Skill and Fitness Rating & Types of Rides

“How hard is this ride?” We believe describ­ing the dif­fi­cul­ty of each trail or ride should have the base­line under­stand­ing that,

1. Moun­tain bik­ing is hard.

2. You are out­door, ath­let­ic, adven­tur­ous and the type of trav­el­er look­ing for a adventure

3. You are look­ing to find the right ride to chal­lenge you while main­tain­ing safety. 

We have adopt­ed the IMBA trail sym­bols (Green Cir­cle, Blue Dia­mond, Black Dia­mond and Dou­ble Black Dia­mond) but added our own twist. Each Ride has a Tech­ni­cal rat­ing as well as Fit­ness chal­lenge. A key piece to remem­ber — the rat­ings are rel­a­tive to the adja­cent trails, or in this case, Ride. For exam­ple, Green Cir­cles are eas­i­er than Blue Squares. Where this rat­ing sys­tem is often con­fus­ing is when there is an assump­tion the rat­ings are intend­ed to be equals across dif­fer­ent trail net­works. You may have a Black Dia­mond in your home­town that you shred all the time. That doesn’t mean when you go to British Colum­bia and ride a Black Dia­mond, it will be the same. 

Our rat­ing sys­tem will help you nav­i­gate the dif­fi­cul­ty and dif­fer­ences between our Rides. Rides are des­ig­nat­ed with the aver­age Tech­ni­cal and Fit­ness abil­i­ty for the full mul­ti-day experience. 

Green Cir­cle — Beginner

The Tech­ni­cal — Typ­i­cal­ly, green Rides are safe for begin­ners. Green Rides may have both avoid­able and unavoid­able obsta­cles. Trails are gen­er­al­ly low grade, wide, con­sis­tent sur­face tex­ture and have min­i­mal fea­tures. You are like­ly to come across unavoid­able obsta­cles 2‑inches or short­er, which is small enough for moun­tain bike tires to sim­ply roll over. More chal­leng­ing than tar­mac, but in gen­er­al, a won­der­ful Ride for those rid­ers new to moun­tain bik­ing or look­ing for a casu­al experience.

The Fit­ness – You should be ready to spend 2–4 hours per day on the bike. Mileage may be up to 30km/20 miles and ele­va­tion gain will be under 500m/1500feet. On e‑MTB tours, num­bers will be high­er, how­ev­er the approx­i­mate effort would be con­sid­ered sim­i­lar to a stan­dard Green Cir­cle ride. If you get on your bike once a week, you will be just fine. How­ev­er, when prepar­ing for a Ride, you will ben­e­fit from more rides and time in the saddle.

Blue Square-Inter­me­di­ate

The Tech — In gen­er­al, blue trails are nar­row­er than green trails, encounter unavoid­able obsta­cles such as roots, rocks, and drops that are up to 8‑inches tall. You will want to have a sol­id under­stand­ing of the fun­da­men­tals of moun­tain bik­ing includ­ing body posi­tions, pow­er­ful brak­ing, cor­ner­ing, rid­ing on var­ied ter­rain, steep sec­tions and expe­ri­ence rid­ing trails that requires line choice. Air­time is not manda­to­ry, but you will find your­self on trails with alter­nate lines giv­ing you the option.

The Fit­ness – Blue should be con­sid­ered a good deal more effort than our Green Rides.  You should be able to han­dle 3 to 5 hours in the sad­dle cov­er­ing up to 45km/30miles and be able to pull off a big day of 1000m/3000feet of ele­va­tion gain. Man­ag­ing fuel is impor­tant as well.  You should have a good under­stand­ing how your body responds to mul­ti­ple days on the bike. We will help with pos­i­tive coach­ing, a man­age­able pace and plen­ty of trail­side snacks.

Black Dia­mond — Advanced

The Tech — The Black Dia­mond Rides are suit­able for rid­ers look­ing for that edge. Maybe it’s the edge of a drop, the edge of a cliff, or sin­gle­track requir­ing focus and fast reac­tions devel­oped from exten­sive expe­ri­ence rid­ing “the edge”. You will find your­self on steep trails of var­ied sur­faces. In the Pacif­ic North West that could be slick roots and loam, in Nepal you will find exposed gran­ite in the Mus­tang Val­ley and in Guatemala it maybe nar­row stair­ways through cliff­side vil­lages. While air­time is rarely required, the abil­i­ty to find the back­side or clean a table­top should be com­fort­able or in a state of progress. Obsta­cles on Black rides are like­ly to be out­side the range of your bikes abil­i­ty to cov­er your goofs with its awe­some sus­pen­sion and grip.

