The good news about mountain bike racing from New York City is there is tons of it, and if you want you can race every weekend.

The bad thing about trying to plan a mountain bike season is the discipline(s) are series-based, and there is no full series convenient to the series. Instead, the city sits on the geographic edge of three-to-five major series (depending on how you define reasonable driving distance): H2H in New Jersey, NYSMTB, Connecticut, the Mid-Atlantic Super Series (mostly eastern PA and Delaware), and the new Race Day XC in New England. While all of these series have some races within a 2-hour drive, none of them are particularly easy to build momentum in over the whole season unless you want to drive 3+ hours each way several times during the summer.

Given the length of the drive, it is also frustrating that most races race in category waves, meaning that if you and your friend are on opposite sides of the cat 1/2 divide, you have to either drive alone or give up your entire day to hanging at the trails. And almost all of the races have long, 5-6 mile (or more!) laps that don’t give people sitting in the parking lot prepping for a race any good way to spectate.

That said, there is a ton to look forward to this year, with new opportunities continually popping up. The list below is full of races I’m looking forward to most, with a mix of personal preference and an attempt to give an overview of the possibilities. It’s cross country heavy as that is what I race most, but there are also opportunities for endurance, enduro, and downhill at some of these events.

1. Race Day XC series

   Everyone I’ve talked to is hyped about this new series in New England that looks to have a much bigger production value than the other XC series’ around. Following the Instagram since it launched, it seems like they’ve been hard at work all fall and winter cutting new trails and really spending a lot of effort trying to make this a big series that’s worth traveling to.

   I’m most excited about the effort to make relatively short laps like World Cup XC—the website is advertising 2-4 miles, and shooting for 15-20 minutes each lap. That's a race I can watch my friends in and cheer them on, as well as expect to actually follow what’s going on in the race as a spectator. It’s also more fun in my experience to race shorter laps, where everyone can be expected to know and be able to practice the features. The race really becomes about executing features rather than being surprised by them. As a person who lives far from many of the bigger XC races, it’s really hard to figure out how to pre-ride a 6-8 mile race lap at a trail system I’ve never been to, and too many times I’ve lost a group on the first lap just because I was surprised by a feature, rather than I really couldn’t ride it.

   The schedule also promises open courses on Saturdays for pre-ride, then Sunday races, which makes it fun to make it a weekend—go see your friends and get to know the course Saturday, stay over, and race Sunday.

   The one thing I’m trepidacious about is the announced prize money structure, which hands out money according to how many people show up in a particular category. That’s traditionally a way to under-pay elite women who work just as hard as the elite men, and through no fault of their own have less competition. It punishes the women who show up, and doesn’t really encourage more women to come out. I get wanting to structure prize money according to registrations to figure out a budget, but ideally it should be based on overall registrations, then evened out among elite men and women. That allows the race to hedge against a low turnout race without telling women that their participation counts less (especially if registration cost is the same!).

2. WMBA Chain Stretcher XC & Festival

   This is home race A for NYC folk, put on by our friends at Gambit Racing. It’s one of the closest races in the NYSMTB series (which, ironically, has many races that are just too far to drive too from the city). It’s at Blue Mountain, a trail system just off the Metro North in Peekskill. It’s a challenging race course, especially if it rains, but totally doable for even intermediate-level mountain bikers if you preride. If it’s your first race ever you might walk a bit, but that’s okay!

   While Blue doesn’t really lend itself to the watching-your-friends race style of hanging out, the race organizers have put in a lot of effort in the last couple of years to create a festival atmosphere near the start-finish area. There are food trucks, games, kids races, beer, ice cream, etc.There is also an Enduro category, one of the only enduro races combined with an XC race in the area. And if you are out of your mind, as I am, you can do both kinds of racing in one day.

3. Lewis Morris Challenge

   This is home race B for NYC folk. It is part of the New Jersey H2H series, and has a long history. The course has a more classic XC feel than some of the chunkier northern NJ H2H races. There are a lot of roots but not that many rocks at Lewis Morris, and the course is essentially steep climbing then bombing descents then starting over, with very little slow, meticulous skill-based picking through rocks.

   The trails are in a park that has a little grassy area by the start-finish, and laps are relatively fast 20-30 mins, so it’s more of a watching race than some others on the list. There usually aren’t food trucks, but the grassy area is a nice place for a picnic with your friends or family after racing.

4. 24 Hours of Great Glen

   In my mind, the fun thing about mountain bike as a discipline is that there are infinite ways to challenge yourself. You can focus on learning to ride a single feature, learning to do a wheelie, completing a certain trail or system without mistakes, racing cross country, racing endurance, stage racing, enduro racing, downhill racing, or just going out and riding around with friends. Every year, I try to challenge myself to do something new on the mountain bike, and after many, many years of putting it off, I decided it was time to finally do a 24-hour race. In my normal day-to-day life I don’t really understand why anyone would want to stay up for 24 hours, or to ride their bike through the night. However, the bike racer in me sees the challenge and wants to conquer it.

   Also, despite being nearly in Canada, it is technically driveable from NYC.

5. Mayhem Mountain XC H2H Race

   Okay so Mayhem isn’t the most interesting course, or the most challenging, or the most of anything (EDIT: it’s possibly the most pedaling). It is generally the first cross country race of the season, and that’s what makes it exciting. You rip off the band aid, see your friends, remember what it is like to sprint into suffering for the first time since cyclocross season. It’s also a course with trails that are generally off-limits to the public, so it’s always nice to be able to try something new. If you are new to mountain bike racing, it’s very beginner-friendly, with lots of nice flat riding (and turns), and rewards those with high lung capacity more than technical ability. Despite my tone here I am actually excited about it every year.

6. Bear Creek Challenge and MASS Series

   The Mid-Atlantic Super Series has historically been my favorite series in the Northeast. Most races are in the suburbs to exurbs of Philadelphia, so are within driving distance for a day trip, even if you might want to die crawling through Staten Island on the way home. Bear Creek is a smallish ski mountain outside Allentown, and has hosted cross-country mountain bike nationals several times now. It’s a technical course with a killer climb to the top, but so fun. Because of the ski mountain thing, it’s a bit better for spectating than some others in the series.

   One warning for women out there: the elite women’s races are the same distance as the elite men’s, and depending on which course it is, I’ve been on the podium and still had a race time of almost 3 hours.

*Okay, so, you can fight me on this one. It’s totally possible to get to a bunch of different trail systems on the weekend using a combination of biking and either the Metro North or the Long Island Railroad. HOWEVER, for those who want to make it a main racing focus, the accumulated hours of commuting take a toll and make it a really hard proposition.