Mountain Biking in Winter Park, Colorado
WINTER PARK, MOUNTAIN BIKE CAPITAL USA
Winter Park is proud to hold the trademark of Mountain Bike Capital USA - and zealously delivers on the title. What sets the mountain biking in Winter Park apart from the rest of the country? To start, there are over 600 miles of mountain bike trails to explore, two nationally recognized, award-winning downhill bike parks, and the perfect summer climate to get out and break a sweat while enjoying the Rocky Mountain scenery. View all Winter Park Trail Maps here.
KID FRIENDLY BIKING IN WINTER PARK
Winter Park's family-friendly vibe extends right onto the mountain biking tails too. Some of the trails around town are paved, while others introduce more confident beginner bikers to single track riding. Here are our top children-friendly/beginner bike trails in Downtown Winter Park, Fraser and Winter Park Resort.
Fraser River Trail - This 5.5 mile, paved trail, runs all the way from Fraser to Winter Park Resort. If you have little ones on board, we would recommend that you focus your efforts on the 2.5 mile section between Downtown Winter Park & Winter Park Resort. The trail winds through the woodland and along the river, offering welcome shade and plenty of picnic benches to rest at. Half way along the trail you pass through Idlewild Campground, with public restrooms available.
Vasquez Creek Trail/Confluence Park - Based in Downtown Winter Park, this short, flat trail starts at Hideaway park and follows Vasquez creek to a circular loop at Confluence Park. The trail is very well maintained and features information boards highlighting the areas unique geography, vegetation & wildlife.
Northwest Passage - The Northwest Passage parking lot is located on St Louise Creek Road, a mile or so after the rodeo grounds. There is an option to ride the green/blue level Givelo trail from Fraser to this trailhead, or you can just drive up to the parking lot. This largely flat, single track trail is a great confidence booster for kids just starting to ride narrower trails and learning to corner.
Green Horn-It - Green Horn-It is Winter Park Resort's free beginner level trail that winds down from the top of the Cabriolet Lift to Base Village. It can feel steep to a novice rider, so best for kids that have a handle on cornering and braking.
Pump Track - A pump track is a great way to learn how to ride a mountain bike, and a good (contained) area for kiddos to start learning their going-up and going-down skills. Winter Park Resort has a free pump track just off of the Green Horn-It trail.
E-BIKES IN WINTER PARK
E-bikes, whether for town or mountain trail riding, are taking over Colorado and Winter Park is no exception. Many shops in town will rent e-bikes including Epic Mountain Sports and Christy Sports, but make sure you have a helmet as some bikes go as fast as 20 MPH and always follow the rules of the roads and trails around town. Also, Winter Park Resort offers an e-bike tour in the summer months.
LOCAL'S TIP: Check out the Fraser River Trail on your e-bike. You'll love it!
TOP 5 WINTER PARK MOUNTAIN BIKE TRAILS
If you're limited for time, or just want to try out Winter Park's best best mountain bike trails, check out our Top 5 Winter Park mountain bike trails for beginners & intermediates below.
Creekside/Flume Loop
Beginner
A beginners favorite, the Creekside/Flume loop is a great introduction to single track mountain biking with rolling low level terrain along the banks of St Louis Creek.
If you want to add some miles and elevation, do the loop then ride the intermediate loop of Chainsaw - Broken Spade - Iko and back to Chainsaw.
Blue Sky
Beginner/Intermediate
Another great confidence building trail for new mountain bikers is Blue Sky. This trail starts at a small parking lot at the end of Arapahoe Road and can be ridden either as an up and back, or more commonly as a short loop of up Blue Sky, turn left to climb up tunnel hill road, go down Chickadee trail and go left/downhill when you hit Little Vasquez Road to get back to the parking lot.
If you are looking for a longer ride, take the Twin Bridges fork at the beginning of Blue Sky to head over toward the Leland Creek trails.
