Park City is located only 30 minutes away from Salt Lake City. It is also considered a great place to mountain bike.  Since I had a day free I decided to rent a bike, get a lift ticket and see how its trails are.

There was an art festival on Main street so many streets was blocked off.  They were also charging parking in the free lots today.  So I drove around and found an empty parking lot that happen to belong to the Park City Mountain Resort (This is important for later too).  Once I got out of the car I quickly realized that I didn’t know where I was so I called Rico to get directions to Main street.  It was a 1 mile uphill walk to the bike rental store.

I got a half day rental and bought a one use lift ticket for $11.  There is a lift that starts right on main street.  This must be really nice in the winter during ski season because you can be shopping or eating at a restaurant and walk down the street and hop on a lift.

I rented a GT I-Drive 4.0.  The first thing I noticed was that it was alot heavier than my old 2002 Gary Fisher Sugar 3+.  Since I have been used to renting nicer bikes, this one just felt crappy.  Plus it had flat pedals.  I wasn’t too comfortable on it going downhill since I’m used to my feet being glued onto the pedals.

I rode up the lift and decided to ride the Mid-mountain Trail.  About 1.5 hours into the ride my derailleur broke.  It just snapped into two pieces.  I didn’t hit a rock or anything.  Luckily, I was on a trail that was 90% downhill so I coasted down the closest trail.  This is where things went well for me.  I happened to be parked at the parking lot where this trail exited.  Also, if I had rented the compact car I wouldn’t have been able to fit the bike in the car, so getting the SUV and parking so far away worked out beautifully.

Broken Derailleur

I walked into the bike shop with the derailleur in hand.  The guy apologized and said that they’ve been having problems with the I-Drives.  He gave me a full refund on the rental and I was on my way.  With the money refunded I went and got a souvenir shirt and went to see “The Bourne Ultimatium.”  It was a good day.

Nice singletrack pictures