With nearly 500 miles of trail ranging from buffed-out, buttery single-track to root-and-rock staircases and butt-puckering cliff drops, locals know that the Flathead Valley is home to some of the best mountain biking in the country.
And while a recent review by the popular online mountain bike website, singletracks.com, added clout to the region’s renown when it ranked the Flathead sixth overall in the nation, it came as no surprise to the folks who have been charging up and down the sprawling network of local trails while expanding and refurbishing them.
The valley earned a place among the top destinations after the site reviewed its database — dubbed the largest collection of mountain bike information in the world — featuring user reviews, photos and guides. An automatic algorithm then ranked all of the content to create the destination rankings.
The Flathead Valley was initially ranked seventh when the list was unveiled March 2, but in the days since, new content has been added and the valley bumped up to sixth, according to Singletracks editor-in-chief Greg Heil.
The site plugged Kalispell, Whitefish, Bigfork and beyond for its high quality trails.
“This area is home to a wealth of rugged Montana mountain biking, with Whitefish leading the way in modern trail development,” Heil wrote in his review.
The Beardance trail south of Bigfork is the highest-ranked trail in the area on the site, which touted the valley’s 45 trail systems of more than 487 miles of mountain biking trails in the region as another prime example of its high ranking.
The Flathead Valley edged out Jackson, Wyoming, which came in seventh. Salida, Colorado placed fifth, Park City, Utah earned fourth, Winter Park, Colorado was third, Crested Butte, Colorado was second and Breckenridge, Colorado landed No. 1.
“This area is home to a wealth of rugged Montana mountain biking, with Whitefish leading the way in modern trail development,” Heil wrote in his review.
Leading the charge of that trail development has been the Flathead Fat Tires, a nonprofit group dedicated to trail work, advocacy and riding bikes. At the fore of the group’s mission is the network of technical trails webbing Spencer Mountain west of Whitefish.
Built by a clandestine group of local riders more than a decade ago, the trails were the worst-kept secret in town, and as the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation moved forward with a pair of timber sales, an expiration date to the cloak-and-dagger arrangement seemed inevitable.
Flathead Fat Tires board member Noah Bodman has been at the vanguard of trail development in the valley, and said the group collaborated with the city of Whitefish and the DNRC to preserve some of the finest freeride mountain biking in the state.
“It’s a fantastic resource out there and even though people have been building and riding out there for years it was always unauthorized and semi-illegal,” Bodman said. “The easy option would have been to rip it out, but to the state’s credit they got the conversation going and now we’re able to preserve and improve it.”
The Whitefish City Council sanctioned Spencer Mountain by issuing a 10-year recreational use license, legitimizing 15 miles of trail and monetizing the land by allowing the DNRC to generate revenues for State School Trust Lands through the timber sales, while the nonprofit group Whitefish Legacy Partners will raise the money to pay the annual recreation use fees.
The end result is a marriage of a traditional State School Trust Lands revenue-generating mechanism like logging with the more progressive notion that recreation can be a lucrative use of public lands.
The Flathead Fat Tires is also working on a new section of trails in the Whitefish Range. Anyone wishing to volunteer can get involved by contacting the group through their website at www.flatheadfattires.com.
MUST RIDE
1. Beardance Trail, Bigfork, 15 miles
2. Big Mountain, Whitefish, 8 miles
3. Napa Point to Wire Trail/Alpine Trail #7, Swan Lake, 25 miles
4. Spencer Mountain, Whitefish, 10 miles
5. Reid Divide Trail, Whitefish, 20 miles
6. Whitefish Trail, Whitefish, 30 miles
7. Foys to Blacktail Trail/Herron Park, Kalispell, 30 miles