I blew myself up there pretty good last year and have heard countless other stories of people hurting themselves there. About half the trails are built for pro-class riders (if you want to hit all the features) and sometimes it's hard to judge if you're ready for some of the features. But it is supported by a group of enthusiasts, which means regular trail maintenance. Finally, almost all the runs are built like DH courses.

All three parks are very different, so you just have to decide what you're looking for in a park. If it's variety, Keystone is probably your best bet, but we'll see what Winter Park has in store...

Winter park and keystone are both pretty good, but plenty have gotten hurt at both places. One of the main differences between the big parks and Sol Vista is at SV you will not run into a bunch of Gomers stopped in the middle of a trail wondering how in the hell they will get down the mountain. Very dangerous situation. I have ridden all 3 places and SV is the place where more serious riders ride. Plus, what's wrong with crapping your pants once in awhile.

It is true that keystone has generally shitty maintenance, but you bought a downhill bike to ride rough trails, not the bike path, right?? Sol Vista maintenance is on an ad needed basis, but mainly pertains to safety issues (super sketchy boulders after drops, jump lips etc.) You are more likely to notice maintenance (or lack of) at keystone because the dirt stays stuck in brake bumps and ruts and stuff, the sol vista sand is constantly moving. If you are intermediate, keystone filled in all of their gap jumps with bridges or tabled them to decrease the danger if you are not super confident in your jumping skills.

Personally, I have ran up on a lot of punters at sol vista... most of my super super dangerous punter situations have actually happened at sol vista, though less dangerous punter incidents happen everywhere else.

winter park has good potential, but trail flow = zero... unless you have the lungs and legs of a pro XC guy to pedal between all the uphill jumps and berms. The new trail there is pretty nasty in the mud though.

I rode Keystone on my way home from Nationals last year at Sol Vista and I thought it was amazing, the trails there were way longer, steeper, and plenty more difficult than Sol Vista, and if you go on a rainy day, the roots can become dangerous. The ladders they have set up are pretty good, and all of the drops are smooth and nice sized (one being enormous), but my favorite part about the park is how long and how well the trails went together, I only needed to do eight pedal strokes to get all the way down the mountain.

Sol Vista was really cool, but it lacked the length of Keystone and it was rough as a cheese grater. The place is filled with flat causing rocks and chatter bumps, but it made up for it with the sheer speed of their courses, the Cat 1 course was just flat out the whole way down. The only realy problem I had with Sol Vista was that it was not steep enough and only lasted a few minutes, while my runs at Keystone were an easy ten at a cruising Expert pace.
All in all, I would think that Keystone is your best out of the two.