Greenville locals Sam Smith and Matt Griffin have found the fountain of youth through mountain biking.
This fountain isn’t in one spot, but in many, from Paris Mountain to Pisgah National Forest: in the woods, on their mountain bikes.
“Being on a bike makes me feel like a kid, and still takes me back to that time where you felt like you could go anywhere, do anything, be anything. You were under your own steam,” Smith, 51, says. “Mountain biking, of all things, just still brings those feelings back.”
Smith got her first bike at age 5, riding up and down dirt roads in rural South Africa. She started venturing the woods at 22 or 23. It’s taken her all over the world, and landed her in Greenville for good.
Griffin, 41, whose dad ran a raft guiding company in Pisgah, found mountain biking through the college kids his dad hired in the early ‘90s. On a $375 bike he’d saved every dollar to buy, the college kids took him to Tsali Recreation Area, near Bryson City, on a cold and icy New Years Day.
“It was the worst conditions. Things were frozen solid, like miserable. And I loved it,” he says. It’s a feeling he recreates every time he gets on his bike: “that thrill, that adrenaline rush, that feeling of flow.”
Unlike soccer or basketball, which kids try out in elementary school gym class, being introduced to mountain biking early is something only the lucky can claim.
“Cycling is the one sport that nobody teaches you [in school],” Smith says. “Once you can manage the skills to sit on a seat and pedal and go in a direction, that’s the end of the line most of the time. There’s no curriculum.”
Something about mountain bikers, though—they want other people to get into mountain biking. An inherently social sport, both Griffin and Smith have met their closest friends riding, along with countless travelers who choose this region as their MTB destination.
“I’ll be at DuPont [State Forest in North Carolina] for a morning ride, and I’ll meet these guys from Arkansas or Iowa. They’ll be like, ‘This is our annual trip to DuPont. We love this place!’ and I have to pinch myself, because I’m there a few times a month,” Griffin says. “We’re in the middle of it all, and some of the best trails in the nation are at an arm’s reach for us.”
The biggest mistake new riders make, say Griffin and Smith, is turning down the chance to ride with others, especially more experienced riders.
“Mountain bikers are cool people. If you’re a new mountain biker and your mountain biking friend says, ‘Let’s go ride,’ take them up on it. Don’t be scared to take them up on the offer,” Griffin says.
Mountain Biking Connections
For folks with no personal connection to other riders, there are chances to give it a go across ages–if you seek them.
As a National Interscholastic Cycling Association coach, part of a program that promotes youth mountain biking in the U.S., Smith stoked a fire inside countless young mountain bikers and ushered them up the skills ladder. Griffin, as a schoolteacher and outdoor adventure guide, also brought many kids into mountain biking, including his own.
His newest project is a youth-oriented gravity racing program called the WX Project, created in collaboration with Cleve Blackwell, a representative for cycling company SRAM, and Weevil Apparel owner Josh Gaura. Geared toward the everyrider, it’s giving young people the chance to train with and ride on a team and giving them the skills to progress to a more professionally focused team if they want to.
For her part, Smith shifted her focus away from kids to focus on offering women’s mountain bike skills clinics under her business, Greenville Fitness & Rehab. She typically hosts a clinic each season in spring, summer, and fall, and advertises them on her business’s Facebook page.
“Women are really discouraged from doing these so-called hard things and falling down and getting scratched up, so women who never grew up riding a mountain bike, who take it up as an adult, I think, have a harder time figuring out how to do it,” she said.
Therein lies her passion: getting women to feel how she feels on a bicycle.
“I thoroughly enjoy seeing women go from being terrified of being on a mountain bike to going out and feeling comfortable being by themselves or inviting other women to go ride with them,” she says. “It’s just such an amazing sport.”
Where to Ride
For flowy trails:
- Lakeside Park in Piedmont
- Pleasant Ridge in Marietta
- SWU Trails in Central
- Holston Creek in Inman
- Stumphouse Mountain Bike Park in Walhalla
For accessible single track:
- Issaqueena Trail System in Clemson
- Sliding Rock Creek in Greenville
- Conestee Nature Preserve in Mauldin
For technical terrain:
- Paris Mountain State Park in Greenville
- DuPont State Forest in Cedar Mountain, N.C.
- Pisgah National Forest in Brevard, N.C.
For downhill-specific trails:
- Ride Rock Creek in Zirconia, N.C.
- Ride Kanuga in Hendersonville, N.C.
For jump lines:
- Gateway Park in Travelers Rest
- Vic Bailey Subaru Bike Park in Spartanburg
