CHARLOTTE, NC – With its diverse and often rugged terrain, Utah has been singled out as the second most dangerous state for mountain bike aficionados.
That’s the conclusion of a nationwide study by experts at the DeMayo Law Office, a firm specializing in personal injury representation with offices throughout North and South Carolina.
Their research found that Utah has a total of 5,225 trails specified for off-road cyclists, with nearly 25 percent of them identified as very difficult or extremely difficult Black Diamond or Double Black Diamond trails.
Of the 50 states, the DeMayo attorneys found only California exceeds Utah’s trail network with nearly 11,800 total trails.
In raw numbers, California also exceeds Utah in the number of very or extremely difficult trails (1,642 in California compared to 1,205 in Utah). As a percent of its network, however, Utah leads with 25 percent of its trails being considered in some way dangerous compared to about 14 percent in California.
“Mountain biking can prove to be a very dangerous sport when not taken seriously,” according to a DeMayo Law firm spokesman. “Making sure to ride at the difficulty (level) you’re comfortable with is essential.”
The methodology used by the DeMayo experts employed data on the number of each state’s trails supplied by Trailforks, a national trail management site. Those trails were then ranked by difficulty and grouped according to each state’s number of Double Black Diamond Trails.
During its most recent trail survey, Trailforks found that there were more than 177,000 trails across the United States. That includes nearly 7,000 easiest trails (identified as White Circle trails); about 45,000 easy trails (Green Circle); about 48,000 intermediate trails (Blue Square); nearly 15 trails labeled as difficult (Red); about 15,000 very difficult trails (Black Diamond); and more than 2,000 extremely difficult trails (Double Black Diamond).
That ranking system was developed by the International Mountain Bike Association based on symbols that are commonly used throughout North America and are accepted by the Forestry Commission of Great Britain.
While no trail rating system is completely objective, the IMBA ratings are based on the relative difficulty of other trails in the region as well as personal experiences, common sense and the input of cyclists themselves.
The purpose of the IMBA trail ranking system is, obviously, to reduce the number of cyclist injuries.
Here in Utah, a total of 15 cyclists died in bicycle related accidents and 49 were seriously injured in 2022 — the deadliest year in Utah for bicycle accidents since the Utah Department of Public Safety started tracking this data several years ago.
Given the popularity of off-road mountain biking, however, their injury rate is fairly minor compared to on-road cyclists who must compete with other vehicular traffic. The off-road cyclists showed an overall injury risk rate of 0.6 percent per year or one injury per 1,000 hours of biking.
Risk factors for mountain bikers include slippery road surfaces, excessive speed and lack of caution.
To reduce the toll of injuries, physicians at Intermountain Health’s safety and trauma teams are reminding cyclists of the importance of wearing a helmet and following common sense safety rules.
Here in Utah, intermediate trails – identified by the IMBA’s blue square – are the most common in the state, accounting for nearly half of the trails in the Beehive State (about 2,500 trails).
The most difficult – and dangerous – Double Black Diamond trails account for only 3.44 percent of Utah trails. The 8-mile Great Western Trail in Kaysville is the longest Double Black Diamond trail in the state.