Uphill Battle
The new Mount Ellis bike park.
The wheel: one of humankind’s most impactful inventions. The next being Lycra, at least according to road cyclists, skate skiers, and cosplaying fetishists. For others, though, real biking didn’t start until people began leaving the pavement. Which opened up a whole new world—before long, bicycles were going places once deemed impossible. Terrain that would’ve hospitalized a reckless rider just a few decades ago is now just a casual, after-work spin. Now, combine that off-road capability with the kinetic connection of bike and human: the marriage of gears and heartrate, the bond between spinning chain and pumping blood.
Taken together, this explains the philosophy of a group of Silicon Valley Strava legends turned Jackson Hole dropouts, who recently made their way to Bozeman. These uber-athletes have set their sights—and measured their VO2 max—on a slice of the Gallatin Range south of Bozeman. And by “slice,” we’re talking several square miles around Mount Ellis, earmarked for a full-blown mountain-bike resort. Their objective: turn the cycling industry upside-down. And they don’t mean figuratively.
Instead of a typical set of downhill trails like those established at ski resorts, the Mountain Mavericks, as they call themselves, are creating the exact opposite: the world’s first uphill bike park. Riders pedal up steep, sustained, meticulously designed singletrack to experience what the group’s president, Richard “Rich” DeBagg, describes as “the purest form of riding,” then take a chairlift back down to do it again. According to DeBagg, biking descents are an obsolete “logistical hiccup.”
The Mavericks have secured preliminary approval from Montana DNRC and the U.S. Forest Service, pending final payoff—er, sign-off. “A few well-placed handshakes is all it takes,” says DeBagg, with a sly grin. “That and a backdoor land-swap with the Yellowstone Club, of course.” Operationally, things are quickly moving forward, and the requisite lip-service—er, public-comment period—will be quietly buried—er, completed—soon.
Outside Bozeman had a few questions about the project, so we caught up with DeBagg, whose official title is “VP of Vibes,” to learn more about the new Ellis Uphill Bike Park and what it means for the town of Bozeman and the region at large.
O/B: Who the hell are you and where did you come from?
RD: DeBagg is the name, but my friends call me “Thighs,” for obvious reasons. I bounce around. After Cali, I was in Boulder for a bit, then back in Tahoe. Some time in Austin visiting frat buddies. But I’ve been here almost a year now, so I feel pretty local.
O/B: How did you get your greasy hands on our public land?
RD: That was easy, man! Communally unconsented land swaps are nothing new. Read up, it’s all there in the history books. Besides, this’ll be right at home for the hardos of Bozeman. And if it’s too hard, well the super-hardo Jackson folks will keep us plenty busy. We’re starting a real-estate subsidiary, too: the Mount Ellis Land Company. Slopeside lots for premier members, plus we’ll snatch up all the cool houses downtown to rent out to our weekend-warrior clientele. Oh, and all the affordable housing, we’ll buy that for our workers.
O/B: What about the Bozeman locals, where will they live?
RD: Yeah, that’s not really our problem. Progress, man! Get on board or get left behind.
O/B: Why an uphill-only mountain-bike park? Why not up and down?
RD: It’s simple, bro. You remove the lamest part of biking, which is going downhill, and focus entirely on the climb. That’s where the growth is. That’s where the pain is—and that secret doorway to peak performance that Devon Goggins talks about. It’s where the work happens and where true fulfillment is achieved.
O/B: So, no downhill trails at all?
RD: Absolutely not. This is about refinement, see. Downhill culture is so… uncivilized. I mean, we don’t even speak the same language. Theirs is gorilla-grunts and chest-thumping, while ours is pretty much the Queen’s English of cycling.
O/B: Go on, I can tell that you have more to say.
RD: I think people have gotten too comfortable. Even cross-country and enduro are stale and overdone. We’re bringing intention back into it. Suffering, but curated. Nietzsche talks about that, something about randomly putting oneself through hell, and how that’s essential to being worth a crap in this world. That’s basically our mission statement.
O/B: Actually, what Nietzche said was—
RD: So the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was destined for greatness, due to all the suffering I deliberately endure. My crew and I, we started with ultra-marathons, but that got saturated. Bozeman kept popping up in my Insta feed, and once I got a glimpse of Mount Ellis behind some hipster’s head in a string of selfies, the idea just came to me.
O/B: And you’re the “Mountain Mavericks,” is that right?
RD: That’s just our working name. Once we launch, we’ll pivot to our actual name, which speaks to our true spirit: the Pedalphiles.
O/B: What the f-ck did you just say?
RD: Clever, right? Because we love pedaling. Pedal phile. That’s Latin, bro. I’m Ivy League, you know.
O/B: Actually, it’s Greek.
RD: So my boys and I are just all about squeezing the sweet nectar out of life and living it to the fullest, spilling good vibes all over the place, like Thoreau said. Drinking from the cup of culture, you know? And Bozeman is such an eclectic, accommodating mix of people. The Most Livable Place, isn’t that the town motto? That’s how I know we’re here to stay.
To learn more, visit ellisuphillbikepark.com.
