Hey All,

This is for anyone who has ever riden Saskatchewan (and I guess Eastern Alberta as it's not too far away). What is your favorite trail in Sk. or non-mountainous Alta?

While we do not have B.C. type terrain, we do have some nice valleys and a few little hills out here, so we have to have some great trails! I've found a bunch of nice little paths along the river in Saskatoon, but nothing yet that I would call great, so I'm looking to expand my repertoire. Anyways, here goes.

Sorry FreePizza, but I'm gonna have to steal this one, as until my derailleur broke, this was my most fav. ride I'd ever taken. The "Heaven" Trail at Buffalo Pound. There are 2 roads going into Buffalo Pound once you're in the park. One down to the bottom of the ski hill, one that loops over top of it. Heaven starts off the latter. It was incredible. It moved fast, it moved steady. No overly technical parts. Just a perfect ride to end the day where you have to be a little bit on your toes, but you can still fly without thinking too much. What a great ride. Then on the way back up a giant branch rode up into my derailleur to finish the day for permanent. Still, didn't ruin this great ride.

So to all you other Prairie folk, what is your fav. ride?

-RotD

Buffalo Pound is my favorite place to ride in south Sask. Other good places are Wascana Trails, and a place called Turbulls out at Pasqua Lake. Wascana has some fun singletrack, and makes a great racecourse. Turbulls has some really technical singletrack climbs and some really nice flowy downhills and some super technical (for me!) tight up and down twisty singletrack with lots of low overhead trees. I've never riden in Stoon, I've heard there's some nice trails there along the river. I think the first Sask Cup race in Stoon this year is in late June, I'll try to make it to that one.

However, like I said, BP is my fave. The best trail there imo is one called Roots (although there aren't many roots compared to someplace with lots of pine trees). It's a slight downhill with some ~3 foot drops, some log crossings,and some twisty sections all in a dense tree grove. Heaven is good too if you just want to go fast and 'flow'. There is also some new stuff on the south side of the valley accessed by the road with some stupid steep downhill singletrack, one section that I've never tried to ride, it's TOO STEEP! The rest of it is super slow and technical both up and down. If you ride the whole new secion you can come down the 'Big Rock Trail' from the top which is super fun, really twisty and flowy with no super technical secions. None of these new trails have been used in any races... yet, we might try to incorportate them in our 6 hour endurance race coming up next September. One of the other great trails at BP is a downhill section close to Heaven. If you follow the 'Heaven' road till the end of the field you'll notice a trail to the right, it follows the field before dropping into the valley with a steep shoot. From there you enter a tight twisty singletrack climb, followed by a great little downhill with some very tight sections (if you had a 26'' bar it might not fit!) and some 1 foot log drops. It ends with a high speed blast to the main xc ski trail.

Can't wait for the spring, hopefully only another month! If any of you Stoon guys are down if south Sask on a weekend drop my a line and I'll take you to some of my favorite spots.

Im a big fan of buffalo pound, out of Wascana trails, kinokomas (sp?) and Buffalo pound, buffalo pound is my favorite, i would love to join in on some races if they ever have them out there, but i never hear of them. I have also heard of some trails on some private land near avonlea that are supposed to be really good.. have either of you Kris's heard of or know of these trails?

I hear they are finally going to make the bridge out at wascana trails for the canada summer games, so no more getting soaked crossing the creek.

To all the Saskatchewan people out there, what age are you and what do you do? Wouldnt mind getting to know a lot more mountain biking people so i have some other people to ride with when going riding..

Ill start off by saying im john, 23, student.

I haven't heard of the avonlea one but it sounds pretty interesting, i must admit i cheat alot since i have relatives down in the states i go down to montana, eat their food, use their beds, and their trails! haha. But closer to home I'd have to say the Wascana trails are one of my favourites, and i like White Butte because its so close to get too that it makes a nice easy ride. Oh and I"m Kristian (you can call me Kris), I'm 16, and I'm a student at Leboldus.

Matt, 22, student, with many rambling hobbies, including Guinness (Temporarily On Hiatus)

Looks like I'm the oldy at 27 (nearly 28! ), I spend most of my time in a cell... errr... I mean cubicle at work programming computer systems.

Wascana will be much nicer once the bridge is in, supposedly work is going to start this week. This thing is going to be built to last, unlike the last couple of attempts that washed away the spring after they were built.

