Bansko Mountain Biking:-
Bansko is a great place fro mountain biking. Here at the hotel Avalon we have been making and promoting Mountain biking trails for nearly 10 years. The official mountain biking trails are limited to 176km of trails accessible from Bansko town but this is nowhere near the total extent of available riding. Not even the tip of the iceberg! For a better idea of the mission click here :- Bansko-MTB.com
Weirdly the trails are a bit organic. They evolve and change as people use them. Bad marking, exploration and feedback all work towards making each trail perfect. In the case of Perfect Day this evolution has been pretty extreme. The direction, length and nearly 1/2 of the route have all changed over the years. It is one of the most popular and well used mountain biking trails in the region. Just under 20km and with only 2 or 3 hundred meters of climbing it is not a killer route but it is tough enough to keep most people entertained.
Last week I went out with a couple of locals to ride the whole route in one go exactly as it is mapped. Considering I can claim to have created all the official trails in the valley it might sound weird that I have only ridden 2 of them all the way round. In the case of Perfect Day I have ridden sections of it over and over and over again painting the route but riding the whole trail just for fun? Never!
None of us were in particularly good shape so it took a couple of sweaty hours but riding it just for fun was a real eye opener for me. There are some fantastic long easy sections of rolling terrain and a couple of challenging but easy climbs up into the woods and then some great fast but easy single track. There are two technical climbs in the woods and 3 or 4 fast technical descents on single track all of which I had to walk as they were way beyond me! No biggie really but great fun for the better riders. The last 1/4 of the route up and out of the forest and then back down the ski road is an easy and fun way to loosen off the legs.
All in all it is a great trail for almost any level of rider, a pro could probably sprint it in an hour and love the variations and a total beginner could spend a day with a picnic pottering round and take 5 hours over it and never break into a sweat!
N.B. The route is marked starting at the Bansko Army base and goes along the main dirt road out to the golf course. It finishes at the caves on the ski road. On some older maps it is marked the other way round, follow the new direction (anti clockwise) for the best experience.
