In 2024, I wrote that we’re in a golden age of mountain bike trail development, and as we’ve showcased through our ongoing coverage of new trail projects across North America and around the world, that golden age has continued over the last 12 months. Unfortunately, new trail funding on federal land in the USA faces substantial headwinds heading into 2026, but thankfully, most of the clubs that we spoke with this year already had their funding allocated for the 2025 build season.
While federal grant funding may be questionable, wealthy mountain bikers in some areas are stepping up to buy land and fund trail building projects. This trend has spread across the entire USA (more on this soon), but in general, we’re seeing private funding being leveraged in areas with very little public land or public assistance. The influx of private money combined with a reduction in federal funding has created a fundamental shift in where the best mountain biking trails are being built.
While states with massive swaths of public land, such as Colorado, Utah, Arizona, et al., have historically been the nation’s leaders in mountain bike access, now states like Arkansas, Vermont, and Michigan are leading the charge by developing trails on privately held or acquired parcels of land. Even in states like Montana that have vast public lands, the best MTB trail development is happening on private property. Of course, Washington remains a stalwart leader in MTB trail development, but with trail development taking place on a wide variety of parcels and land ownership types, it’s tough to pigeonhole the state into one of these two camps.
Suffice it to say that choosing the nine best new mountain bike trails of 2025 was tough. While we figured we had our finger on the pulse of trail projects across the continent, we asked you, our loyal Singletracks readers, for nominations — and boy did you deliver. You all submitted over 300 nominations from across North America, which made for a challenging selection process indeed. Through the process, we even learned of a few projects that had flown below our radar, two of which are profiled below.
Without further ado, here are nine of the best new mountain bike trails built in 2025.
Photos: Curious Creatures, courtesy the Dirt Concern
Best flow/jump trail
Gnomadic, Bozeman, Montana
- Length: 1.9mi
- Vertical: 846ft
- Trail Builder: TerraFlow Trails
The renowned outdoorsy city of Bozeman, Montana, is surrounded by endless national forests, but it’s been incredibly challenging for the Dirt Concern, the Bozeman chapter of the Southwest Montana Mountain Bike Association (SWMMBA), to get trails approved on USFS land. Recently, they’ve turned to private landowners, and in 2025. they built phase one of a six to eight phase build-out on land owned by Bridger Bowl Ski Area and the Crosscut Mountain Sports Center. Three new trails were constructed in 2025, including the standout downhill flow trail “Gnomadic.”
This “blue freeride flow trail” is the first-ever flow trail in the Bozeman area. While originally the trail was envisioned as an intermediate descent, Drew Maier, President of the Dirt Concern, told us that once the build was completed, “we had to change the rating from just a standard blue flow trail to a blue freeride flow trail, just because it is a little more advanced than we originally set out to build,” since the Dirt Concern gave TerraFlow “as much free reign as possible to build us the best trail they could.”
And TerraFlow did just that.
While everything on the trail is rollable, Gnomadic is a feature-rich freeride trail with “tabletops all the way top to bottom” and “some jumps that go 20-30 feet,” plus shark fins and a steep wooden roller that creates an over/under feature. While the trail just opened in late fall and only enjoyed a short riding season before snow shut it down for the year, local riders are already raving about Bozeman’s newest trail.
Get the full story: “The first flow trails in Bozeman, MT, are being built on private land at Crosscut and Bridger Bowl“
Flow/jump trail: runner-up
Sendy Crawford, Jarrod’s Place, Summerville, Georgia
- Length: 348ft
- Vertical: 100ft
- Trail Builder: Jarrod Harris and the Jarrod’s Place crew
Just like in 2024, we received the most submissions in the “flow/jump trail” and “tech trail” categories this year, so we chose to add a “runner-up” for each of these two categories to spread the recognition around. Sendy Crawford is one of the newest trails built at Jarrod’s Place, a privately-owned shuttle-served bike park located in Northwest Georgia. The proliferation of shuttle-served bike parks is blurring the lines between what is and is not considered “lift-served,” and while Sendy Crawford could have qualified for both the lift-served and flow trail categories, we’ve chosen to highlight it here.
