I did not expect to be writing this much about Big Bear when GBC launched five years ago.
Not that I thought the area wasn’t desirable, but to me it always was a place I wanted to ride.
The problem was there wasn’t that much info about the area (at least to outsiders) and I figured if it was as awesome as I’d hoped, I would have heard about it.
My answer to this posit is that news doesn’t always travel linearly and it’s most important just that I got here, not how.
The first time we visited was thanks to Todd leading us around the lake with a great collection of fire roads on both sides and last year I explored further thanks to Tour de Big Bear’s Dirty Bear organizer Robin Brown.
He reached out to me at the beginning of the year to hold a Send It and with temps rocketing in the summer this was a no-brainer, but he went above and beyond setting up a camping spot, arranging post-ride festivities and setting up a route introducing even more dirt.
We did a 38 mile clockwise loop around the lake with humble startings out of the Village with coffee at Copper Q.
Rounding the dam, we grinded our way into single track with the first half mile on Gray’s Peak Trail.
After some wiggling the vert was worth the hurt swooping through the rocks on the Hanna Flats Trail.
With proper water and restroom opportunities at the campground, the climb up Delamar Mountain was a ample effort leading us into the majestic Holcomb Valley.
Van Dusen Canyon was one of the most direct ways back, but adding the paralleling trail for the first half avoiding camping traffic and the supplementary dust ups.
Flipping to the south side of the lake, we headed to Snow Summit taking the backdoor Town Trail before our 2 1/4 mile ascent to set you our final phase.
Robin set us up with one of our best grand finales first with the flowy Skyline Trail punctuated with a sweeping view of the 11,505 foot San Gorgonio Mountain.
The fun wasn’t done yet after banking off of Knickerbocker Road to the Cabin Trail starting with speedy, sweeping curves with the lower half a bit more dodgy around the boulders.
We pulled up to the Old Country Inn for lunch and the sad reality that our trip he come to a close.
Bottom line, Big Bear is a tremendous playground for gravel and the reasons to back that up only grows.