Drive up Hoskins Gap Road toward the mountain outside Oliver Springs and you will hit a fork most people don't notice until they've already committed to a lane. One way leads to a General Store where you buy a trail permit by the day. The other leads to a 2,400-square-foot bike shop called The Gravity House, where a shuttle truck idles between runs. Both gates say Windrock. Neither one will tell you that as of October 2023, they belong to two different companies with two different calendars, and if you show up expecting one experience at the wrong gate this October, you're going to have a confusing afternoon.
That split is the thing worth knowing if you live anywhere near Oliver Springs, because it explains why the mountain's biggest fall event, Windrock Park's Fall Jam, has nothing to do with the mountain bike side at all.
One Mountain, Two Owners
For years, "Windrock" meant one sprawling operation: roughly 73,000 acres of former coal mining land, threaded with more than 300 miles of off-road trails, run by the Windrock Land Company. Riders in Jeeps, side-by-sides, and dirt bikes came for the size of the place as much as the terrain. A smaller pocket of that land, about 540 acres, had also been developed years earlier by former professional downhiller Sean Leader and Neko Mullaley into technical downhill mountain bike trails, the kind that earned Windrock a reputation among gravity riders nationally.
In October 2023, that bike park pocket changed hands. Five-time World Cup Downhill champion Aaron Gwin and his wife Lauren bought the lease and assets of the bike park outright, and the new license added another 544 acres on top of the original 540, roughly doubling the footprint dedicated to mountain biking to just over 1,080 acres. The rest of the 73,000-acre property, including the OHV trail system, the campground, and the General Store, stayed with Windrock Land Company. Two businesses, one mountain, two names that both start with Windrock and one gate that most visitors have never noticed splits them.
Gwin had been training on the mountain for years before he bought it, drawn by terrain he's described as close to European World Cup conditions. His plan wasn't to keep it as an expert-only training ground. In his words:
"It's known as a place top world cup riders like myself can come and train in the off season to get ready for the world cups, but I want my wife to be able to come here and my friend's kids to come and everybody come and equally enjoy it."
That vision has already shown up on the ground. Since the purchase, Gwin's team built The Gravity House, a full-service bike shop and shuttle hub that opened in spring 2024, and started laying in more beginner-friendly blue and green trails alongside the black-diamond lines the park was known for. The bike park now runs its own shuttle schedule and hosts its own signature event, the Red Bull Tennessee National, a UCI-sanctioned downhill race that returned to the mountain in March 2026.
The Fall Calendar Belongs to the Other Side
None of that touches the OHV side, which is where this fall's biggest community event is actually happening. Windrock Park's Fall Jam runs October 15 through 17, 2026, and it's built for families and off-road groups, not downhill bikers. The lineup includes guided sunset and moderate trail rides, a Windrock Challenge checkpoint course, a mud bog competition for ATVs and side-by-sides, and a Family Night with trunk-or-treat, face painting, and an outdoor movie. Saturday night brings the Haunted Trail Ride. Admission runs $20 for adults and $10 for kids ages 6 to 12, with children 5 and under free, and the weekend closes with giveaways that have included a Yamaha RMAX side-by-side and a Grizzly ATV.
None of that requires a mountain bike, and none of it happens at The Gravity House. If you're coming for Fall Jam, you're checking in at the General Store on the OHV side, not the bike shop, and you'll need a trail permit unless you're strictly there for the Family Night activities. The park also runs a zero-tolerance alcohol policy across its trail system, worth knowing before you plan a group outing.
The OHV side has carried most of September's activity too. The 11th Annual 70 Series Land Cruiser Meet & Greet ran September 17 through 19, drawing owners from across the region for trail rides and a benefit ride for ALS research, and BleepinJeep's Monkey Ball Crawl filled the calendar again on September 18. That's the pattern on this half of the mountain: a steady run of club meetups and themed weekends that build toward Fall Jam as the biggest draw of the season.
The bike park, by contrast, doesn't run a comparable fall festival. Its big annual moment already happened back in March with the Tennessee National. Fall on that side looks more like normal operations: shuttle-served downhill laps, a growing set of trails aimed at riders who aren't chasing World Cup lines, and the kind of steady traffic that comes from being one of the only bike parks in the Southeast that rarely closes for weather.
Why the Two Sides Rarely Get Confused for Long
Part of why this split matters locally is scale. The OHV side is enormous, built on land that was mined going back into the 1800s and still hosts logging and natural gas operations tucked into corners most day visitors never see. The bike park, even after doubling in size, is a comparatively small slice carved out of that footprint, purpose-built and separately managed. If you're new to the area or you've only ever been up for one type of riding, it's easy to assume the whole mountain runs on one schedule and one set of rules. It doesn't.
If you're deciding where to go this fall, the distinction breaks down simply:
- Windrock Park (General Store, OHV permits, 300+ miles of off-road trail): home to the October 15-17 Fall Jam, plus the September club events and meetups that filled the calendar leading up to it.
- Windrock Bike Park (The Gravity House, shuttle-served downhill and the newer blue and green trails): no major fall festival, but open for regular riding through the season, with its own permit and shuttle system separate from the OHV side.
Knowing which gate you're headed to before you leave the house saves a wasted trip, and it's the kind of local detail that only makes sense once you've either lived near the mountain a while or had someone explain the 2023 split to you directly.
What the Split Says About This Corner of Roane County
Oliver Springs has spent the last few years quietly becoming a destination for two very different outdoor crowds under one roof, and neither crowd fully overlaps with the other. That's not a small thing for a town of a few thousand people. It means the traffic on Hoskins Gap Road on a Fall Jam weekend looks nothing like the traffic on a Tuesday afternoon shuttle run at The Gravity House, and it means the mountain now supports two separate identities instead of one blurred one.
For anyone who already calls this area home, that's mostly a scheduling question. Know which gate, know which weekend, and the mountain gives you exactly what you came for.
Christina Branham has spent years working and living in Roane County, and pieces like this one come from the same local knowledge she brings to every listing and every client conversation. If you're weighing what life actually looks like in a town like Oliver Springs, or you're ready to talk about buying or selling anywhere in East Tennessee, reach out to Christina Branham to search listings or start the conversation.