This all-new double-black diamond jump line is now the hardest jump line at Jarrod’s Place. “It is our first all-gap trail with lots of hips and tighter distances between jumps, giving it more of a BMX feel, yet still accessible to a lot of our JP family,” said Jarrod Harris, Owner and Founder of Jarrod’s Place. On the trail, riders will find plenty of “gaps, hips, step ups, step downs, a 10-foot drop, some 7-foot wood kickers, a 15-foot-tall step up with a 9-foot lip, a creek gap,” and a small rock drop.
At just 348 feet long, Sendy Crawford is the shortest trail profiled here, but this new feature-filled build packs a punch and has turned local riders into raving fans.
Get the full story: “Jarrod’s Place Gives Mountain Bikers a Taste of Whistler in Georgia“
Photos: Jean-Sébastien Chartier-Plante
Best tech trail
Saga, Sentiers du Moulin, Lac-Beauport, Quebec
- Length: 2.5mi
- Vertical: 687ft
- Trail Builder: SDM crew and volunteers
Sentiers du Moulin (SDM) is arguably the most popular trail system in Quebec, thanks to its top-tier trail construction and vast array of gnarly singletrack. In a trail system known for technical lines, the construction of the brand-new Saga trail stands out as a crowning achievement. SDM’s paid trail builders teamed up with a host of enthusiastic volunteer trail builders, ranging from experienced project leads to newbies, to construct a technical masterpiece that’s quickly gaining renown across eastern North America.
Saga isn’t just a mere trail segment. Instead, this epic descent runs for 2.5 miles, making it one of the longest single trails at SDM. Dropping in is a true commitment, as there are no bailout options and no easy lines. Riders who brave the squirrel catcher feature at the top will be faced with a relentless descent chock-full of steep rock slab rolls, gnarly rock gardens, slick root webs, skinny wooden bridges, and more.
This new build receives a single black diamond rating, but it falls on the darker end of the spectrum. Throughout the descent, numerous double black line options are available, and there’s even one “pro line” descent. Essentially, single black is the easiest it gets on Saga — it only gets more difficult from there.
Get the full story: “Mountain biking Quebec City: A 5-day guide to the region’s expansive trail systems“
Tech trail: runner-up
Hardline, Sedona, Arizona
- Length: 0.9mi
- Vertical: 450ft
- Trail Builder: Verde Valley Cyclists Coalition, Summit to Sea Trails, and Coconino National Forest Red Rocks Trail Crew
If there’s one mountain bike destination in the USA that is ground-zero for insane POV footage shot on uber-gnarly lines, it’s Sedona, Arizona. This red rock paradise has long been defined by the Triple H — Hangover, Hiline, and Hogs — three brutally technical trails that attract riders from around the globe. In 2025, Sedona added a fourth H that tops them all: Hardline.
“We’ve built other blacks out there, but nothing like this,” said Lars Romig, Board Member for the Verde Valley Cyclists Coalition and the driving force behind the Hardline project. “If you’ve ridden Hangover — the steep, slickrock stuff towards the end of Hangover — this is like that, but take it to another level.” The “legit double black” trail descends 450 vertical feet in half a mile, peeling off from the classic Hiline descent to drop down the flanks of Cathedral Rock. The crux move is a white-knuckle traverse cut into bedrock that skirts a massive canyon wall with serious exposure — though that traverse is actually a bypass around a near-vertical rock wall that pros like Nate Hills and Remy Métailler would roll.
Unlike Sedona’s other technical masterpieces, which started as user-built trails that were eventually adopted, Hardline was built with full permission and approval from the US Forest Service. Kevin Kuhl, the Trails and OHV Coordinator for the Red Rock Ranger District, was integral to getting the project approved, and a crew of local builders knocked out the bulk of the trail in a two-week sprint. The result? Sedona’s newest test piece, ready to humble even the most confident technical riders.
Get the full story: “Sedona’s new ‘Hardline’ is their most brutally-technical MTB trail yet“
Best backcountry trail
Keweenaw Point Trail, Copper Harbor, Michigan
- Length: 22.9mi
- Vertical: 1,030ft
- Trail Builder: Rock Solid Trail Contracting
Can you really build a true backcountry mountain bike route in the Midwest? Thanks to the expansive wilderness blanketing Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the Copper Harbor Trail Club unequivocally answers “yes!” 17 years in the making, the Keweenaw Point Trail will eventually stretch for 30 miles and allow riders to pedal directly from downtown Copper Harbor. The epic loop passes through a vast tract of wild land that was previously inaccessible to the public. “It’s cool — for the Midwest […] it’s true wilderness out there, it’s big tracts of protected lands,” said Adam Yeoman, Interim Executive Director of the CHTC. “It feels like nowhere else in the Midwest.”
