Bike Away From Work Party or Badgering the National Forest Service

~Note - This post should have gone up yesterday. It didn't. I'm sorry. Read it anyway, you'll like it.~

Now that it's getting close to summer, there are small-ish biking events up the wazoo going on in Jackson Hole. I've missed a lot of them what with actually riding my bike sometimes and having a job and a pressing need to buy groceries, but I did manage to make it to one on Friday.

Bike Away From Work was a party/information fair to mark Bike To Work Day. I'll go ahead and confess that I don't really know what day actually is Bike To Work Day, but I do consider it good and celebrated.

Most of these events feature some version of free food and cheap booze, which is really nice. You also run into a lot of locals. Since it turns out a lot of the trails and pathways in the area have only acquired adequate signs to mark them in the past 10 years or so, word-of-mouth can be a good way to find out about rides and actually be able to find them.

This particular event featured booths from both Friends of Pathways and the U.S. Forest Service, the two major agencies that build and maintain local bike paths and trails.

Now, I've heard so many things about the great mountain biking trails and the extensive bike path network throughout the area, but finding them is a smidge more difficult. At least, it is when your sense of direction is something of a family joke and the trails criss cross in a not-especially-straightforward manner.

So I spent about an hour and a half pestering the ranger the Forest Service sent. They had some very good maps there that aren't available online, and with someone paid to know where things are to point at things for me, I came away with an actual idea of where I'd need to go to try out some of the best local rides. I'm not certain that I didn't frighten the poor man, though whether he was frightened at the barrage of questions or the idea that someone so bad at reading maps on her own would be trying to navigate in land he is responsible for is kind of up for debate.

He was very good about recommending trails that aren't too difficult for mountain biking rookies - even enthusiastic, sarcastic, sometimes fantastic ones. He mentioned that the good maps and several other rangers are available during weekdays at the Forest Service's local offices on Cache St. I'd highly recommend stopping by if you're as hopeless at this sort of thing as I am, since those maps really were good, and so was the advice.

I also swung by Friends of Pathways and picked up the maps they put out for the public of where one can find bike paths both in the Jackson area and near Wilson and Teton Village. They have local offices too, on South Millward St., but I liked catching them here better. Remember - free food and cheap booze.

I also solved the  mystery of what the faded writing on my bike bell says! And where it must have come from:

It says Jackson Hole Community Pathways on it, and was one of those free bells community organizations give out, as I mentioned in this post, where I also talk more about my own bell, which was already on Little Red when I bought her. I'd also like to take this moment to note that those Friends of Pathways socks are kind of awesome, in an "I'd probably never wear those" kind of way.

I'll swing by as many of the biking events as I can in the coming weeks, but I definitely can't manage them all. Friends of Pathways usually lists good ones on its website, if any of you happen to be in the area and want to see for yourself.