Photo Report: Practice at the Mountain Creek Spring National Pro GRT

Practice officially got underway at Mountain Creek Bike Park for the Spring National Pro GRT, stop #3 of the USA Cycling Pro GRT Tour. The stoke was high and racers from pro to beginner seemed to really be enjoying the course that the Mountain Creek team put together for this year's event. Mountain Creek has long been know for its chunky, rocky, distinctively east coast terrain. This year the trail crew decided to really embrace that character and let the rocks be the star of the show. Clocking in at just over 1 mile, the course is not necessarily one of the longest tracks that racers will see this season, but it certainly puts racer's endurance and suspension to the test, with only brief moments between rock gardens and steep chutes for racers to catch their breather and regain their composure before the course starts testing them again. This is downhill racing at its old school finest.

Racers dropping in for the official start of practice today at Mountain Creek.

The plan for this year's course was to tape it wide and let the riders decide.

IJ Racing's Rafael Gutierrez sending it off the first jump of the course.

Yeti XC Pro, Laura Slavin showing just how capable those Yeti trails bikes are.

Head trail builder and resident pro, George Ryan tasting the fruits of his team's labor.

The women's pro field is looking strong with riders from all over the US making the trip to New Jersey for this weekend.

Defiant Racing pro Lucas Cowan tackling one of the numerous chunky rock sections on the course.

Spoke Apparel owner, teaching his son the art of the course walk.

Today also kicked off the Memorial Day Weekend holiday, a weekend widely recognized as the unofficial first weekend of summer, and today's weather definitely lived up to that expectation. The full sun and warm temps only added to the racer's fatigue, but with rain looming in the forecast for race day, much time was spent examining lines and making plans for how best to tackle this course should the conditions change. Whatever the weather brings, we know we are looking at a great weekend of racing ahead.

Aaron Gwin and his new YT were looking smooth and patriotic all day today.

Commencal pro Amy Shenton coming out of the light and into the woods.

KHS pro, Logan Binggeli looking right at home among the chaos of New Jersey's square edged rock.

Airborne's Tommy Zula fresh off a Pump Track World's qualifying win, showing he can ride the rocks just as good as the berms.

Unior Tools/Devinci pro, Dakotah Norton was finding creative lines all day

CAT 1 Junior Titus Nicholson learned how to ride here at Mountain Creek and the home course advantage was definitely showing in his riding today.

We overheard one racer saying "I had no idea it could get this steep in New Jersey" For a little mountain, Mountain Creek definitely packs punch.

This steep rooty shoot proved tricky for some today, but local Scott rep and pro rider, Ant Knee makes it look easy.

Trail Crue Member Kevin Utter helped build this new container drop, only fitting he get's to send it too.

The Spring National ProGRT continues tomorrow with seeding runs for the Pro Elite, Pro/Open and Cat 1 Junior categories. Things will wrap up on Sunday with finals scheduled to start at 11AM and Top Pros expected to take the course around 2PM. If you live in the area and want to check out the action, Mountain Creek is providing free spectator lift access on both Saturday and Sunday, and if there's one thing New Jersey MTB race fans know how to do is to throw a party so come prepared.