Payson’s Ubuntu Trail brings state championship mountain biking to town

Riders heading north from Phoenix now have a new reason to stop in Payson: the Ubuntu Trail is a 4.25-mile, directional XCO-style course built for the NICA Arizona State Championship, with flowy bike-park sections, rock gardens, tight singletrack and ride-arounds on technical features. The ribbon-cutting was set for April 17 at 1:30 p.m. at the Payson Event Center, with the course opening around the state championship race on April 18. For weekend riders, that mix points to a race-ready loop rather than a mellow cruise, but the ride-arounds also make the course more approachable than a full-on expert-only track.

The speed of the build is part of the story. Rickus Grobler took on the job of building a championship-caliber mountain bike course in just five months, working with volunteers and local businesses to get it done. Town staff encouraged him to choose a name with personal meaning, and he landed on Ubuntu, a word derived from Zulu-Xhutu that roughly translates to I am because we are. That name fits the project’s arc: this was not just a trail cut in the dirt, but a community-backed push to give Payson a signature recreation asset.

The first race offered an immediate test. The Payson Roundup reported that the new trail hosted its first race and that an eighth grader from Rim Country Middle School finished third, a strong sign that the course was already producing results on day one. For families, youth racers and traveling mountain bikers, that matters because the trail was built from the start for organized competition, not retrofitted after the fact. Arizona Parks and Recreation Association also called it the first of its kind in Payson, reinforcing that the town is trying to turn this from a one-off event into a repeatable destination.

Ubuntu also lands in a broader Payson trail network that is getting deeper. Singletracks reported in late 2024 that about 8 miles of social trails were slated for legalization and about 6 miles of new singletrack were in the works, part of a larger Payson Area Trails effort. Trevor Creighton, president of the Rim Country Mountain Bike Association, said Payson’s terrain blends forest-like hardpack with red-rock-like sections, a combo that gives the area its own riding identity between the Mogollon Rim and the desert. That local base is already growing through youth cycling, too: PeopleForBikes said Wheel Fun operates more than 48 after-school bike programs across Arizona, and the Longhorn Bike Skills Park at Rim Country Middle School opened in April 2024 as the first of its kind in Gila County.

Put together, the championship course, the youth pipeline and the expanding trail network make Payson look less like a pass-through and more like a real Southwest riding stop. Ubuntu gives event riders a reason to come in for the weekend, and it gives local riders a new benchmark course to keep them coming back.