Sugarloaf Mountain has long been steeped in New England mountain bike culture. For many years, riders had to pedal up the mountain to access the gnarly trails dug into the hillside, but the newly established Sugarloaf Bike Park is now providing lift-accessed riding for 2025 and beyond.
Interestingly, the resort did things a bit backwards, building many world-class mountain bike trails before lifts ever transported mountain bikers. Fortunately, the Sugarloaf ordering of things has paid off.
Sugarloaf is at the center of Maine mountain biking
“We’re known for being a skier’s mountain,” Charli Sayward, Sugarloaf’s Marketing and Communications Manager, told us. “We’ve had a lot of racing over the years, with some top athletes coming through with World Championships and World Cups at Sugarloaf for the skiing sector.”
But the mountain is also an integral part of Maine’s robust mountain biking culture, with the Widowmaker Challenge being one of the earliest mountain biking events on Sugarloaf.
“I think the first one was in ‘91,” Adam Craig said. “Those ran into the early 2000s. There was downhill racing, dual slalom racing, and cross-country racing, all on that weekend. It was a big regional event, like 5-600 people.”
Craig spent 15 years racing the XC World Cup series for Giant Bicycles, even making a 2008 appearance in the Beijing Olympics. Craig dabbled in other racing disciplines, including enduro, helping build the discipline into what it is today, working directly with the Enduro World Series (EWS). Today, Craig is Sugarloaf’s Bike Park Manager.
But not all the mountain biking was on the slopes of the mountain. At the base of Sugarloaf is the Carrabassett Valley Trail Network extending to the east and north. Craig shared that the trail network began to take off around 2010, due in part to support from the City of Carrabassett and grassroots mountain biking campaigns from the local New England Mountain Bike Association (NEMBA) chapter.
“Ultimately, [NEMBA] got the momentum started that piqued Sugarloaf’s interest,” Craig told us.
Putting trails back on the mountain
Sugarloaf began exploring the possibility of adding trails in the fall of 2020. Craig and a friend set out to cut in a hand-built trail, dubbing this new experiment the Widowmaker Extension, a nod to the Widowmaker racing legacy.
As a retired racer with connections to events like the EWS, Craig recognized an incredible opportunity to establish Sugarloaf’s profile.
“I saw a good and relatively easy way to gain momentum, both from a trail infrastructure perspective, and also from a marketing and public awareness perspective, is to have these enduro and downhill racing formats,” Craig said.
Gravity racing, especially enduro, was booming. The trails raced in these events were raw and technical, a far cry from the investment a wide flow trail might require. What Craig was looking for was black and double black, “rake and ride” style trails for enduro racing — difficult to ride, but easy, and cheap, to build.
First, an Eastern States Cup stop was scheduled in September of 2021. This meant building four more enduro stages, along with one downhill track on Sugarloaf. During this period, they also applied and were awarded a stop on the 2022 EWS schedule. In the following 2022 season, Craig suddenly had a three-person full-time trail crew.
“They really loved the fresh, raw, scrappy riding, which is hard to get as a racer,” Craig said.
How did lifts start spinning?
We rarely hear about a location that gets EWS-caliber trails established and then transforms into a bike park. Despite a perhaps unconventional ordering of events, Sayward told us a lift-accessed bike park had been on Sugarloaf’s mind for a number of years.
“Sugarloaf has always been known for skiing, but we’re adamant about being year-round,” she explained. “We’ve had summer offerings before, but biking is bringing it to the next level, and the whole point is to get more people here year-round — more visitors to see how great the mountain is, both in the winter and summer.”
Sugarloaf wasn’t going to pass up on an opportunity to host world-class events like the EWS. While they used chairlifts on some of the stages, Sayward explained that there was an extensive permitting process before Sugarloaf could start bringing guests on the lifts as an official bike park.
Another thing Sugarloaf needed was easier trails. While EWS-level trails are a phenomenal offering that many are looking for at bike parks, Craig knew the mountain would need to be accessible for all ability levels. He explained that much of the 2023 season was spent maintaining their current trails, with new construction beginning in 2024 when permitting wrapped up.
Lift-accessed trails in the Sugarloaf Bike Park
As long as there wasn’t a race event happening at Sugarloaf, the EWS trails were open to the public during the ‘21, ‘22, ‘23, and ‘24 seasons. There was no lift, and the pedal up was a bit extreme, not to mention the black and double black descents that awaited locals and visitors alike.
Today, most of these trails have been incorporated into the bike park. While there is no longer uphill travel at Sugarloaf, riders can now purchase a pass and ride the chairlift up for the 2025 season.
First, to accommodate a broader range of skill levels, Sugarloaf added three machine-built trails, suitable for beginner to intermediate riders. Boulder Dash, Emerald, and Syncline incorporate what you would expect on beginner/intermediate bike park flow trails — berms, tabletops, rollers, and the occasional drop — with most features being optional.
Craig told us that Sugarloaf Bike Park has around 1,000 feet of elevation drop, with a 5%-10% average gradient. He reported that the trails are approximately three miles from top to bottom, allowing Sugarloaf to maintain its desired gradient drop, with some steeper portions on more technical trails.
“Off [the chairlift], there are three enduro tech trails — Widowmaker Extension, Jackpot, and Rookie River,” Craig said. “Widowmaker is a single black that’s rocky and rooty, but not incredibly steep. Jackpot steps up a little bit into that double black section.
“Rookie River is kind of the most proper double black trail over there. There are longer, steeper, rockier, rootier sections. No big moves or anything, just kind of constant […] with nice dark soil,” Craig continued.
Another enduro trail, a traverse from the chairlift, is Rock Lobster, with upper, middle, and lower sections. The trail is rated a double black, black, and blue, respectively, with technical and steep descending at the top, gradually getting easier as the elevation drops.
The furthest traverse leads to the Crusher DH trail. A double black from top to bottom, Crusher consists of gnarly, technical rock sections, along with its share of wide, rough, and fast natural terrain through some ski glades. Crusher ends with several large gap jumps, which Craig reported to be in the 25-30-foot range.
More to come…
The Sugarloaf Bike Park is accessed from one chairlift, Whiffletree. However, the mountain extends roughly 1,500 feet above Whiffletree.
“We had an EWS stage that raced top to bottom,” Craig told us. “That was like a nine-minute stage for those folks — 2,500 feet. And it was brutal.”
Although the trail from the top is no longer there, Sugarloaf recognizes it has room to expand.
But, they are also realistic, knowing that the terrain served by the current lift still offers room to expand. Craig teased blue and black jump trails, and perhaps a few more tech trails.
“There’s always more. There’s always more to expand, more to grow on, and we’re just focusing on doing this well so we can keep growing,” Sayward added. “You can come ski from the top right now and, in the coming years, we hope to bike from the top, too.”
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