A new type of mountain bike race is storming the high country.

Enduro races — now found almost every weekend and clogged with everyday riders — marry downhill technique with modest cross-country endurance and are opening competition to those who fall shy of Olympic-level fitness.

“The normal person can’t train enough to be competitive in the cross country field anymore,” said Dan O’Connell, director of Bike Granby Ranch, which this summer launched an enduro race series. It joined ski areas such as Winter Park, Snowmass and Utah’s Snowbird in offering new-school enduro races.

At an enduro race, that timeless “race to the bottom” mind-set becomes legitimate strategy.

Colorado’s venerable Mountain States Cup this year developed a Big Mountain Enduro Series with three contests culminating in a monster race in Moab in September. The gravity-oriented races in Steamboat, Durango and Moab include some middle-chain ring climbing, but the climbs are not timed. It’s the lengthy, arm-searing, technical descents that determine winners. The courses are close to 30 miles, winding through rocky, steep trails, so it’s hardly a downhill coast.

“These races still require a decent level of fitness,” Mountain States Cup Race Director Keith Darner said.

The first race of the series two weeks ago started atop Buffalo Pass and plummeted 4,900 vertical feet, ending on Steamboat’s new downhill course.

Read more about the style of racing and why it is surging in popularity.