Beginner friendly mountain bike rides/races? r/o

I don't MB anymore so I have no suggestions for races.  However, I've ridden many of the MB trails in the Denver area.  Jefferson County has many trails for moutain biking.  Probably the easiest would be Three Sisters in Evergreen, lower portion of Elk Meadows, and Green Mountain.  Keep in mind that there is some good climbing on these rides; however, the trails are not too technical.  I've also heard that C?entennial Cone is a good entry lever MB...though I have never ridden it. See link below for map and directions. http://jeffco.us/openspace/openspace_T56_R108.htm

I'd love to know the answer to this too. I just started mtn biking this year and love it and would love a goal to train for, but I'm a bit timid and worried about being in everyone's way at a legit mtn bike race. I'd like to do Xterra Lory as the bike course seems beginner friendly, but haven't found any mtn bike races yet.

I was looking at a couple of the Rocky Mtn Endurance Series (http://www.warriorscycling.com/races/battle-the-bear/) since they have a beginner XC category, but it seems like there were only like 5 women total competing in the beginner class in previous years. Has anyone here done any of these races? Are they pretty intense or are the beginner races really beginner-friendly?

I know of a beginner women's race in June at Bear Creek.   Elephant Rock has the 24 hour mtb race if anyone is interested in putting together a beginner team.. The course is pretty non-technical.  I would love to also do some beginner races this year and am looking at Lory as well as others.

Hopefully we can get some information to share on this forum.

I've never done Elephant Rock, but they have a 27 mile mtn bike ride that goes on dirt roads, paved paths & roads.  Sounds pretty non-technical and would be a non-competitive ride.  There's also a weekend of races at Bear Creek State Park & it says they have an option for a 20 mile or 10 mile XC race.  I've never done the race, but I know the trails there and they're not very technical so would be a good first race.  I hadn't really thought about signing up for it but now that I think about it, that could be a good early season motivator since I'm thinking I'm going to try & have my goal race this summer be a mtb race.

I have done a couple of races in the Winter Park series.  They were my first (and so far only) mtb races and I had a blast.  They were a bit more technical than Bear Creek and the altitude made them more challenging, but overall I thought they were a great intro to mtb racing.  I was really nervous about the whole passing thing and not wanting to hold anyone up beforehand.  I started in the beginner category so everyone else was new to racing too and in the end I found it to be a non-issue.  Whenever someone faster wanted to pass they just call out that they're behind you and then you just pull off whenever you get a chance and let them by.  And if they followed but never said anything I just figured they were fine going my pace I didn't really concern myself.  There are also usually good places to pass anyway since the courses usually aren't all single track.  I found that early on people sorted themselves out by pace so there wasn't a whole lot of need to pass and if you were nervous about it you could just wait until a double track section.

ETA:  Looks like the Bear Creek race is part of a series that starts April 20.  I'm intrigued...

Just saw Stacers posted the same series. I've found in general the mtb community is a pretty fun-loving, laid back crowd & very encouraging of each other.

So I found this women's race at Bear Creek in June - ersmith you might look into it as it looks beginner friendly (they have a "never-ever" division and Bear Creek is totally non-technical):

http://www.betibikebash.com/Home.html

I'm normally anti women's only events, but I'd do one to get my feet wet with mountain biking. I look at the race results for the other race series and it's like 100 men and 2 women. So, I think I'm going to do this one for sure. I wanted to do Lory the day before but have a scheduling conflict.

Drew - I thought that series looked cool too. They all seem to be pretty easy courses, so I have a hunch everybody is balls to the wall for the whole race. I could just bring up the rear

Those look like a blast!  Maybe we should have a meet up for them! 

I agree Lory is a beginner friendly course for an Xterra.