Lebanon Hills Mountain Biking

The Lebanon Hills trails are the crown jewels of MSP mountain biking. They are also, unsurprisingly, insanely popular.

References:

• MORC Maps for Lebanon Hills
• Official site (slow to spin up as of 11/2012) and The official Map - pdf 2012
• The official trail descriptions: print them out and study them.
• Overview of the massive park system: MSP Trails - Twin Cities Bike, Ski and Skate: Lebanon Hills Regional Park

I've taken the kids there twice. Google doesn't seem to know where the trailhead is yet (I submitted an addition), but this link will take you to the West Trailhead and the Skills Park (Cliff road, Johny Cake, look for entrance).

The only negative of this astounding trail system is the traffic. The lot is usually full, and fast riders come from as far as Mankato and Rochester.  There is currently a problem with the novice trails - they get a lot of traffic from racers aiming for the faster trails. I'd like to see a way to either educate these riders to go extremely slowly on the green trails or to encourage them to bypass the novice trails. The press of fast riders can really discourage novice riders, esp. kids.

Otherwise my 10 yo daughter, who is far from bold, did very well on the Novice trail. She was anxious the first time and confident the second.

My 15yo hammered the blue trails, but we stayed away from the black and red. I have a hard fork bike (only one there!) and I suspect you want at least front suspension for the expert loops.

Theodore Wirth Park Mountain bike: The South Trail System (Enchanted Forest)

Theodore Wirth Mountain Biking trails are maintained by MOCA TRAILS. The kids and I rode the smaller south system, as shown on the MOCA map below.

For us, it was a poor choice. There is a 'novice' loop, but it's very short. The rest of the trail is not only intermediate+, but also quite short. Most of the trails are in the northern loop, but that has no novice trails I know of. We didn't visit it.

MOCA works hard to protect trails, but that means they can be unexpectedly closed -- even when conditions seem ideal. If you're going to visit this site, check trail status first by visiting the mocatrails.org site and looking for the trail condition icon on the main page.