About Us – Trestle Bike Park

About Us

But Wait, What's A Trestle?

Well, in our world, it’s the name given to the United States’ largest full service downhill bike park, that boasted the title of “Fastest Growing Bike Park” for the last decade, has one of the largest rental fleets in North America, and was built as an inclusive, progressive park where anyone could develop their skills on two wheels.

An Idea

The idea to create a downhill park at Winter Park Resort grew from the successful decades of summer activities, as well as, the popularity of the cross country scene in the area. Mountain Biking was a popular summer sport at Winter Park Resort and in the Fraser Valley since the early 1990s. Even as early as 1995, people were taking the Zephyr up and riding gravity back down. But that was a cross-country focused experience.

Mountain bikers at Sunspot

A little place called whistler

In 1998, this little place up in Canada (Whistler/Blackcomb) opened a bike park and was seeing a surge in their downhill mountain bike success.

Who knew Canadians were so into getting dirty, eh?

After a quick consultation with the neighbors in the great north, the Winter Park Resort staff wanted to do something similar back in Colorado. And so, some of the genius designers from the Whistler/Blackcomb project created their own company, Gravity Logic, and their first gig was building Trestle Bike Park.

The process of development didn’t happen overnight. It took until 2009 for the first trail to get the green light of approval by the US Forest Service. Why did it take so long? One main reason was because the trails were going to be, and continue to be truly crafted, rather than just hacked into the side of the mountain.

The early days...

Trail decisions were made based on environmental impact

This ensured the resources were respected and build plans worked with the land to maintain a consistent experience for riders year after year. Bob Holme, the Winter Park Resort terrain park guru, took the lead on Trestle development, and worked closely with Planning Director Doug Laraby, Gravity Logic, and the US Forest Service to be sure

soils, botany, water quality, water shed, ecology and biology were all thoughtfully considered.

The hippie hearted trail crew knew the importance of the resources, so although it took longer than expected, they were proud to make this an essential part of Trestle’s growth. Nonetheless, in 2009 Trestle finally took shape and Free Speech was built! Trestle officially had its first freeride and downhill experience built from scratch.

Early mountain bike trail map

But Why the name Trestle?

Well, given the trail crew’s past work spearheading Terrain Park development at Winter Park Resort, they kept the railroad theme rolling.

The brand new Bike Park became its own brand, taking its name from the old railroad trestle out on Moffat Road.

That wasn’t the only trail name theme. The bike park team also created the Bill of Rides: trails with names based on the Bill of Rights. And so, No Quarter, Bear Arms, Search and Seizure, Cruel and Unusual, Jury Duty, Witness, and Double Jeopardy followed the creation of Free Speech.