You know how, after a big ride, you just wanna eat a couple of hot dogs, drink a big soda, and stand on the sidelines of the field watching a high school football game until the desert winds make your teeth chatter?
Not my usual cool-down experience either, but it turned out to be a great end to the day.
Pioche is a very small town — maybe 1,200 people on a sunny day. You can’t really be a tourist here — by the time you’re halfway through your first diner coffee, you’ll probably have met half the population and might well have been invited to play some part in their lives. In our case, that meant accepting a kind invitation from local tourism manager Anna Williams to cheer on her son Dylan as he tried to help his beloved Lynx defeat a Las Vegas team in nearby Panaca.
Silver lining
The remnants of the silver mine that first brought people to this remote part of Southern Nevada are still in evidence — the apparatus to dig, extract, and haul that silver out decorate the hills around town. But those hills have been empty and largely unused for a long time — unused until local riders started to see the potential for mountain bike trails.
We’re joined on our day’s ride by Jason Williams — Dylan’s dad. These trails aren’t even officially open yet, but we’re encouraged to skip around the dirt pile and “Trail Closed” signs and head on up anyway.
Over 20 miles of trail, known as the “Prospectors Trail System,” will soon lace the hills above Pioche. Our first foray onto the dusty, rock-strewn hardpack is promising — we’re on a simple singletrack climbing trail, pleasantly dotted with curb-height steps up and down, the odd scattering of jagged little rocks, and flowing berms around the gullies and canyons. After a quick out-and-back to get the blood flowing, we head up a more technical climbing trail toward the high point of the system to get our first taste of what the trail builder had in mind as he shaped this new network.
InKleined
These trails were crafted by Joey Klein — IMBA’s longest-tenured employee and founder of Trail Solutions, with over 25 years of experience digging in the dirt. He’s built trails and taught trail building all over the USA and beyond, as well as riding and winning countless MTB races, so the fact that he’s been hands-on for this 20-mile project is a great sign that IMBA and the locals are serious.
His fingerprints are all over this trail. While there may not be huge amounts of elevation — just a few hundred feet — as we grind up the climb, we spot all the fun stuff we want to hit on the way back down: artfully placed sloping rocks for kicker jumps, slabs and ledges of natural rock to hop over, ridges to manual or drop off the end of, and smooth boulders for rolling over.
Small but perfectly formed
By the time the trail system in Pioche is finished in mid-2025, the full 20 miles will be connected, so everyone from gravel riders to beginners to air-obsessed groms will find something to ride. But for today, we only have time for one serious descent. Everything that got our hopes up on the climb delivers in spades on the way down. This trail is fast — way faster than a lot of the rockier and more technical trails in nearby Caliente or Las Vegas. It’s the kind of trail that makes even novice riders feel like heroes thanks to the fast, flat, hard-packed flow that’s beautifully interspersed with small features that feel heroic at whatever speed you’re capable of hitting them.
We jump, slide, drop, and bunny hop our way down as fast as we’re capable. This trail passes the “whoop” test in the first few seconds. There’s a kicker over a gap that’s so fun we stop and session it for 20 minutes or so, goofing around and trying our best to look steezy for the camera (as steezy as this podgy 49-year-old man can manage, anyway), and despite the fact we’re just sampling the early stages of a bigger build, the stoke factor is high.
Watch this space
By the time you read this, more of these trails will be finished, and by the time you think about actually heading there to ride, they’ll probably be done. The locals are already hitting them and bedding them in, too. Pioche might not provide much more than a day’s worth of riding for visitors, but it’s right on the highway to Vegas, with 60 miles of trails in nearby Caliente, more excellent trails in Ely, and could easily form part of a bigger trip that includes Hurricane or Cedar City, too.
What’s most impressive about this place isn’t the size, quantity, or technical difficulty of the trails — it’s that this town chose to build them instead of building a golf course, a resort hotel, or any of the other ways it might have chosen to attract visitors. It’s that parents and local voters saw the potential in a local NICA team, in mountain bikers eating in their restaurants, and increasing everyone’s access to the beauty of these desert hills.
So if you go there and ride, you’re not just proving them right. You’re also helping every other small town — maybe your own — have a better chance at funding their trail building ambitions. You’re helping make mountain biking more visible and accepted. You’re helping hunters, off-roaders, horse riders, and other organized outdoor groups see mountain bikers as a valuable and equal partner. Most of all, you’re helping to get more people whooping out loud on a weekday morning as they hit that drop as fast as they can.
See you there.
0 Comments