Myślenice Singletracks – For Fans of Shredding Over Rocks

Myślenice Singletracks is a complex of mountain bike trails on two mountains: Chełm, which can be accessed by a chairlift, and Uklejna, which requires a bike climb. In total, there are over a dozen trails, most of them at the red level. Both mountains feature plenty of rocks, so enthusiasts of riding over rocky terrain should be satisfied ;)

Myślenice Bike Park (Chełm)

By bike park, I mean the trails located on Chełm Mountain. There are a few trails here, but most are only about 1 km long. The longest is the Rodzinny Flow green trail (eng. Family Flow). It’s a smooth singletrack with gentle, flat berms, 4.3 km long. It’s the only beginner-friendly trail in the entire Myślenice Singletracks complex. The start of the Snajper trail is blue, while the rest of the trails are red or black.

Snajper (Sniper) is 1.6 km long, and you need to ride a section of the Family Flow trail to reach its start. The trail features a lot of rough riding over sharp rocks and one very challenging section — a sharp, steep turn at the start of the second section (see from 3:00 in the video below). You can bypass it by riding straight down a wall, but that’s also difficult. I didn’t even want to try either option. There’s probably a third option, going around somehow, but I didn’t notice it during my first or second run. They should add a sign pointing to this bypass, as red trails should have a chicken line for such difficult sections.

Besides Family Flow and Sniper, there are two other trails that end near the chairlift — Kamieniołom (eng. Quarry) and Nowa Anglia (eng. New England). Both start lower down, meaning you need to ride a section of Sniper and a bit of a hiking trail to reach their starting points.

Near the chairlift, the Stróża trail starts — it was a special stage in this year’s Polish Enduro Championships. To me, the trail wasn’t very exciting. It’s steep with a lot of loose rock riding. Plus, it ends quite far from the chairlift — about 3 km away. An alternative is to climb to the starting point of Kamieniołom, about 100 m of elevation gain. We decided to do it, but it was so steep that I ended up pushing the bike almost the entire way.

On the other side of Chełm, there are two black trails — Contestówka DH and Monster. I didn’t ride either of them. Both run along a second chairlift, which is usually not operational except during competitions. Normally, after riding these trails, you have to descend to the main chairlift via an asphalt road (about 1.5 km).

I spent half a day on Chełm Mountain and didn’t feel like staying longer. I don’t enjoy riding over rocky terrain, and there was a lot of that here, with few additional features (jumps, drops, etc.). If these were wild trails built by a few bikers in their spare time, I’d probably say they’re decent, but I expect more from bike park trails.

The advantage is the price. A full-day pass costs only 100 PLN, and a 5-hour pass is 70 PLN. Another advantage is the lack of queues. We were there on a weekend, and besides our group, there were only about three other people in the bike park.

The downside, apart from the not-so-exciting trails, is the somewhat inconvenient chairlift. It consists of single chairs without any hooks or hangers for bikes. You hang the bike by the saddle directly on the chair. To make it easier to hang and remove the bike, the lift staff suggests lowering the dropper post partially. Clearly, they don’t know that this isn’t good for dropper posts.

The chairlift isn’t fast, with a ride time of 22 minutes. Getting off the lift is even more inconvenient than getting on. You have to lift the bike up, hold it in the air for a moment, then guide it beside the chair before dismounting. The first time, I didn’t manage it. The front wheel caught on the ground, and the bike ended up under the chair. An unfriendly staff member informed me that if I didn’t have the strength, there’s another option: you can send the bike as luggage on a separate chair, but you have to pay for it. If I understand the price list correctly, each bike transport costs 20 PLN.

Myślenice Enduro Trails (Uklejna)

Uklejna, also called Ukleina, is the neighboring mountain with no chairlift access, but if I were to return to Myślenice, I’d prefer to spend the day there. The trails on Uklejna, although also rocky, seemed more interesting to me than those on Chełm.

Several trails start at the very top of Uklejna, while others begin a bit lower. You can reach the lower starting points via a comfortable gravel road. I couldn’t manage to ride to the trails at the very top. The final 700 m (distance) is along a steep hiking trail, with about half of it requiring pushing the bike. We tried climbing from the other side of the mountain once, but it wasn’t any easier. Of course, I’m talking about analog bikes — e-bike users shouldn’t have issues getting to the top.

Two trails on Uklejna were special stages in this year’s Polish Enduro Championships: the rockiest ones, Kriss Kross and Myszołów.

I liked Shredator and Giorgio better. They’re interestingly designed, and both trails have a few jumps. I didn’t hit them since I usually don’t when riding on sight, but if I had the chance to get to know these trails better, I’d probably unlock some of those features and have fun trying to improve my times on these trails.

I also liked the black Django trail. It starts with some unpleasant rocky sections, but further on, there are interesting walls and traverses in a ravine.

Finally, we rode the Dżu Dżu trail, but I’m not sure if we followed it exactly, as there are several forks along the way.

We didn’t have time for two other trails — Stromo and Nad Boryną + Boryna. The six trails we did during this one-day visit to Uklejna were already a lot. It came out to almost 34 km and nearly 1500 m of elevation gain.

You can find all the trails on Trailforks.

Myślenice Dirt Park

The last interesting thing in Myślenice is the newly built dirt park — four lines of jumps, from small tabletops to large, high gaps. It’s located by the parking lot under the chairlift.

Is it worth coming to Myślenice for MTB riding?

If you enjoy riding over sharp, loose rocks, then definitely yes ;) If you’re just starting to learn to ride a mountain bike, Uklejna might be too difficult for you. As for Chełm, if you live in Kraków or nearby, why not? You can ride the long green trail. But if you live far away, you might find something more interesting closer to home. I wouldn’t want to return to Chełm, but I could see myself coming back to Uklejna. That said, when it comes to enduro trails with climbs, I had a lot more fun at the nearby Rabka Trails.

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