Chasing Epic Mountain Bike Adventures | Chasing Epic Launches New "Choose Your Own Adventure" Trip Format with Multiple Options Each Day

12 Jul 2026

New for 2027: Introducing “Choose Your Own Adventure” Trips

Choose your own adventure, wasn’t that a series of kid’s books in the 80s and 90s? Yep, if you’re around my age then you probably remember those quite fondly. But it’s also what we’re calling the new format of our trips starting in 2027: essentially, by offering multiple ride options each day, it means you’ll be able to personally choose the difficulty of your mountain bike vacation with Chasing Epic. Not feeling it one day? No problem, we’ll have an easier, more mellow ride option for you. Want to push it a bit to see what you’ve got? We’ll also have a longer/harder ride that day with more miles and a slightly faster pace. This is our way of widening the difficulty levels of our trips and opening them up to a whole new group of riders.

How Will it Work?

As you can see on our destination pages, each trip has an example itinerary with long and short ride options so you can get a sense of mileage and climbing/descending before you sign up. Since each of our itineraries are unique, you’ll get the exact details about a week before the trip so you’ll know what to expect when you arrive. Then each night at dinner, your trip leader will provide the rundown of the next day’s ride options, difficulty level, along with answers to any questions you might have. Depending on what we have set up logistically, you’ll either have to make a decision that evening, or the following morning before we depart.

In most cases, the rides are generally very similar but with a “bonus” loop or starting point added to the longer option. In some instances, the rides might be the same but the pace for the “shorter” ride will be slower and more casual. And in some cases further yet, the rides will be the same but we’ll have a bonus option at the end so you can see how you feel towards the end of the day. Very few times will the two ride options be in completely different areas or on totally different terrain.

Is Choose Your Own Adventure on All Trips?

Yep, starting next year all of our trips will have the same format so we can open up exciting destinations to new riders. For example, on our Sun Valley trip one day the longer ride option might be 28 miles with 3500′ of climbing and 5500′ of descending, while the shorter ride will be 18 miles with 2000′ of climbing and 4000′ of descending. Both ending in town at Lefty’s for post-ride beers, of course. It’s a new challenge for us logistically, but with smaller groups and multiple guides we can always be flexible. In a place like Fruita, it likely means the longer ride will add a loop or two at the Kokopelli Loops, but the shorter ride will always include the big-ticket trails!

How to Utilize the New CYOA Format?

For our long-time customers who have ridden with us over the years, not much will change with regards to the longer rides you’re used to. We’ll still have longer, epic rides in the 25 mile range planned for each day. That said, we’ll also have a shorter ride option for those who want to ride at a more relaxed pace and maybe not put as many miles on their legs (and lungs) that day.

Crushing big rides each day: choose the long ride option all 4-5 days of your trip. You can expect somewhere between 20-30 miles with 2500-4000′ of climbing (depending on location), and we’ll be on the bike for most of the day.
Go with the flow: choose whatever appeals to you that day. Long ride today? Crush it. Short ride tomorrow to relax a bit? All good!
Pushing yourself to new limits: set a goal for the trip and shoot for the stars. Whether it’s one longer ride or all four, we’ve got options for you to make it easy. It’s totally your call.
Attend as an intermediate but want to step it up for one day: plan on hitting the shorter ride option each day, but choose the one big ride that appeals the most and crush that one!
Big rides… but the legs got tired: Yep, it happens. It’s totally fine if you want to take a “chill day” and choose the shorter option, there’s no judging.
Ride with everyone on the trip: it’s totally fine if you want to switch back and forth between the longer and shorter ride options each day to meet and ride with everyone on the trip. We always have some super interesting folks that ride bikes with us.