Bentonville, AR/NWA

[Robin]

I just posted this on my blog but thought I'd post here too. I'd wait until the fall to head there - I am not going to deny that summer is brutal there - the humidity made the heat feel that much worse. So bad that the heat wave we are having now in NJ doesn't really phase me.

Over the past few years, Bentonville and Northwest Arkansas (NWA) has become a mountain bike mecca. Apparently the Walton family has found a love of mountain biking and dumped millions of dollars into building insanely fun trails. I have heard first hand how awesome the trails are - all free to the public and accessible from town.

Our National meeting was Wednesday June 13th through Saturday June 17th. We planned on arriving a day early to get settled and well, ride of course. I had my Juliana boxed up at Halter’s and shipped using BikeFlights. My bike was shipped to Phat Tire in Bentonville were it was built and ready for me when I arrived.

Our accomodations for the week were about a mile outside of town at “the Bike Cottage” - it was a great house with access to the Slaughter Pen trails right out the driveway. Once we arrived in town, we rode everywhere, sometimes on the street...sometimes on the trail. The downtown is adorable, filled with good eats, drinks, and coffee. It was weird to see a Rapha store but then I was reminded they were bought out by RZC Investments (associated with the Walton’s).





Day 1 of riding - it had just finished raining when we arrived so we were limited on trails to ride. We managed to get in some riding in both Phase 1 and 2 of Slaughter Pen. Lots of flow with limestone chunks and flakes.





After, we were helping mark a self guided ride at the Back 40. Although the trails were still manicured, I'd say these were more like our trails home. I enjoyed the trails of the Back 40 but wanted to get back to Coler and Slaughter Pen.





Once the conference started, we were provided with guided rides of about 2 hours to places of our choice. On day 2, I got to ride Coler with some really rad ladies. We hit one trail over and over, with little table tops and berms. We also got to see some of the gnar that is in their local enduro and finally making our way up to the Hub. The trails were still wet so we cut one of our trails short and hopped out on the street to head back to town.





Day 3 we jumped on a Slaughter Pen ride which hit some of the stuff we missed on Day 1. My favorite was Choo Choo. We got to ride a trail that had an AR state rock - in the shape of the rock. We also hit the infamous Oz Trail that Grayson rides to school on (which was just down the street from our accommodations).



Day 4 we had "free time" to ride whatever we wanted. We headed an hour north to Eureka Spring to check out Leatherwood Lake trails. Holy. The trails officially opened a few days before we rode them. We climbed up, which was about 15 minutes at our leisurely pace. At the top, there are a variety of ways to get down from blue intermediate runs to double black diamond.





The trails were a blast! We took turn shuttling after a few runs to get the maximum amount of riding in before dark. Some crazy features out there.







Our last day (Day 5) we headed back up to Coler to the Hub. We met up with a bunch of other NICA peeps and hit Cease and Desist (well, I didn't hit it but watched others send it). Such fun stuff.



The trails are well-built and maintained by Progressive Trail Design - as of now/this post. I'd compare them to flow trails at most bike parks - nothing I rode was "raw" like Pisgah or parts of Kingdom Trails. If you are looking for a career change, perhaps professional trail building is the way to go

 

[Santapez]

It's seems like they're building a nice new mountain bike mecca.

I believe the weather there is pretty temperate so it should become quite popular. Centrally located, obviously easy to get lots of flights. That fact that it's around a built up area will help.

 

[Robin]

Having Walmart (and a few other bigger businesses) in NWA makes flying somewhat convenient. Flights available from the surrounding airports but LGA had direct flights at times that worked for my schedule. Drive is 19 hours.

 

[Soundguy]

So jealous. I’ve read so many articles about the scene there. Looks like you had an amazing trip!

 

[Off The Road Again]

Having Walmart (and a few other bigger businesses) in NWA makes flying somewhat convenient. Flights available from the surrounding airports but LGA had direct flights at times that worked for my schedule. Drive is 19 hours.

Wow! You drive fast!! Lol. I went to U of A in Fayetteville, AR, just south of Bentonville. Any which way I drove it was 24 hours! My brother (mtb/road racer) who lives in Fayetteville was just telling me about this yesterday. The Walton kids are big into MTB and now have built up to 45 or so parks in NWA. Definitely a destination place - beautiful scenery in the Boston Mts (foothills of Ozarks), close to tourist areas of MO and OK, big lakes and caves. And Fayetteville is a great small city with the college there just a few miles down Rt 49. When I was there in the '90's, Benton was a dry county, but I think that has changed.

 

[Robin]

@Off The Road Again was there 9 years ago before I rode to visit friend who worked at the University. Much has changed - including breweries in Bentonville

 

[2Julianas]

@Robin amazing! I really want to go there, adding to my trip bucket list for sure. Looks like you had a ton of fun.

 

[ekuhn]

Great read and looked like an awesome time.

