March 26, 2019 – The Hurricane Mountain Bike Festival is coming up on March 29-31, 2019 in Hurricane, Utah. The festival has grown and is in its 9th year. We caught up with DJ Morisette and Brittany Phelps of Over the Edge Sports, festival organizers, and asked them about the event.
Cycling West: Can you give us an overview of the Festival? Hurricane Mountain Bike Festival: The Hurricane MTB Festival is a weekend long celebration of riding singletrack, being in one of Mother Nature’s most exceptional places and meeting fellow bike enthusiasts at trailheads, at coffee, over a beer, etc. The festival features over 50 vendors to help us create an awesome venue. There will be top of the line demo bikes and shuttles to JEM and Quail Creek Trailheads running all day. Each day, there are Group Rides with local riders and skills clinics with professional coaches. Each night features western style food and a beer garden. The Friday night movie will be like nothing you ever seen before! Nightly festival games will feature a log pull and fashion show sponsored by Club Ride Apparel as well as foot down and other fun, crazy contests. There will be s’mores roasting for the kids, big and little. There will be fundraisers for trails and for the Flying Tigers, the local high school MTB team. Prize giveaways will include amazing goodies from our Festival sponsors and trail tools made locally by 7D Tools out of Cedar City. It’s rad, you’ll love it! You should come ride with us!
CW: What are the rides like? Are there rides for all levels? Guided rides? HMTBF: Awe inspiring! From the towering rocks of Zion National Park in the backdrop to the many colors in the landscape and variety of rides. On the mesas we have endless playgrounds of rock formations that draw you in from one natural feature after another. The JEM area is fast and flowy with jumps and hips should you wish to get air under your tires! The Quail Lake area is a punchy BMX style to flowy and slow chunky techy rock. Being home to the Red Bull Rampage we have downhill trails that will challenge any rider’s skill and get your heart racing! We do have something for everyone from the novice rider to the super advanced crazy rider! The Mesas even have areas where novices can get a feel for mesa riding and ease into more challenging rock formations as they get comfortable with the feel of the rocks. The JEM area is the best place for the novice to start, but it’s still fun for all riders and you can always go faster and get air! Quail Lake area has something for most. If you’re a novice it will definitely challenge you. Prospector/Church Rocks area is close to Quail Lake and is great for novices. Grafton Mesa and Flying Monkey are for the advanced riders that enjoy exposure and drops. Wire Mesa is a good alternative to Grafton Mesa it is much mellower. We don’t do guided rides, but we have the next best thing. We have group rides with different skill levels. Local riders volunteer to let you join them on some of their favorite rides. We have a ride board at the venue with all the different rides and skill levels that are going out each day. You meet with the locals and carpool to the riding area. CW: How many people come to the event? How has this changed since the beginning? HMTBF: We see anywhere between 1000-1500 people in town for the festival. We have about 650-750 participants and we are approaching our limit. People can expect an event cap in the years to come so that we can maintain the quality and experience of our participants and vendors. The first Hurricane Mountain Bike Festival was very intimate and held in the backyard of Over the Edge. We had about 50 people attend, friends and some outta-towners. We socialized over Dutch oven dinner and went on some awesome rides together. For the second year we moved the festival to the Hurricane Community Center on the grassy area. We did the first beer garden ever in Hurricane! We had to fence in the entire area with stock fence and t-posts. Then inside of that area we used 8 foot stock fence to enclose the beer garden with one small opening for the entrance. We rolled with it and did a western style theme. We had roping and barrel racing around cones on tiny bikes. We had a caption at the small entrance to the beer garden that read (Brand ’em and Corral ’em). Now we close the street off and use the grassy areas as well and only have to barricade the venue area. You can walk around freely inside the venue with your beer. We still brand you with a stamp if you want a beer and have kept the western theme.
CW: Tell us about the film preview? What’s the film titled and what’s it about? HMTBF: The film is called “We are all Over the Edge.” It is an outsider’s look in to the world of Over the Edge bike stores and finds common ground in the act of creating and that of exploring from the seat of a mountain bike.
CW: Is there anything else that you would like to add? HMTBF: We have exciting new offerings for 2019: •Club Ride is offering a lunch up at Guacamole Trailhead •We are now offering a VIP Access Pass with daily shuttle options to Gooseberry •There will be a surprise on-trail photo-booth for epic festival photos! •Colorado Backcountry Bike Academy out of Crested Butte, CO is going to be offering Skills Clinics •Floyds of Leadville is going to be DJ’ing the expo and probably throwing a few solid booth partaays
Event Details: March 29-31 — Hurricane Mountain Bike Festival, Hurricane, UT, Ride with us on some of the most stunning trails in the world with Zion National Park as your backdrop. Fun festivities, awesome demo bikes/accessories, bike shuttles, skills clinic, beer garden, dinner, prizes and more!, DJ Morisette, 435-635-5455, [email protected], Brittany Phelps, 435-635-5455, [email protected], hurricanemtbfestival.com, otesports.com
Will there be enough demo bikes for 700 people?