Winter Park – It wasn’t so long ago that Colorado’s core group of mountain bikers considered the notion of riding a chairlift up the mountainside somewhat sacrilegious. If it didn’t involve grinding out thousands of vertical feet of uphill or marathon distances across vast expanses, it wasn’t really mountain biking. It was cheating.
But not anymore. The modern mountain bike millennium has spawned a new religion of sorts, in which worshippers feast on a gluttony of gravity won by hooking their bikes to the backs of comfortable chairlifts, cruising effortlessly to the tops of mountains and dropping back down on similarly cushy dual-suspension steeds with beefy shocks designed to absorb just about anything.
Clad in storm trooper-like armor and perched upon gravity-powered speed machines reminiscent of motorcycles, this fast-growing faction of “freeriders” currently driving mountain biking momentum has not gone unnoticed in Colorado. Suddenly, ski areas such as Winter Park, Keystone, Snowmass and Silverton Mountain are reacting to this paradigm shift, actively seeking to attract these low-flying dirt demons by building not only dedicated downhill trails accommodating the technical advancements in bike design, but freeride terrain parks similar to those found on the slopes in winter.
“Last year was the first year we really got after it,” said Aaron Brill, owner of Silverton Mountain Ski Area. “We were able to build seven new trails last year, which is more than any other U.S. ski area, to my knowledge. And we’re hoping to build at least seven more this year.”
As it does during ski season, Silverton – which will open its lift-served mountain bike terrain to the public Friday – easily qualifies as Colorado’s most demanding two-wheeled terrain. The nine existing downhill trails all incorporate some sort of “stunt” or jump ranging from elevated wooden ladder rides to the 15-foot cliff drop with a name that rhymes with Chicken Plucker. Rider skills are tested as they roll over round logs elevated as high as 10 feet between trees, jump dirt tabletop berms spanning some 20 feet or drop off natural cliffs that might make a skier shy.
All told, the area boasts 10 tabletops, three gap jumps, 20 wooden stunts (ladders or logs) and a sea of natural terrain that many might have deemed unrideable just a few years back. Plans are in the works to incorporate quarterpipes, wall rides, “street”-style ramps, teeter-totters and roller coaster features to existing amenities by summer’s end. The challenging features are designed to keep pace with the ever-improving ability of the modern mountain biker.
“We only do advanced and expert biking, just like skiing. People who show up as high-level intermediate riders challenge themselves and wind up walking around some things,” Brill said. “But we have become more mainstream as people’s skills have increased, both summer and winter.”
While unusual, Silverton is not alone in its efforts. Winter Park opened its own version of a mountain bike freeride park at the base of Long Trail just a week ago, debuting with eight new features that include ladder drops, log rides, rock gardens and dirt hips, as well as a series of BMX-style dirt jumps. The park is the first step in the resort’s three-year plan to increase lift-served freeride terrain. Contrary to Silverton, however, all of the Winter Park features are designed for intermediate riders.
“The goal is in the next few years to have entire trails that are freeride oriented. Wide open trails with a combination of elevated features like teeter-totters and terrain park-style dirt jumps – what’s starting to be called ‘slopestyle’ in the summer as well as winter,” said Bob Holme, terrain park and youth marketing manager at Winter Park. “We don’t want to bust onto the scene with all this crazy stuff before riders on the mountain are good enough. We want to attract people and help educate and get them moving in the right direction, so that in two or three years we have a whole group of people who have been riding this stuff for a while and we are attracting more and more core folks down the road.”
Holme admits that Winter Park is slightly behind the curve in comparison to other regional resorts like Keystone and Snowmass, which have been building up their freeride parks in recent years. But with the budget and plans to create up to 30 features on the mountain this summer alone, he’s confident Winter Park can not only catch up but become a leader in the burgeoning freeride movement locally.
One advantage his resort holds is its relationship with fellow Intrawest resort, Whistler-Blackcomb, the Canadian mountain credited with inspiring the freeride revolution in 1999. Whistler’s A-Line terrain park is considered the most ridden mountain bike trail in the world, increasing in rider visits by 100 percent in each of its first five years. As a result, the resort expanded its terrain by 200 percent last year, adding a second chairlift that increased the park’s total vertical from 1,200 feet to 3,400 feet.
“If we are as fun as Whistler, but less intense, then we’ve hit our mark,” Holme said. “We are focusing on the amateur and emerging pro.”
So far, at least, they appear to be on track.
“It’s cool that they’re even doing it,” said Jason Metzler, 22, a summer season pass holder from Denver. “Stunts and dirt jumping seem to be the trend. I like the trails up top, but all the BMX kids getting into mountain biking love this stuff. If there was a trail from the top with big, wide ramps that dropped onto dirt landings, that would be so fun.”
Even at the other end of the spectrum, Brill said he believes efforts to increase the volume of easier terrain will ultimately help his cause, merely by giving riders a new place to practice their skills before moving up to the big leagues.
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“Most resorts want to have Whistler’s numbers. What they don’t want are the 12-foot drops, skinny, 4-inch ladders and 40-foot jumps like Whistler has. But that’s what the riders eventually want,” said Brill, whose mountain has attracted riders from as far as California, Utah and Texas. “Places like Winter Park are helping build up the market. Once riders get a taste of freeriding on big-hit suspension bikes with seven inches of travel, they’re hooked. Then they start looking for the best place to ride. We want to be that best place.”
Staff writer Scott Willoughby can be reached at 303-820-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com.
