Trestle Gravity Series at Winter Park (DH and Air DH)

Noah and I headed out to Winter Park the weekend before last to race the first two of seven races in the new Trestle Gravity Series. There is something extremely fun about riding at a resort for 3 days straight and throwing in two entirely different, low-key downhill races. How could we pass that up!?

For most of the weekend I was on my brand new Transition TR450 and had only two practice runs before the first race as it started at 10:30am. Coming off a Canfield Jedi, I thought the 450 would feel pretty foreign… boy was I wrong. It was so easy to ride, I was able to hop on and immediately start killing it! For the first time ever, I didn’t touch one knob on the shock out of the box and was amazed at how well it performed. It performed so well that I pulled out the best race result of my life with it!

Saturday was a traditional Downhill race that started on Search and Seizure to Trestle Downhill, and finished on Witness. This course had a great mix of high speed berms and rollers up top with a rougher, high speed downhill throughout the remainder of the track. With only two practice runs in the morning, Noah ended up 11th and I pulled out an amazing 4th place (my best finish ever!) in the Pro class, even with some fast, well known racers competing.

 Sunday’s air downhill race was a completely different animal. I had ever raced something like this, a race on the upper portion of a jump trail called Rainmaker. You could think of it like a long, huge, rough, and gravity fed BMX track. It was about a 50/50 mix of trail bikes and full DH bikes at the start line. I used my Transition Bandit, and Noah pulled out the big guns with his Santa Cruz V-10 Carbon. Being able to scrub speed over jumps was the only way to do well on this track. Because we didn’t have much scrub practice, Noah and I didn’t do quite as well in this race, but it was still awesome none the less. Noah placed 13th and I came in 9th in Pro. The spreads were much tighter in this race.

 If you haven’t made it to Trestle Bike Park in Winter Park, CO yet, get there! Noah and I both became significantly better riders after 3 days there. They have more than enough DH/freeride trails to keep any level rider busy for a few days. However, before you go, make sure you stop into Grassroots to get your brakes and suspension tuned up because you and your bike are going to take a beating.

 Peter Knepper (Team Racer/Rider)