Leap Frog/Akima's Way/WTB
Intermediate
Leap Frog is a short but super fun single track trail just off of D4 in the Leland Creek Trails. There are lots of rock features to play on, plus 'ride-around' options if you're just not feeling it.
Ride Leap Frog as part of the intermediate Leland Creek trails and try additional routes on Akima's Way and WTB, then end out your ride zooming down the smooth Take The Leap trail to Vasquez Road.
Idlewild/Rendezvous Trails
Intermediate
The Idlewild (or Rendezvous) trails are another fun intermediate level network of trails that weave through the woods on the east side of town.
Follow Meadow Trail from Hideaway Park in Winter Park and climb up to higher elevations on either Yankoo Doodle (challenging) or Crosstrails (easy intermediate) up to Arrow Trail. Arrow trail is a fun, predominantly downhill singletrack trail that zips through the woods and spits you out at the Whoops/Southfork junction. From here, take Whoops back to Crosstrails, or extend your ride by riding Southfork/burnout and back to Crosstrails.
Tipperary
Intermediate
This is one of the longer trails that takes you through lovely flower filled meadows, aspen glades and shady pine forest. The trail rides as a loop of Spruce Creek/Tipperary Creek/County Road 50/NorthWest Passage/Creekside and can be ridden either direction.
The trail isn't very technical, but the climbs can be challenging to folks not used to riding at elevation, or if you're still finding your biking legs. Take plenty of food, water, a spare tube and and basic bike repair kit.
MORE MOUNTAIN BIKING TRAILS NEAR WINTER PARK
If you have a bike rack on your car, there are even more awesome mountain bike trails within a 15 minute drive of Winter Park.
GRANBY RANCH is an excellent lift-serviced downhill mountain bike park, which also has cross country trails in it's extensive trail network. As Trestle (see below) has become such a sensation in recent years, Bike Granby Ranch has become a bit of a secret stash, drawing hard-core bikers form all over the country looking gnarly, pro-level riding with a little less traffic.
THE PHASES mountain bike area is the local's name for the area depicted as Strawberry Trails on the bike map and is a network of intermediate/expert cross country trails in Tabernash. This riding is typically more raw, and challenging then the Winter Park/Fraser trails with little signage...this means less traffic on the trails, and a more grass-roots style of biking.
MEADOW CREEK The most popular trail in the Meadow Creek area is an out and back lollipop ride to Strawberry Lake. This beautiful trail begins at the High Lonesome Hutparking area on the County Road 84/FSR 128 to Meadow Creek Reservoir and as a full out and back covers about 12 - 16 miles (longer if you ride around the lake) of intermediate level trails. Due to its remote location, you'll want to pack plenty of food, water and bike repair kit. There's also a good chance that you'll spot some wildlife on the trail (not to mention the incredible wildflowers and lake views) so be sure to pack a camera too.
YMCA SNOW MOUNTAIN RANCH is located between Tabernash and Granby and is another nordic center with a nice variety of trails for mountain biking. The 'Y' allows outside guests to purchase a $15 day pass which allows you access to all the trails, olympic size swimming pool, gym & more. They also have cross country mountain bikes available for rental.
DOWNHILL MOUNTAIN BIKING AT TRESTLE BIKE PARK AT WINTER PARK RESORT
Trestle Bike Park at Winter Park Resort has soared to the top ranks of US Downhill Mountain Bike Parks, drawing international acclaim and pulling in pro riders from around the globe during big name events like the USA National Mountain Bike Championships.
Trestle Bike Park has three lifts which services over 40 miles of carefully crafted downhill mountain bike trails. Just like ski trails, the biking trails are color rated to show the difficulty rating, green trails are the easiest, blue trails are intermediates, and black trails are difficult and double black trails are most difficult/expert.
Less experienced riders love trails like Green World, Free Speech and Long Trail, while advanced downhill bikers have a feast of fun on offer on trails like Trestle Downhill, Rainmaker, Boot Camp and Banana Peel.
There are a number of different ticket options for Trestle Bike Park, but the
best deal is to advance purchase a full day adult lift ticket.
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