The Park City Council approved Deer Valley Resort’s request to host the Fox U.S. Open of Mountain Biking on June 4.
The final stop along the Monster Energy Pro Downhill Series, the preeminent downhill mountain biking racing series in the United States, will take place Sept. 10-13 at the resort.
Fox U.S. Open of Mountain Biking co-founder Clay Harper said the event was drawn to Deer Valley by interest shown in the Monster Energy Pro Downhill Series at a 2025 stop at Solitude Mountain Resort in Big Cottonwood Canyon and by improvements Deer Valley is making to their NCS trail, which will be used for the event.
“We had a humongous crowd at Solitude, and the racing was great,” Harper said. “It was obvious right away, … Utah is one of the epicenters, if not the epicenter, of mountain biking in the country right now.”
The Monster Energy Pro Downhill Series is set to return to Solitude July 15-19 for the third stop of their five-stop season, the fifth and final being the Fox U.S. Open of Mountain Biking.
Harper said the successful Solitude stop last season made the Monster Energy Pro Downhill Series realize they wanted to do more in Utah, and it was the fall when they started mapping out the event at Deer Valley.
“The team at Deer Valley is doing a handful of reroutes (modifications to existing trail) for us, which are going to be pretty special, and fixing some of the older, slower and tighter sections, and replacing them with more modern, flowy and fast racetrack sections,” Harper said. “We want to work with bike parks that are investing in the product and trails, and are really trying to build their customer base and community, so that right there is appealing to us.”
The Fox U.S. Open of Mountain Biking has been around since 2003, hosting renditions in New Jersey, California and Vermont. They were at Killington Resort in Killington, Vermont, the last four years.
Along with the races, Harper said the best elements of the Fox U.S. Open of Mountain Biking are the fact that they don’t close the entire venue to public access mountain biking and their vendor village.
“A lot of World Cup races will close the whole bike park,” Harper said. “We keep the bike park open and encourage people to come ride. … It’s been a staple of the U.S. Open over the years to come ride your bike.”
Harper said a successful Fox U.S. Open of Mountain Biking would mean getting tons of fans out to the event — they’re expecting 10,000 attendees — and making sure the bikers are happy with the race conditions. If everything goes well, the Fox U.S. Open of Mountain Biking is hoping to host their event at Deer Valley for several years.
“The introduction of competitive downhill racing and the work and track improvements we’re doing at Deer Valley are going to provide a really good venue for racers to race and train,” Harper said. “And we’ll start to see a lot more focus on Park City as a part of the global downhill racing conversation, and that will yield itself in athletes wanting to visit all the time, set up shop there and other races being held there.”
Deer Valley has already begun work on the NCS trail. The Fox U.S. Open of Mountain Biking will arrive later in the summer to help make final preparations to hopefully have the trail ready by the end of August.
To find out more information about the Fox U.S. Open of Mountain Biking, which will be free to attend, please see the Monster Energy Pro Downhill Series’ website.