 

[pixychick]

Thanks for all this info. Have tried to stop to and from AZ, but it has always been raining. Hoping for a sunny day enroute in the near future.

 

[krink]

I just posted this on my blog but thought I'd post here too. I'd wait until the fall to head there - I am not going to deny that summer is brutal there - the humidity made the heat feel that much worse. So bad that the heat wave we are having now in NJ doesn't really phase me.

Over the past few years, Bentonville and Northwest Arkansas (NWA) has become a mountain bike mecca. Apparently the Walton family has found a love of mountain biking and dumped millions of dollars into building insanely fun trails. I have heard first hand how awesome the trails are - all free to the public and accessible from town.

Our National meeting was Wednesday June 13th through Saturday June 17th. We planned on arriving a day early to get settled and well, ride of course. I had my Juliana boxed up at Halter’s and shipped using BikeFlights. My bike was shipped to Phat Tire in Bentonville were it was built and ready for me when I arrived.

Our accomodations for the week were about a mile outside of town at “the Bike Cottage” - it was a great house with access to the Slaughter Pen trails right out the driveway. Once we arrived in town, we rode everywhere, sometimes on the street...sometimes on the trail. The downtown is adorable, filled with good eats, drinks, and coffee. It was weird to see a Rapha store but then I was reminded they were bought out by RZC Investments (associated with the Walton’s).

Was just looking into this place, looks like a lot more work has been done, both in town and to the trails. It may compete with Kingdom and or Asheville now. Any thoughts or other rides that have been there more recently?

 

[Shorepoints]

Was just looking into this place, looks like a lot more work has been done, both in town and to the trails. It may compete with Kingdom and or Asheville now. Any thoughts or other rides that have been there more recently?

Was there in April. Have also been to Kingdom and Asheville several times in the past few years. Bentonville has way more miles than Kingdom and probably more high quality miles than Asheville. It doesn't have a "mountain town" vibe like Asheville/Kingdom but the quality of the trails is extraordinary. It is a truly unique experience and definitely worth putting on your list.

 

[Norm]

Was just looking into this place, looks like a lot more work has been done, both in town and to the trails. It may compete with Kingdom and or Asheville now. Any thoughts or other rides that have been there more recently?

As @cassinonorth mentions, we were there in October. Been to Kingdom a dozen times, Asheville once but I did not ride much down there. The town of Bentonville reminded me a lot of Asheville, just not as big. The number of miles of trails in BV is staggering, but I would do A LOT of research before you go there. You could spend a week there tooling around on entirely average trails and be totally disappointed. You should also explore some of the systems outside BV proper, which we learned mid-trip while there, maybe a bit late.

I will go back one day, but almost surely not in the next 2 years. Conversely, we already have a house booked for KT for this summer, and we may go an additional 1-2 times on top of that. We also have Asheville on the radar for this year as a possible trip.

BV is a much further drive, obviously.

I would also say that some people go to BV and think it is beyond amazing. I am not 1 of those people, I guess obviously. It was good, but we ended up having to do a lot of research every day to ensure we did not aimlessly blow a day on mediocre trails, which definitely happened on the second day. The last 3 days (of 5) were much better.

 

[stb222]

As @cassinonorth mentions, we were there in October. Been to Kingdom a dozen times, Asheville once but I did not ride much down there. The town of Bentonville reminded me a lot of Asheville, just not as big. The number of miles of trails in BV is staggering, but I would do A LOT of research before you go there. You could spend a week there tooling around on entirely average trails and be totally disappointed. You should also explore some of the systems outside BV proper, which we learned mid-trip while there, maybe a bit late.

I will go back one day, but almost surely not in the next 2 years. Conversely, we already have a house booked for KT for this summer, and we may go an additional 1-2 times on top of that. We also have Asheville on the radar for this year as a possible trip.

BV is a much further drive, obviously.

I would also say that some people go to BV and think it is beyond amazing. I am not 1 of those people, I guess obviously. It was good, but we ended up having to do a lot of research every day to ensure we did not aimlessly blow a day on mediocre trails, which definitely happened on the second day. The last 3 days (of 5) were much better.

Does BV offer a variety of terrain and obstacles compared to other places? They sure like to highlight this stuff even though much of it looks like sorta pointless (like that elevated boardwalks and such.

 

[Shorepoints]

Does BV offer a variety of terrain and obstacles compared to other places? They sure like to highlight this stuff even though much of it looks like sorta pointless (like that elevated boardwalks and such.

The features at Coler are worth the trip alone. Amazing jump trails and berms and the Drop The Hammer features are scary but perfectly engineered. Slaughter Pen trails are also chock full of berms/jumps/etc. There are countless features throughout Bentonville and more being built daily. Back 40 is more of a cross-country vibe where you can log alot of miles on well built single-track. Even though it's not the mountains, you'll log 2,000'+ climbing if you do the back 40. Then there are the new trail systems outside of Bentonville that are also popping up quickly. The only place with this type of variety in such a compact area might be the Whistler/Squamish region.

