Outdoor sports seem to get edgier and more extreme every day. New technologies in climbing gear and freestyle kayaks have enabled daredevils to raise the bar in the quest for a bigger adrenaline rush. Now many mountain bikers say it’s their turn, as a growing number of fat tire freaks have popularized an extreme style of biking known as free-riding.

Free-riding emphasizes the challenges of technical and downhill riding-taking on extreme obstacles like rock gardens, ladder bridges, log rides, log pyramids, and drop-offs.

Two general types of free-riding trails have been developed-one kind is contained in a free-ride park, which is a confined zone with technical challenges similar to a skateboard park. The other is developed by building intertwining challenges into point-to-point trails. “Free-riding has been a great thing for mountain biking in the past couple of years,” says Pete Weber, PR director for the International Mountain Biking Association. “It has really injected new energy into the sport.” IMBA recently released its first free-riding guide to help promote free-riding and develop new free-riding areas.

Still, the new trend has not come without its controversies. As free-riding started to gain momentum in the early 90s on the west coast and in Canada, many riders in the Blue Ridge started trying to build similar trails on protected or private land without permission. The situation came to a head in 2003, when a group of mountain bikers from Hickory, N.C., who call themselves the Hick Hucksters started building free-riding trails in the Wilson Creek area of Pisgah National Forest.

The four riders were arrested and charged with unlawful trail construction and cutting timber on national forest land. They were lucky to receive a pre-trial diversion-later receiving community service, but they could have faced six months in prison and fines up to $5,000. In California three men were sentenced to a year in prison for illegal trail building.

“Unauthorized trail building is damaging to the environment, and it damages our relationship with land managers,” says Weber. “The good part about this case is that it educated a lot of people and brought some issues to the front, which ultimately resulted in improved riding.”

Many ski resorts are tapping into free-rdinig’s growing popularity by building free-riding parks as an attraction for the off-season. Wintergreen was the first resort in the Blue Ridge to develop a free-riding park. “Mecca” was designed by Virginia free-rider Jason Schetrompf, who sees free riding as a positive revival for the sport.

“It reconnects with the mystique of mountain biking as it was first intended,” Schetrompf says. “It appeals to a more technical rider-somebody who enjoys the pure handling of the bike itself.”

-Jedd Ferris