Well my friends at Bike Magazine finally wrote the story on Big Bear Lake that I’ve been begging for, the May issue just hit the stands with our story in all it’s glory and is available at Bear Valley Bikes or your finer bike shops down the hill. I coudn’t remember the last time I had read a story in any magazine about Big Bear that wasn’t a “race report” and after combing through back issues of every cycling publication I could find, I discovered that nobody ever wrote about the Big Bear area as being just a fun place to ride. Then when downhill racing stopped at Snow Summit a few years ago word spread like wildfire that you couldn’t ride here at all.
I pleaded with the boys at the magazine… “please tell it like it really is!”

So feature writer Kip Mickler and the mag’s photo editor David Reddick came up last fall with the new intern in tow ready to ride, eat and re-discover Big Bear Lake. Several of us local biker dudes took them out and showed them some of the fun trails that we ride on a regular basis and we also ran them down to Running Springs to hammer the recently opened Exploration trail. If you haven’t done that ride yet then you’ve got to add it to the list for rides you “must do” for this season. They enjoyed the ride so much they took us out to lunch and a post-ride brew to toast the day. They invited Eric Carter up to ride and let him tell the story of how he launched his pro downhill career at a huge race here in Big Bear.

They were impressed not only with the quality and fun of the trails but with our love and passion for our area and the local riding scene, even if there are no more competitive events. They too had always been busy covering the races here and had never really had the time for doing any of the rides away from the resort grounds.
We all had so many suggestions that they were a little overwhelmed and didn’t have the time to get to all of the possible options but we gave then enough for the piece. I think that you’ll like the story as it was told with input from many sources and it pretty much captures the message I’ve been trying to spread all along.
That Big Bear Lake is a fun place to ride your bike with friends with family or even with total strangers.
So grab a copy of the May issue and get motivated to rediscover Big Bear yourself, we’re here and we’re riding.

spread the love and the word, rev The Cover of Bike Magazine - May, 2008