Work on the trail began in 2015, but in 2025, local builder Rock Solid Trail Contracting has been working on sections 3.1 and 3.2 of the project, which run for about five miles along the shores of Lake Superior, offering incredible views along the way. “You’ve got Lake Superior on your left and this massive swamp on your right, and you’re on this 25- to 50-foot spit of high and dry land between them,” said Yeoman. After the spit of land between the swamp and the lake, the new section runs beneath a stunning sea arch.
Designed as a blue-rated intermediate trail due to its remoteness, the singletrack offers a classic backcountry XC experience. “There’s some meandering, flowy sections of the trail, but that’s interspersed with some cool rock features,” said Yeoman. Rock Solid plans to complete the project with another 7.5mi of singletrack in 2026.
Get the full story: “The 30-mile Keweenaw Point Trail in Copper Harbor ‘feels like nowhere else in the Midwest’“
Photos courtesy PBR
Best lift-served trail
B90, Panhandle Bike Ranch, Sagle, Idaho
- Length: 1.4mi
- Vertical: 756ft
- Trail Builder: Gravity Logic and Panhandle Bike Ranch trail crew
It’s no surprise that our top lift-served trail of the year was built by Gravity Logic. The renowned trail builders out of Whistler, BC, are the wizards behind many of the best bike park trails around the world. What is surprising is that there’s no chairlift to the top of this trail. Instead, the “lift” is a pair of shuttle vehicles hauling riders to the top.
Panhandle Bike Ranch (PBR) is yet another shuttle-served bike park being built on private land, but it’s almost unheard of for a shuttle-served operation to enlist the services of the top gravity trail builder in the world. However, the Kalbach family was willing to invest millions in the construction of their new bike park: $4 million to date, and construction is still ongoing.
This investment has created a slew of top-tier trails that local riders are raving about, and B90 is one of the best. During the inaugural 2025 season, B90 was the toughest jump/freeride trail at PBR, quickly becoming a local favorite. B90 features four distinct sections. “The first section has a drop and then big tables,” explained Lance Kalbach, General Manager of PBR. “The second section is a little more technical, tighter, faster. It’s got a couple little sniper gaps here and there. It’s got a couple little step downs. Then the third section has shark fins, a hip on it. It’s got another little step down drop. Then it goes into the fourth section, which goes onto our wood feature. […] Then B90 has another drop into a section that has all kinds of stuff going on, from shark fins to step ups to step downs to more shark fins to a gap over a natural section where it wasn’t machined.”
All of these high-commitment features earn B90 a black diamond rating. If this sounds a bit too challenging for you, rest assured, PBR also offers some blue lines. And if B90 sounds too easy? PBR is building a legit “pro line” which will open in the 2026 season.
Get the full story: “Panhandle Bike Ranch suing Idaho county after officials blocked bike park opening despite approvals“
Photos by Eric Arce
Best bike park/skills park
Picuris Pueblo Bike Park, Picuris Pueblo, New Mexico
- Length: 0.72mi
- Vertical: 100ft
- Trail Builder: Rocket Ramps
The term “bike park” is used to refer to anything from a dedicated MTB trail system to a lift-served downhill park at a ski resort. But for our purposes, this category refers to urban or suburban jump or skills parks, and arguably the most extraordinary project built this year was in the Picuris Pueblo in New Mexico.
When Henry Lanman, Founder of Rocket Ramps, outlined the possible jump lines and features they could build for the Picuris Pueblo, he was initially taken aback by their request. “I was like, ‘Okay, let me be clear: this jump is 50 feet long and the lip is 15 feet tall. Is this what you want?’ And they’re like, ‘Absolutely. We want to jump the road. We want the craziest jumps ever.'” The vision was spearheaded by former Tribal Governor Craig Quanchello, who wanted to provide infrastructure for the Pueblo’s youth to pursue their passions. According to Lanman, there’s nothing like the Picuris Pueblo Bike Park within a 300-mile radius of this tiny town. The scale and quality are entirely new for New Mexico, and potentially the entire Southwest.
