BIKE PARK 101: LIFTS, LAPS & ETIQUETTE
8 min · Free lesson · written lesson, video in production
After this lesson your first bike park day runs like your tenth: you know how lifts, trail grades, drops and park flow work, and the unwritten rules that keep you safe and welcome.
The Technique
- A bike park is a ski resort in summer clothes: lifts do the climbing, graded trails do the sorting - green flow, blue jumps you can roll, black lines with mandatory air, pro lines you inspect before you ever consider. Day one is for riding every green and blue in the place, even if they bore you. They will not.
- Loading a lift with a bike has a technique: bike on the hook or tray by the rules of that hill, and gear check before every lap - a park day is thirty descents, which is a season of trail riding in eight hours. Bikes and bodies fatigue at park pace.
- The grade jump rule: session one trail down from your ceiling. The park version of a black is faster, bigger and more committing than the trail version, and features come at you in sequence - there is no walking speed between them.
- Etiquette keeps everyone alive: never stop on a landing or past a blind lip, always clear the trail before looking back, call your drops when passing, and inspect every jump line on foot the first time - speeds are set by the builder, not by you.
- Progression at a park is a ladder built for you: the small line of every feature type exists somewhere on the hill. Find the tiny tables, the mini drops, the low wall rides, and lap them until bored before sizing up. Boredom is the signal; fear is not a coach.
- Pace the day: strongest riding happens in laps three to fifteen. The famous crash window is the last hour of a tired day chasing one more. Book the morning, quit while riding well, and the trip lasts all week.
Common Mistakes
Following a faster mate into a line you have not inspected. Fix: speeds and gaps are knowable in advance - walk it or roll it slow once, every time.
- Stopping mid-trail to rest where you cannot be seen. Fix: off the trail, past the feature, visible from above - always.
The Drill
The ladder day: pick one feature type - tables, drops or berms - and ride every size of it the park offers, smallest to your honest ceiling, three clean laps at each size before moving up. One feature type per day.
Full-face, knee pads minimum, and gear that is rated for park speeds. First-timer? Book the park's own orientation lap or a guide for the first morning - we build this into every UU bike park trip.
LET'S BUILD
YOUR
ADVENTURE
Whether you want to surf Japan's legendary powder, ride the Old Telegraph Track to the tip of Cape York, or chase a New Zealand winter - tell us what you're dreaming about and we'll build the trip around you.