Last week, for the first time in eight years, I bought a brand new mountain bike. Even though I'm not a superstitious guy, I still wanted to start things off on the right foot -and this meant finding the best trail possible for the first ride. I wanted a trail where I could test my new limits on steep uphills, screaming downhills, tricky technical sections, and endless winding singletrack.

One trail easily stood out from the rest, so I drove to the foothills west of Ft. Collins to ride Horsetooth Mountain. (A little sidenote here -Horsetooth was the first trail that I ever rode on, and it's fully responsible for getting me hooked on mountain biking. Brady -the other owner of the site- and I rode this park for many years while going to school in Ft. Collins). The park has well over 15 miles of trails, and connects with nearby Lory State Park, which means you can spend days exploring and finding new trails to ride.

When your ride first starts, you are presented with a short warm-up, and then a solid climb up some well-kept service road. After about 3/4 of a mile, your choices start to arrive. You can either choose to stay on the service road for more steep climbing, follow a different service road down into a grassy meadow with waterfalls, or take some tricky singletrack up to the top of Horsetooth Mountain. (See our Horsetooth trail page for a route suggestion about Wathen Trail).

I rode this trail during Easter weekend, and as you can tell in the pictures, everything was mostly dry. Several areas that were hidden from the sun were still muddy, so if you ride, be careful to not tear up the trails. The park can be really busy on weekends, and sometimes the parking lot will fill up. One way to get around this is to ride the seven miles from town to the park. There are three big climbs in those seven miles, so this option isn't for the faint of heart. Do this ride several times a week, along with finishing the Wathen Trail loop, and you will be unstoppable! Whatever route you choose, you'll quickly know that you are riding on one of the best trails in the state!