It’s a Thursday morning in late September, and Nate Hills is eyeing the 69er—the biggest and most imposing launching pad at the Frisco dirt jumps. “Looks blasty today,” he says with an espresso-fueled glint in his eye.

Hills, a 46-year-old “internet-famous Colorado mountain biker,” as he describes himself, gets paid to make riding look fun. Having trails that make riding look fun is a necessity, hence the 26 years he’s spent living in Summit County. Hills is best known for charging down natural roller coasters, but Frisco’s dirt jumps are one of his sanctuaries when he’s not traveling, which takes up half his year. In recent seasons the jumps, built and maintained by the Town of Frisco in the shadow of 12,805-foot-tall Peak 1, have become an unlikely draw in an area revered for its alpine bliss and forested flow. At the annual jump jam two weeks ago, more than 200 riders descended on Frisco, many of them having driven from as far away as California.

“I pretty much ride here every afternoon when I’m in town,” says Hills, sporting a dark mustache and weathered knuckles and nursing a sprained thumb. “This is my social outlet. I wish I had this growing up.”

Hills came to Colorado in 1996 after a childhood spent in Walpole, Massachusetts. He joined the pro downhill circuit in 2003, won some races, and earned a top-three national ranking over the next decade, and signed a sponsorship agreement with Colorado-based Yeti Cycles. He rarely competes anymore and could probably satisfy his riding needs in any number of towns around the West. However, his choice of locality still says something about the area’s mountain biking. In a state full of meccas, there is something unique about north-central Colorado—in particular the zone stretching from Breckenridge to Montezuma.