Telluride bike park closes for summer 2026 during Lift 4 upgrades

Telluride riders planning a summer of chairlift laps need to reset their itineraries now: the Telluride Bike Park will be closed for the summer of 2026 while Lift 4 gets modernized. Telluride Ski & Golf says the work is scheduled to begin immediately after the mountain closes in April, which takes the resort’s gravity-fed downhill product off the table for the entire season.

That closure hits the core of what made the park matter in the first place. Telluride describes the bike park as a lift-served network of interconnected freeride, technical, and cross-country trails that normally runs through Prospect Basin and the Mountain Village side of the resort. With Lift 4 out of service for upgrades, the usual rhythm of loading a bike, riding down, and repeating all day will not be there in 2026.

The resort says it explored multiple options, but too many variables would have to line up to offer lift-served or alternate bike-park access during construction. What remains, at least for now, is cross-country trail access, which Visit Telluride says will be free of charge during the lift project. That means the mountain will still function as a trail network, but not as the downhill bike-park product riders have come to expect.

That distinction matters because Telluride’s modern bike park is still relatively young. It opened in July 2019 after construction that began in 2018, and early coverage pegged the build at 15 new and improved freeride trails spanning more than 17 miles. For summer visitors, that made Telluride a place where the bike scene could stand shoulder to shoulder with ski season. The 2026 closure interrupts that formula just as riders are planning vacations, passes, and summer weekends around lift-served access.

The Lift 4 project also sits inside a broader resort capital cycle. The larger Telluride Ski Resort Improvements package includes replacing lifts 7 and 8, widening the Galloping Goose Skiway, building the Jaws Skiway, expanding High Camp, and adding a Green Tech mountain bike connector trail. The U.S. Forest Service says the public comment period for that broader project is open, which puts the resort’s next wave of mountain changes squarely on the regional radar. For riders, the practical takeaway is simple: 2026 will not be a normal Telluride bike-park summer, and any trip built around downhill laps needs a new plan.