While visiting famous resorts, it’s not difficult to get familiar with how things work around there. At places with marked routes, you just go up and down. In bike parks or trail centres, there’s always someone you can join. A big mountain resort usually offers visitors a professional guide for hire who will show them all the top picks they can visit.
How to distinguish a good guide from a bad one? A professional guide would hardly ask less than 100 EUR per day, making it cheaper to share the costs with friends. Had you come alone, don’t hesitate to ask at the booking office if there’re some more tourists interested. The price should stay or be just slightly higher adding a smaller sum per each additional person. A reliable guide should ask about your interests in the area, about the style of riding you prefer, and what kind of experience you’re looking for rather than praising his own skills. He or she should also arrange a rental bike according to your wishes.
What if you’re travelling to a country where you’ve never been before? In the age of social networks, you may search for local MTB clubs or crews on the world wide web. You’d be surprised how eager people usually are to show their own trails to a newcomer. Being a part of a mountain biking community, we have friends all over the world. This way, we made new biking relationships in Sardinia, Taiwan, Kosovo or Bosnia and Herzegovina without big efforts.
Sometimes, you fall in love with a spot you saw in a mountain biking documentary shared online. People who created movies depicting a certain area probably already knew where to ride while shooting those. You can contact them using their YouTube channel, respectively Google account. They can either leave you without an answer, keeping their trails secret, or help you to find the spot, eventually even show you a little bit around.
Had nobody answered your messages, there’s still one chance left – you can always turn to the Trailforks.com website to find the best trails in the neighbourhood and meet some unexpected riding mate right there on the spot.
