MOUNTAIN LIFE - Blue Mountains | Summer 2019

68 words & photo :: Jason Petznick Spend enough time riding bikes at Blue Mountain, and you’re bound to hear people talking about a handful of unfamiliar mountain bike trails. Highway, Scorpion Thunder and Spark-O-Rama are just a few of the trails that live on in lift-line conversations, and over post-ride pints in the parking lot. However, there’s one trail that regularly comes up more often than any other: Autobahn. Keith Grant recalls his first time riding Autobahn at an Ontario Cup Downhill Race in 2004. “That version of the trail was pretty raw,” he says. “It had rooty switchbacks and hand-dug bench cuts that were rough, but still really fast.” After a few years of heavy use, plans for the next generation of Autobahn started to form. Peter Sutcliffe was Blue Mountain Resort’s Director of Mountain Experience at the time, and says the build plan was fuelled by one simple question: “How can we make this better?” Legendary BMR trail builders Gary Scarrow and Ken Klowak were charged with the task, and they transformed Autobahn into one of Blue’s earliest new-school flow trails. The end result was an immediate hit. Keith believes it was the trail’s approachability that made it so appealing. “It was easy to go fast even if you weren’t an amazing rider, and all the jumps had super long landings so you never had to slow down,” he remarks. RESURRECTING AUTOBAHN The evolution of a Blu e Mountain legacy downhill trail Luke Turco opts for the high line to avoid the loose gravel through the reclaimed section of Autobahn. BLUE MOUNTAIN RESORT/JASON PETZNICK TRAILS