The Fit­ness – A Black Fit­ness ride will test you. Aside from need­ing to be able to man­age up to 6 hours on the bike, day after day, includ­ing dis­tance up to 50km/30miles and ele­va­tion gains up to 1750m/5000feet of climb­ing, you will be adding extra chal­lenges along the route like peri­ods of hike-a-bike and the extra effort required by the whole body to safe­ly dance with your bike over tech­ni­cal ter­rain. Gen­er­al­ly, rid­ers who are up for a Black Fit­ness ride, like­ly spend time on the bike a cou­ple times each week.

Dou­ble Black Dia­mond — Expert

The Tech — The Black Dia­mond Rides are suit­able for rid­ers look­ing for that edge. Maybe it’s the edge of a drop, the edge of a cliff, or sin­gle­track requir­ing focus and fast reac­tions devel­oped from exten­sive expe­ri­ence rid­ing “the edge”. You will find your­self on steep trails of var­ied sur­faces. In the Pacif­ic North West that could be slick roots and loam, in Nepal you will find exposed gran­ite in the Mus­tang Val­ley and in Guatemala it maybe nar­row stair­ways through cliff­side vil­lages. While air­time is rarely required, the abil­i­ty to find the back­side or clean a table­top should be com­fort­able or in a state of progress. Obsta­cles on Black rides are like­ly to be out­side the range of your bikes abil­i­ty to cov­er your goofs with its awe­some sus­pen­sion and grip.

The Fit­ness – A Black Fit­ness ride will test you. Aside from need­ing to be able to man­age up to 6 hours on the bike, day after day, includ­ing dis­tance up to 50km/30miles and ele­va­tion gains up to 1750m/5000feet of climb­ing, you will be adding extra chal­lenges along the route like peri­ods of hike-a-bike and the extra effort required by the whole body to safe­ly dance with your bike over tech­ni­cal ter­rain. Gen­er­al­ly, rid­ers who are up for a Black Fit­ness ride, like­ly spend time on the bike a cou­ple times each week.


Start Planning Your Sacred Ride

Designed for moun­tain bik­ers of all skill lev­els who crave adven­ture and shiv­ers-down-your-spine amaz­ing trails, our Moun­tain Rides fea­ture epic rid­ing on some of the most revered and sought-after slices of moun­tain on the plan­et, with heaps of oth­er incred­i­ble trav­el expe­ri­ences to write home about.

Final­ly hol­i­day togeth­er with­out com­pro­mise! Our new Bring-Your-Part­ner Rides are designed for expe­ri­enced moun­tain bik­ers with part­ners who don’t moun­tain bike.

For the moun­tain bik­ers we’ll have incred­i­ble sin­gle­track rid­ing; for the part­ners we’ll have lots of fun activ­i­ties, from hik­ing to cul­tur­al adven­tures, yoga, spa activ­i­ties and more. We’ll also have plen­ty of fun activ­i­ties to do together!

Grav­el Bik­ing. The name is both per­fect­ly fit­ting and mis­lead­ing at the same time. The sur­face will be grav­el, paved, dirt and even smooth trail. When you toss your leg over a grav­el bike, you buy a tick­et to end­less routes near­ly void of cars, with access to remote and breath­tak­ing des­ti­na­tions. The ride will have you hooked.

Our Women’s Rides have been designed by women who ride, for women who ride (or for women who want to try moun­tain biking!)

Our gals only rides are designed to offer guid­ance, prac­tice, time and encour­age­ment in the com­pa­ny of like-lev­el rid­ers. As a sea­soned rid­er, with years of expe­ri­ence under your tread, we also know ped­al time is progress time, allow­ing you to cov­er and explore more trails in unique des­ti­na­tions around the globe.

Chal­lenge your­self, learn new skills, expe­ri­ence unique des­ti­na­tions and laugh out loud with us on one of our epic moun­tain bike adven­tures for women!

Explore incred­i­ble des­ti­na­tions around the world with a lit­tle extra boost on our e‑mountain bike rides. You’ll cov­er more ground, con­quer longer climbs and dis­cov­er new trails, cul­tures and land­scapes with the pow­er and pos­si­bil­i­ties of our e‑mountain bike fleet.


READY TO RIDE?