It’s not often that we bike shop guys get out of the city to ride…out of the city meaning beyond a 3 hour (by bike) radius of NYC. It’s an even rarer occurrence for us to get a “some expenses paid” trip out west to dig deeper into the behind-the-scenes world of the bike industry.

I was “honored” to be invited to attend the inaugural Dealer Camp in Park City, UT. Officially, 54 industry brands presented to 120 dealers or so in attempts to get them to order product at the front end of the upcoming year’s buying cycle.

While in Park City, a beautiful 7100 feet or so above the sea, I put in 3 hours or so on the new Ridley Dean carbon road bike on one afternoon and another 3 hrs the following day on the 2011 Scott 949 carbon 29er hardtail. The non-gravel roads around Park City are well paved, the gravel ones are sh*t, though all afford some pretty amazing vistas. The MTB trails lead up to the top of Bald Mtn, topping out at 9400 feet. Word on the proverbial street was that there are 400 miles of off road trails in the Park City vicinity, so I’m confident that you can ride up to the top of most of the surrounding peaks should your legs have the juice. Refueling is easy in Park City proper: Einstein Bros bagels and solid coffee and espresso offerings from Atticus pre-ride and post-ride pizza from Davanza’s in Old Town.

While my “test” rides on the Ridley and Scott were work the price of admission, the jewel of the trip came on the last day, leading up to the redeye flight back home (always a good idea…). I filled my final day with a 9 hour jaunt over to Daniel Summit and Strawberry Reservoir on the 2011 BH R1 (similar to the G5, but made with different carbon and forgoing the integrated seatmast). Had I stayed on the pavement, the 9 hours would have been more like 6 or 7, but the Reynolds cabon clincher were begging for a little adventure. Adventure, of course, they found, in the form of 10 miles of washed out dirt roads tumbling off the backside of Daniel Summit to Wallsburg and the closed-in-the-winter pebble-climb up the backside of Flagstaff Mountain before descending back into Park City.

The scenery around Park City was certainly inspiring…it inspired me to get on borrowed bikes and ride as far as daylight would allow. The crappy applephone photos tell the rest of the story.