Trail Conditions

Archives

2026 Spring Raffle Results

Congratulation to the following winners and thank you to everyone for supporting responsible trail development.

The Hidden Cost of Rogue Trail Building

CAMBr - Official Trail Crew

Mountain bike access exists because of strong partnerships, responsible trail stewardship, and the trust we’ve built with local land managers over many years.

2026 Spring Raffle

The CAMBr (Chicago Area Mountain Bikers) Spring Raffle is officially live! The Grand prize? A brand new Pivot Mach 4 SL Pro XO valued at $8,799.

2026 Spring Newsletter

Building trails, Trust, and Community. Spring has arrived, and with it comes some of the best—and most challenging—trail conditions of the year. As we head into Q2, CAMBr continues to build on the strong foundation set earlier this year, and we’re excited to share what’s ahead. Although most trail days had come to a close […]

Help Us Protect The Trails

CAMBr works hard with local land managers to build sustainable, legal trails for everyone’s enjoyment. Riding off these marked paths harms the environment, risks trail closures, and jeopardizes our partnerships. Help us protect the trails: Stick to legal, marked routes. Encourage others to do the same. Let’s ride responsibly and keep our trails open and […]

Winter Riding Etiquette on Groomed Trails 

Groomed winter trails are a gift—smooth, fast, and a whole different kind of fun. They’re also fragile. A single rider (or hiker) at the wrong time can leave ruts and footprints that freeze solid and wreck the surface for days.  Whether you’re fat biking, riding studded tires, or just exploring snowy singletrack, good etiquette keeps […]

What It Takes to Get a New Trail System Approved (and Keep It Open) 

When riders see a new ribbon of singletrack appear in the woods, it can feel like it happened overnight. In reality, a new trail system is usually the result of months—or more often, years—of planning, relationship-building, and careful work behind the scenes.  CAMBr doesn’t own the land we ride on. That means every new trail […]

Why You Shouldn’t Ride Muddy Trails 

If you’ve ever shown up after a rainy night and thought, “It’s just a little wet—I’ll be fine,” you’re not alone. But for natural-surface trails, muddy conditions aren’t just a comfort issue—they’re a trail damage issue.  Choosing not to ride when trails are muddy is one of the simplest ways you can protect the trails […]

CAMBr Current
Trail Conditions

Natural surface trails and bike parks can be easily damaged when they’re soft, wet and/or muddy.  All trail users should stay off the singletrack trails and jump lines unless they’re dry, or frozen solid.  CAMBr volunteers put in many thousands of hours each year maintaining and constructing trails, and we closely monitor their condition.  

CAMBr uses the Trailbot smartphone app to publish trail conditions updates.  Trailbot is a completely free, ad-free, easy-to-use trail conditions app for iOS and Android  – so you’ll know what to expect before you go, and can make informed decisions when conditions aren’t favorable for hitting the singletrack.  

Visit Trailbot.com to download the app, or find it in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. Within the app you’ll find not only current trail conditions updates for all your favorite CAMBr trails, but also weather information, trail descriptions, maps, and other useful links. Trailbot updates are also pushed to our website for easy access.

Please respect the trails, and all the work that goes into them, by staying off when they’re soft.

ABOVE ALL – IF YOU’RE LEAVING AN IMPRINT, IT’S TIME TO LEAVE

WHAT ARE FREEZE/THAW RULES?

There’s a season in the Chicago area, typically between mid-November and the end of March, when temperatures will drop below freezing at night and then warm up above freezing during the day. What this means for the trails is when actually frozen they are hard and good to ride. But when the temps go up and the moisture in the ground thaws, the dirt becomes very soft and muddy. This is because the water in the soil expands when frozen and it looses the tightly packed soil. The result is the trails can become very soft and muddy even if there hasn’t been much rain or snow fall.

So, to protect the trails from damage, only ride when the ground is frozen hard, and get off once the ground begins to warm up. South facing trails will usually soften up first, and if the sun it out and the temps get into the 30’s, you’ll probably need to be done by 10AM.

Remember, if you’re tires are leaving an imprint, it’s too soft to ride. 

Fat Bike Tire Pressure