I've never been to Avonlea. There have been lots of problems out there between bikers and the land owners leading to the bikers beeing 'banned'. Since then a bunch of guys formed their own club and pay the land owner $350 each (!!!!) a year to ride on his land. Those trails would have to be FABULOUS for me to pay that kind of coin to ride there, IMO riding should be free it's not like we're destroying vast sections of land like golfers for instance.

You guys really have to try Turbulls sometime if you haven't already, it's great out there and a nice change from the more heavily used trail systems. Perhaps we could organize a ride come May, I could get someone who knows those trails really well to serve as a guide. I've only been there once so the chances of me getting lost and missing some of the trails is good.

I'll reiterate, if any of you are looking for people to ride with and want to try racing check out www.offroadsynicate.com, come out to the wednesday night races and to the sunday trail rides. The wednesday nights are not technical at all, but still fun to hammer against some competition.

Out of Sask, the other 'prairie' trail system I've really enjoyed is Fish Creek Prov park in south Calgary. It's like a mini version of riding in the mountains with lots of rooty twisty trails and some short steep technical decents. The only downside of it is the fact that it's quite well used and there are some errosion problems on some of the trails. I remember one downhill where the trail was worn about a meter down from the height it started at!

yeah, thats a bit crazy allright..

Ive never heard of this place, where abouts is it?

It's out at Pasqua lake on the north side of the valley. The trails are cut on private land, and the owners are OK with it. If you search around on www.shutupandride.ca you can find directions to the place I think. Once there it's kind of tough to follow the trail system as it's not well worn on the prairie sections between the forested singletrack.

Oh man, buffalo pound is the BEST place to go in the area...I went up there for a weekend, which turned into a month

If anyone hasnt been to buffalo pound and is interested in seeing what the riding is like on the praries like, here is a short video..

right click save target as......
https://www.shutupandride.ca/videos/v...ada_Cup_XC.mpg

There's also a few clips of some places we've talked about at www.mtbmovies.com.

Any news on the bridge out at Wascana Trails?

Should be done by now. Not like you could ride anyways, I've heard it was a sloppy mess out there prior to our last dump of snow. It's going to be a while before things are ridable. My hope is that the snow disappears fast, then I can head out for some early morning rides while the temp is still sub zero and things aren't a mud fest.

Hey Kris, have you been out to wascana yet?

My dream is to go to Canada or US to have great ride, who can tell the most well known places of riding?

I will be in Regina May 4, 5, 6. Where is Wascana trails and how do you get there. I used to live in Regina so I know the city quite well but I did not ride when I lived there.

I tried Wascana Trails last night... not ready! Some trails were ridable, others were total mud. The bridge is NOT done, in fact only the base has been completed, forget about trying to cross the creek on foot, it's more like a raging river these days... might be fun for kyaking (sp!) though! Give it another 2 weeks.

Might try BP this weekend, it's usually drier out there and the soil is much more gravelly making mud less of an issue.

Directions to Wascana:
- Take highway 11 towards Saskatoon
- turn off at Condie (left), it's well marked
- follow the road down to where it starts curving to go to the Dear Valley golf course
- DON'T follow the curve
- straight ahead the road turns to gravel, take this road
- from here there are signs telling you how to get to Wascana Trails, only 3k down the road, with one turn which is marked.

Hey thanks a lot. I will check it out in early May.

FYI - went to Buffalo Pound yesterday. Conditions were EXCELLENT! 99.5% of trails were dry, very little mud, a couple of parts of the trails in the centre of the valley are under a foot of water.

On a personal note I was quite impressed with myself. Attempted to ride the super steep new trail, made the first section, crashed on the second as my front tire washed out on the turn. Hit the 'big' drop on roots without breaking my bike, or my neck.

i went out to Buffalo Pound yesterday for a ride, it was pretty damm good.. i could only last about an hour on the bike as im in terrible shape.. i will probably be going out there next weekend if anyone else is going..

Our club (www.offroadsyndicate.com) is going for a club ride to BP on Saturday the 14th. I'm not sure what time, or where we're meeting but your more than welcome to come. If your interested I can forward more info to you when I have it, or better yet, come out on Wednesday night to Mt. Pleasant, race for fun, and get the info there!

Not realy prairie riding, but I did a race at Grand Beach Manitoba a couple of weeks back, it was a GREAT place to ride. Highly recommend it for anyone in or going to the Winnipeg area.

hey KrisA, what time do you guys meet at Mount Pleasant? do you guys just meet at the soccer fields/baseball diamond parking lot? I dont really know anyone at the offroad syndicate club.. ill be on the black cannondale f600 with the orange camelback if you wanna give me some advice..