 

[Norm]

Does BV offer a variety of terrain and obstacles compared to other places? They sure like to highlight this stuff even though much of it looks like sorta pointless (like that elevated boardwalks and such.

Compared to where? This is not a totally fair question I guess. Because BV is considered everything inside a 2 hour drive of BV. If we use that criteria, the whole state of Vermont fits in that. You could rent a place in Vermont that is close to KT, Killington, Stowe, and dozens of well-built trail systems that in total, are far better than BV IMO.

BV is a bit weird in that it is kind of designed to drive between points. An example would be Little Sugar. This is a massive set of trails that by and large are totally forgettable and mostly a grind. But right in the middle you have this small set of trails called the launchpad (or something). You can drive to that, do a set of DH runs, then go drive somewhere else. But if you do those trails then ride 25 miles of the XC stuff, it's pretty low ROI.

Again - huge amount of research needed.

Handcut Hollow is another example. There is a gazebo at the top with 7 or 8 DH runs from it. You park somewhere, ride to the top, and do these runs until you get tired, then go elsewhere. If you were to just aimlessly ride those trails you would eventually find the layout, but you could spend a lot of time aimlessly wandering. Mind you, aimlessly wandering on a mountain bike beats working any day.

I think my point is to set expectations accordingly. If you are going there expecting KT plus 200% more trails, you'll be disappointed. There are 53 trillion more rocks there than at KT. The terrain is very CR-like in spots, which begs the question, how are they going to maintain the trails? This is a local debate, as it seems some locals are annoyed that they keep building more and letting the stuff that was just built crumble. We did experience this at Mount Fitzgerald. Some amazing work there, but some stuff they are just letting gravity & erosion have its way with.

 

[krink]

Compared to where? This is not a totally fair question I guess. Because BV is considered everything inside a 2 hour drive of BV. If we use that criteria, the whole state of Vermont fits in that. You could rent a place in Vermont that is close to KT, Killington, Stowe, and dozens of well-built trail systems that in total, are far better than BV IMO.

BV is a bit weird in that it is kind of designed to drive between points. An example would be Little Sugar. This is a massive set of trails that by and large are totally forgettable and mostly a grind. But right in the middle you have this small set of trails called the launchpad (or something). You can drive to that, do a set of DH runs, then go drive somewhere else. But if you do those trails then ride 25 miles of the XC stuff, it's pretty low ROI.

Again - huge amount of research needed.

Handcut Hollow is another example. There is a gazebo at the top with 7 or 8 DH runs from it. You park somewhere, ride to the top, and do these runs until you get tired, then go elsewhere. If you were to just aimlessly ride those trails you would eventually find the layout, but you could spend a lot of time aimlessly wandering. Mind you, aimlessly wandering on a mountain bike beats working any day.

I think my point is to set expectations accordingly. If you are going there expecting KT plus 200% more trails, you'll be disappointed. There are 53 trillion more rocks there than at KT. The terrain is very CR-like in spots, which begs the question, how are they going to maintain the trails? This is a local debate, as it seems some locals are annoyed that they keep building more and letting the stuff that was just built crumble. We did experience this at Mount Fitzgerald. Some amazing work there, but some stuff they are just letting gravity & erosion have its way with.

So would those that have been there be interested in listing a greatest hits? Coler and slaughter pen sound like they would make the list, and the above comparisons to areas of chimney rock are very helpful. Appreciate all the feedback.

 

[Norm]

So would those that have been there be interested in listing a greatest hits? Coler and slaughter pen sound like they would make the list, and the above comparisons to areas of chimney rock are very helpful. Appreciate all the feedback.

Honestly, this is almost worth a wiki page. There are so many areas and they all have a different personality.

When are you thinking of going?

 

[krink]

Honestly, this is almost worth a wiki page. There are so many areas and they all have a different personality.

When are you thinking of going?

Likely this spring. Was inspired by your road trip. May hit a few places.

 

[stb222]

Ya know, its too bad we don't know someone from jersey that now lives in Bentonville to use a resource.

Is kingdom the pinnacle of what all other mtb areas are to be rated against?

 

[Norm]

Is kingdom the pinnacle of what all other mtb areas are to be rated against?

No. But for someone in NJ, you can wake up here and be riding there by lunch. Sedona is amazing but the door-to-door makes it much harder to reach. If BV were 6 hours away, it would be a different conversation. Asheville is also 12 hours away. You could decide to go to KT for the weekend on a Friday at 5pm, get 2 days of great riding in, and be home Sunday night. Sedona, BV, Asheville, etc - these fall under a different "ease of use" category.

It also depends what you are looking for. If you like the town vibe with a lot of coffee shops, restaurants, and bars, then KT is not ideal. Yes it is more of a mountain town but it is also somewhat desolate, especially on a weekday.