Cobe Freeburn, the newest rider on Trek Driftless, just had his best year yet, and he has no intention of slowing down
Cobe Freeburn, one of three new riders for Trek Driftless in 2026, knows a good thing when he sees it.
He’s been on an upward trajectory seemingly every year of his young racing career, first coming up in mountain bike racing with Bear National Team, progressing as a gravel racer with the squad in 2023 and 2024, then having his best season yet as a privateer in 2025. The Durango native won Bighorn Gravel and took third in a stacked field at SBT GRVL. Now with Driftless, he’s landed in another strong support system where he’s confident he can continue to grow.
Freeburn got a firsthand glimpse of the Driftless operation last season while falling in with the squad at major races like SBT and Gravel Nationals. He’d always admired the team from afar.
Everyone's got different backgrounds. And if you just take the time and effort to learn, you can really improve a lot.
“It looked like a really good time, and then actually being a part of it, I really liked the mechanics, I really liked [team support manager] RC [Anderson], I really like the riders,” Freeburn says. “You can have fun. It’s not super crazy high pressure, and there’s not one athlete bossing everyone around. It’s a good atmosphere. Everyone knows that they’re there to race, but they also want to have fun doing it.
“It’s a well-oiled machine.”
Freeburn should know. He spent four years on Bear National Team, one of the nation’s best organizations for developing young cycling talent. The team’s secret is its focus on developing good human beings, and letting winning be a consequence. Team co-founder Julia Violich scours applications for kids who demonstrate kindness, commitment, and the ability to be good teammates. She also looks for athletes with a wide range of backgrounds and personalities.
We're living in Cobe Freeburn's world.
“You have so many different perspectives, and you can learn a lot from everyone,” Freeburn says. “Everyone’s got different backgrounds. And if you just take the time and effort to learn, you can really improve a lot. You’ve seen with Riley [Amos] and Bjorn [Riley], and me and Daxton [Mock], and some others. We’ve made it pretty far and started on Bear.”
The combination of a supportive and competitive environment with a diversity of experiences helped season Freeburn ahead of his privateer efforts. He says that 2025 was his best season yet in part because he finished his college degree the previous winter, allowing him to dedicate all of his time to training and recovery. In the process, he discovered that he could hold his own at the top of gravel racing.
It wouldn't be fun if I had a teammate I didn't like.
Now with Driftless, Freeburn will see some familiar faces again. He and fellow brand new Driftless rider Daxton Mock raced with each other when they were 14 years old, and later as teammates on Bear. He and incumbent Driftless rider Torbjorn “Toby” Andre Røed have also become good friends through years of competing at the same races.
That level of familiarity and camaraderie can’t be understated. Freeburn, Mock, and Røed will be a formidable trio at major races — all three big engines with the selflessness to ride in support of one another.
“It wouldn’t be fun if I had a teammate I didn’t like, or someone I didn’t get along with on the program,” Freeburn says. “I feel like having everyone that I really like with me just makes it more enjoyable to be at the races and makes us more inclined to work together, and do as well as we can for each other.”
Cobe's been on a steady upward trajectory with Trek bikes, and there's no sign he's slowing down.
Freeburn is looking forward to the chunky races, as you might expect for someone who cut his teeth on mountain biking. He took fifth at the Chequamegon 40 last year, just nine seconds off the winner, and fourth among 14 riders battling for second place within four seconds of each other. Naturally, he’s keen to improve his endurance and focus for the agonizingly long, flat grinds on the calendar — “something I gotta get better at with Unbound coming up,” he laughs.
He’ll be racing in the Life Time Grand Prix in 2026, so the sooner the better. Freeburn is eyeing gravel’s biggest races. He calculated that he would have finished 10th on the overall Life Time Grand Prix standings if he had been invited onto the circuit in 2025, and that’s without racing Unbound and showing up sick to Sea Otter Classic.
Freeburn is barely 24, but being young isn’t tempering his aspirations. He’d like to win a major race, and he wants to see his name near the top of the Life Time Grand Prix standings at the end of 2026.
Saddle up!
That clear vision of purpose has helped him gradually become a force in the men’s gravel field. He’s dutifully following steps seemingly laid out for him from a young age, starting at a Bear program that believes in raising all boats with the tide.
“The culture there is really supportive of that,” Freeburn says. “If everyone wants to get better, it’s the best way to improve and really grow as an athlete and as a person. And it’s nice having examples of people that were on the team before.
“It shows it’s possible, and it shows the right way to do things.”
With Driftless, Freeburn feels he can be that next great example. His future isn’t written yet, but he seems to have a pretty good idea where it’s headed.