The bike park features three progressively difficult jump lines — medium, large, and pro — plus a world championship-certified pump track. The medium line features table tops with pre-fabricated lips, all four feet tall and higher. The large line adds more technical features, hips, step up jumps, and mandatory drops with no ride arounds. Then the pro line delivers “mini Crankworx features” including step downs, wall rides, and a massive cannon log. The pro line’s slopestyle lips stand nine feet tall with 65-degree take-off ramps leading to 12-foot-tall landings. “You could do, like, double backflips and cashrolls on these jumps. It’s not a child’s play ramp,” said Lanman.
Get the full story: “The Picuris Pueblo in New Mexico just built ‘the gnarliest bike park in the Southwest’“
Best beginner trail
Styles Park, Dawsonville, Georgia
- Length: 4mi
- Vertical: 350ft
- Trail Builder: Tailored Trails
Dawson County, Georgia, welcomed its first bike-optimized trail system in 2025 on a 120-acre parcel donated by local resident Anne L. Styles. While nearby Dawson Forest technically has some bike-legal singletrack, the historic trails there are disjointed, hard to follow, and often rutted. In contrast, Styles Park offers flowy, bike-optimized singletrack purpose-built for mountain biking.
“The trail is going to be mostly beginner-friendly, but not vanilla — kind of a flowing cross-country trail,” said Aaron Steele, President & Senior Project Manager of Tailored Trails, in an interview before the trail opened. The four-mile singletrack loop includes plenty of rollable features such as rollers and berms, but there won’t be any jumps. Tailored Trails built the trail to NICA specifications, making it perfect for youth progression and family riding. The new trail will be a massive boon to the local Dawson County youth mountain bike team, which has had to travel to neighboring counties to train since the team’s founding in 2020.
“We will have a place to call home and expose our county to the great sport of mountain biking,” said Mark Legaspi, Programs Director for the Georgia Cycling Association and Head Coach of the Dawson County team. “Having a trail in our own backyard can lead to more students on bikes. That has a far-reaching impact as that could result in family members [trying] out a sporting activity that can last a lifetime.”
Get the full story: “The first bike-optimized MTB trail in Dawson County, GA, is being built in Styles Park“
Photos courtesy MSOMTBCO
Best adaptive trail
Mission to MARS, Marshall Mountain, Missoula, Montana
- Length: 1.6mi
- Vertical: 573ft
- Trail Builder: Radius Trail Solutions
The Missoula Mountain Bike Coalition (MMBC) is quietly building a top-tier mountain bike trail system on Marshall Mountain north of the small Montana city. The first two new trails built in this network were an adaptive-accessible climbing trail and an adaptive descending trail known as Mission to MARS.
John Stegmaier, Executive Director of MMBC, shared that while accessibility and inclusion have always been goals for the Marshall Mountain project, the construction of this adaptive trail has been propelled by community members seeking to provide recreational opportunities for people with disabilities. Unfortunately, several Missoula locals have “fairly recently [been] rendered quadriplegics, that were big mountain bikers, big skiers,” said Stegmaier. One local rider “was working a contract logging job and had an accident, and […] took a tree to the back.”
After pedaling up the climbing trail, riders will drop into Mission to MARS and enjoy a 1.6-mile flow trail ripping down almost 600 vertical feet through a series of rollers and absolutely massive banked berms with 9-10-foot embankments. “It’s got a handful of little side jumps, kind of the start of like, ‘this is how you approach a jump,'” said Stegmaier. “Everything is low consequence.” Even though the trail is rated a green, “you can clock high speed. […] You could ride it as though it’s a blue based on how fast you’re going, because it’s become so freaking fast.”
Let us know about your new trail builds
It’s impossible to highlight every worthy 2025 trail build in this one article, so we salute every single trail builder and trail advocate who dug a new line in the dirt this year. Builders and advocates are the backbone of the sport of mountain biking. It’s not the bike brands, it’s the trail builders. Without trail builders, we’d have no place to ride our fancy-fangled plastic wunderbikes.
Without trails, we wouldn’t have a sport.
Know about a new trail project we should cover? Whether you’re breaking ground on the next must-ride destination or putting the finishing touches on a neighborhood flow trail, we want to hear about it. Drop us a line at [email protected] with high-quality photos of your build, plus details like trail mileage, location, difficulty, and what makes it special. We’re always on the hunt for the next great trail story, and there’s a good chance your project could be featured in an upcoming article.
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Dec 15, 2025
Dec 15, 2025