I was up in Winter Park, CO this weekend for the Colorado Freeride Festival. The event’s eclectic approach, drawing youngests with stabilizers, and the gnarly and nasty on the enduro and slopestyle courses, balances the relative intensity of the Epic Singletrack Series that brought endurance riders to the resort in June.
Winter Park is deep into a five-year campaign to build, develop and promote their reputation as a resort for mountain bikers. As with any commercial winter trail set, the big theme with mountain bike trails is diversity, and to what extent resorts can attract families through widely rideable terrain. Over the four days I roamed and rooted the rutted trails, from the Rainmaker at the top of the Zephyr Lift to slopestyle course on the base of the mountain.
The 5-stage Enduro series took place over the Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with the final stage being made up of more x-country terrain. Here are the results:
| 1 | Curtis Keene | Specialized Gravity | 59:06.05 | |
| 2 | Ross Schnell | Trek/SRAM/Pearl Izum | 59:19.47 | +13.42 |
| 3 | Nate Hills | SRAM/Wolf Rock Raci | 59:34.88 | +28.83 |
| 4 | Aaron Bradford | SantaCruz/Fox/Easton | 59:42:24 | +36.19 |
| 5 | Mark Weir | wtb/Cannondale/Fox S | 59:46.13 | +40.08 |
| 6 | Chris Johnston | The Nomads/SantaCruz | 59:51.65 | +45.60 |
| 7 | Dylan Wolsky | The Nomads/SantaCruz | 59:58.64 | +52.59 |
| 8 | Bradley Kappius | 1:00:34.59 | +1:28.54 | |
| 9 | Ariel Lindsey | 1:00:34.81 | +1:28.76 | |
| 10 | Brian Buell | Team Geromino | 1:00:42.21 | +1:36.16 |
| 11 | Franklin Macky | Orbea-Tuff Shed | 1:01:02.99 | +1:56.94 |
| 12 | Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski | Subaru/Trek | 1:01:09.37 | +2:03.32 |
| 13 | Matthew Slaven | Kona Factory | 1:01:18.21 | +2.12.16 |
| 14 | Lars Sternberg | Transition Bikes/Fox | 1:01:19.62 | +2:13.57 |
| 15 | Dylan Stucki | Trek-Alumni | 1:01:23.16 | +2:17.11 |
| 16 | Mitchell Hoke | 1:01:47.86 | +2:41.81 | |
| 17 | Carl Decker | Giant Factory Off-Road | 1:02:06.43 | +3:00.38 |
| 18 | Leland Turner | aCos | 1:02:08.60 | +3:02.55 |
| 19 | Jess Pedersen | Team Geromino/Banche | 1:02:10.19 | +3:04.14 |
| 20 | Ben Furbee | Transition Bike Co/F | 1:02:32.79 | +3:26.74 |
