Joy ride

It took David Baillargeon five surgeries to find his athletic limits: Three shoulder operations. Torn knee ligaments. Broken bikes. Bruised bones. Big medical bills. "I've toned back some," said Baillargeon, 22, clenching a gloved hand on the worn grip of a mountain bike.

Sunlight streaked a plywood starting ramp below his front wheel. It was a Saturday in early September, and the Snake Trails -- a private freeride mountain biking course near Somerset, Wis. -- were quiet in the pine forest beside a farm field.

"Dropping!" Baillargeon shouted, announcing his entrance to the course.

His tires whizzed off plywood and onto turf, feet spinning on pedals for speed as Baillargeon stood up to fly from an approaching mound of dirt.

The sport of freeride mountain biking is the latest trend for cyclists looking to push limits. Focused on jumps, stunts, obstacles and tricks, freeride borrows influence from sources such as motocross, skateboarding and BMX.

"In the last decade, nothing has shaken up mountain biking more than freeride," said Louis Mazzante, editor of Bike magazine in San Juan Capistrano, Calif.

The discipline of freeride, which originated in the late 1990s on steep mountain slopes in places such as Vancouver, British Columbia, has grown from obscurity to international sensation.

Large corporations sponsor competitions in Europe and the United States, bulldozing dirt mounds in stadiums to create gravity-defying courses. Several ski areas around the country are converting slopes to cater to the big-air requirements of the freeride demographic.

Beyond jumps, obstacles such as wall rides -- which allow bikers to skim sideways across propped wooden walls -- and elevated "ladder" bridges visually define the sport. On an advanced course, a biker might encounter a banked single-track trail through trees, elevated wooden bridges and make-it-or-crash jumps.

Mazzante said the standardization of mountain bikes to include large-travel suspension has prompted many trail riders to progress to jumps and stunts.

"Everyday mountain bikers are now into freeride," he said.

Despite its rise in the biking world, freeride is still underground in Minnesota. Adam Buck, 24, a St. Paul event promoter who runs the Midwest Freeride Community website (www.mfcmtb.com), estimates there are 50 or fewer advanced freeride bikers in the Twin Cities.

Buck said a handful of private freeride parks such as Baillargeon's Snake Trails pepper the region.

"They are unspoken little places we try and keep off the radar," he said.

On my visit to Somerset, where Baillargeon's invitation-only course is set on family land outside of town, I followed directions to an unmarked turnoff. The trail twisted through pine trees from the base of a starting ramp, with exposed rocks, gap jumps, embankments and a 50-foot ladder bridge creating a rapid-fire obstacle course that takes less than a minute to complete.

As in skateboarding, there are few rules in freeride. Bikers usually just launch and pull tricks to wow a crowd, with grace and control counting for style points.

Before pushing off, Baillargeon stood with a friend and fellow rider, Travis Halverson, 21, of White Bear Lake, at the top of the ramp.

A pair of jumps -- 4-foot dirt mounds with mandatory gaps in between -- started the session, Baillargeon flying high. He touched the brakes before pedaling at a ramp, bouncing onto a wooden bridge that twisted through trees.

His tires chattered on wood, a pathway 5 feet high that slanted and pitched before ending at a gap. But Baillargeon didn't hesitate, eyes focused ahead, gloves gripping handlebars, he pulled up to pop through the air where the bridge ended.