He is 15 and rides almost every day and races enduro. We live very close to the Anchorage hillside trail network that covers over 40 miles and over 3000 vertical feet, all pedal, no lifts. Everything from long XC to double black DH. It is the perfect bike from this system, doesn't pedal as well as an XC bike, doesn’t descend as well as a DH bike but is a great all around do everything. Here is the network:
www.singletrackadvocates.org
We ride the lifts at Alyeska for the bike park some weekends and skip the lifts and pedal it to the top as well.
Alaska's premier lift-accessed downhill bike park, with trails for intermediate and advanced riders.
alyeskaresort.com
For Alyeska the fork is sketchy (and personally I just greatly prefer rockshox to Fox) so only thing we are swapping out is the fork. He will probably change the wheels out at some point but we will wait for a failure.
we also ride long backcountry regularly: lost lake, Johnson pass, resurrection pass, crescent lake. We also caribou hunt with bikes off the Denali highway. We do 50-80 mile days 4-6 times a month.
Next Generation Mountain Bike Trail Maps
www.mtbproject.com
We all ride trail/enduro bikes and have for the last ~10 years. As a family we put in close to 1000 miles all off road, over the 4 months of summer. He rode a transition patrol before the trance and a trek fuel 26’er before that. The Trance x is by far the best all around of the 3, he will likely ride it for a long time. I ride a Kona Process 134 (pictured above) rode a specialized enduro before that (and a s-works XC and Demo before that). My wife rides a trance 27.5 and my 13 year old daughter rides a Salsa Rustler. I would ride a trance X but the geometry just dosn’t fit me. I’ve ridden/racemountain bike extensively for over 30 years and can’t recommend enough buying what fits you.