Bill Pierce handles everything from maintenance to snow making and trail production at Soldier Hollow Nordic Center. This year, Pierce had his hands full crafting technical mountain biking trails in preparation for the 2026 UCI World Series.  The event begins in South Korea and makes pit stops in the United States at event stages in Lake Placid, New York, and in the Wasatch Back. Soldier Hollow will put on cross-country short track and Olympic races during the North American series next September.  Pierce is a seasoned trail builder and an avid mountain biker. When it comes to crafting technical, feature-ridden trails stacked with rock gardens and intensely banked turns, Pierce knows what to do. But he said he still gets tips and feedback from riders like Haley Batten — a mountain biking professional who resides in Midway.  “Really, if you’re building gnarly, think more gnarly,” Pierce said.  The trick is to build a course that will be challenging for the best mountain bikers in the world. Soldier Hollow general manager Luke Bodensteiner said there are about 14 miles of mountain bike trail already used for events, but that Soldier Hollow has to make everything more technical.  “We put more rock gardens into it, made bigger banked turn sections. We have a really fun route kind of up at the top that goes through a really nice natural rock, cliffy section,” Bodensteiner said.  The more technical mountain bike trails are extremely rocky in sections. Recently upturned dirt is packed into large and small boulders strategically placed to force mountain bikers through one of the few particular routes, none of which are easy to navigate. The “cliffy section” Bodensteiner referenced is essentially that — a cliff. A sloping trail leads to a swift drop that riders will have no option but to jump off.  The rock gardens in mountain biking trails are designed to make it challenging for riders to find a route through the features. Credit: Clara Hatcher/Park Record “The idea is to jolt them and make it so they can’t ride really smoothly through this,” Pierce said. “That’s the first skill they have, is to be able to see the line.” Pierce said he, Bodensteiner and Batten attempt to ride the trails as they’re built. He said if Batten can run the course easily, they will make it harder from there. Batten also provides feedback and tips on trail maintenance and construction.  The series is part of an effort at Soldier Hollow to lean into international events. That includes the Pan American Championships for mountain biking hosted at Soldier Hollow in 2024 and the annual sheepdog championship festival held every Labor Day.  The UCI World Series will be highly spectator-friendly, according to Bodensteiner. A good portion of the event takes place in a section he called the “bowl,” which is mostly on a hillside and easily viewed from the sidelines.  He’s expecting about 6,000 spectators each day and Bodensteiner is planning appropriately.  “The biggest challenge, I think, is probably to work out how to cope with the number of people who are going to want to come and watch the race,” Bodensteiner said. “Mountain biking’s a pretty big sport with a pretty big industry behind it. Bigger than biathlon or cross-country skiing. It’s fun for us to be angling into a new sort of mainstream sport.” Bodensteiner said one of his favorite aspects of hosting larger events like the UCI World Series is the spillover effect into Midway and neighboring communities.  “Even like the smaller scale races, like the high school races, the town fills up with bikes,” Bodensteiner said.  The World Series is big enough that Bodensteiner and the Heber Valley Chamber of Commerce estimate it will generate a $20 million economic impact.  “These events have a compounding effect where people will stay in a hotel and while they’re in the hotel, they’ll go to dinner and lunch and maybe have to go to the grocery store and fill up on gas. So these events bring a compounding opportunity for us to have a good, positive economic impact on our community,” Heber Valley Chamber Executive Director Dallin Koecher said.  Bodensteiner said they’re also looking for ways to incorporate local restaurants and businesses into the event fan expo, but he hopes spectators will journey into town before or after the event. “Our hope is that people will get entertained out here during the day and then wander back in town for dinner after the races,” Bodensteiner said. “We definitely want to get the local restaurant community involved in the event.” Soldier Hollow is preparing to start selling event tickets this month. The UCI World Series will take place at Soldier Hollow on Sept. 19 and 20, 2026.  The post Soldier Hollow prepares to host the 2026 UCI World Series for mountain biking appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less