The video clip showcased low ceilings, quick drops, and sharp turns more akin to an Indiana Jones adventure than your typical mountain bike hype reel. I was entranced. The video, by mountain biker Jono Jones, has racked up 1.4 million views. It’s entrancing, hypnotic, and a little polarizing. The friends I’ve shown it to either want to get on a plane and try it immediately or never watch the video again.
Over the past decade-plus, mountain biking has exploded in popularity. One survey lists the number of 8.92 million trail cyclists in 2022. This is down a bit from the 2020 high of 9 million but far more than the 2007 numbers of 6.9 million.
But unlike the similar popularity boom in surfing, trails, unlike waves, are not finite resources. Sure, your local singletrack might be busier on a Sunday morning, but those newcomers can form an ideal group of advocates and trail builders, donating time, resources, and community importance.
I recently moved back to my college town in Michigan, where the mountain biking infrastructure is almost unrecognizable after my near decade of absence. Trail societies, local ski hills in the off-season, private builders tripling the miles and infrastructure available for Midwestern looking to ride on dirt.
All this to say, new trails and new ways to mountain bike continue to emerge. And they should; that’s the spirit of a sport that emerged from a few intrepid frame builders welding together steel bikes with big tires in the 1960s and tackling their local trails before anyone else was riding them.
Heli-Biking

Who hasn’t wished for rocket legs or helicopter rescue on an ascent with painfully steep grades? Of course, ski areas across the states have carved a summer sports niche by repurposing lifts for mountain bikers eager to tackle downhill laps without sweating the uphill. And for the more intrepid (or ones with deeper pockets), a helicopter can do the same.
Jamie Carrol has a 10-year tenure as a mountain bike guide in the Sea-to-Sky corridor of Whistler, British Columbia — the past 2 years with AlpX Expeditions running guided heli bike operations on Whistler’s only sanctioned heli-biking trail.

Unconventional Mountain Biking: UTV Access

Final Thoughts on Unconventional Access to Mountain Biking
