Scott and Jess Cotton riding mountain bikes

Our Story

It started with

A Test Ride.

Two riders, one audacious honeymoon, a Wyoming winter that finally broke us, and a tailgate pad that left one scratch too many. This is how TerraGnar happened.

Ride along

01 / The Test Ride

Keep up or keep moving.

Jess wasn't going to date anyone who couldn't keep up with her. I found that out early. Before anything else, she took me out for a test ride on the North Casper trails, the ones that wind through the disc golf course. I guess I passed.

Something sparked between us, and bikes poured gas on it. Riding wasn't just a hobby we shared. It was how we got to know each other.

Squaw Creek in Casper became our spot. It will always hold a piece of my heart.

Early days

02 / The Yukon

A honeymoon under the midnight sun.

We got married on June 4, 2022. For the honeymoon we wanted somewhere neither of us had ever been. Somewhere a little audacious. We picked the Yukon.

Nearly 24 hours of sunshine. Alpine that goes on forever. We booked the trip through H+I Adventures and stayed at Boréale Lodge in Whitehorse. Our hosts there cooked us gourmet meals and guided us every day to the best trails around Whitehorse and Carcross. We rode until our legs quit, canoed Yukon lakes, and explored a place most people never get to see.

It set the tone for everything after. When something sounds a little crazy and a lot fun, we go.

Scott and Jess riding an alpine ridge in the Yukon

Yukon Territory

06.04.22Said I do

~24 hrsOf daylight

60.7° NWhitehorse, Yukon

A mountain bike on a rock above a Yukon lake

Since that test ride

More states than we can count.

The Yukon. Costa Rica. Italy, where we rode the World Cup trails on Elba Island. And a long list of states in between. If there's dirt and a map, we're probably planning a trip around it.

03 / 42 Below

0^°F

Winds 60 to 90 mph. That was it. We were done.

Friday, then Monday.

Wyoming winters will test anybody. The winter before we left, there was a day that hit 42 below with winds of 60 to 90 miles an hour.

Jess hopped on Indeed and found an opening at St. Mary's in Grand Junction. She'd been in hospital administration in Casper and wanted to get back to patient care, and this was the job. I told her to go for it. That was a Friday. By Monday she had the job and we'd decided to move.

Easy decision. Hard logistics. For almost eight months Jess commuted between Casper and Grand Junction while we sold the house. Our oldest son was already in Daytona Beach studying aerospace engineering. Our daughter was graduating high school, and our youngest was finishing middle school. We hauled load after load to a storage unit, and amazing friends in the valley gave Jess a place to crash on the days she was here. It doesn't happen without them.

It's one of the best decisions we've ever made. Now we live in Fruita, and the North Fruita Desert is practically out the back door.

Home base

FridayJess applies at St. Mary's.

MondayShe's hired. We're moving.

8 MonthsCommuting, packing, storage unit runs, friends' couches.

FruitaHome. Trails out the back door.

04 / The Paint Damage

One scratch too many.

Riding this much means hauling bikes all the time. I bought a new Tundra TRD Pro and put the best tailgate pad money could buy on it before the first ride. A month later I pulled the pad off to wash the truck and found paint damage underneath.

That's where TerraGnar started. In October 2025 we started building a better way in the garage. Midway through, the design articulated in a way we never planned. That happy accident is why TerraGnar is a rack company and not a nicer pad company.

Two patent applications pending

The first cardboard mockup of the TerraGnar cradle

Prototype one: cardboard

Step 01CardboardCheap, fast, and honest about whether an idea is worth chasing.

Step 02WoodReal shapes, real weight, real bikes sitting on it.

Step 033D PrintsVersion after version, learning where a bike's weight wants to rest.

Step 04AluminumMarine-grade aluminum, full stainless hardware, built by hand in Fruita.

Why we built a rack that articulates

05 / Built to Survive the Drive

Nothing ships until it stops breaking.

0+Cradle iterations

0+Real road miles

0°In Big Bear heat

WeeklyRacks leaving Fruita

We drove it from Fruita to Bentonville, Arkansas. We baked it in Big Bear. We rattled it up washboard to Powderhorn. We hit it with hammers and stomped it into the ground. Nothing shipped until it stopped breaking.

In August 2026 the first racks left our shop in Fruita, and more go out every week. Every one gets checked by the same hands that tried to break the prototypes.

How we test before we trust Getting the first ones out the door

TG Racks ready to ship from the Fruita shop

Built and checked in Fruita

Maybe you met your person on a trail.

Maybe you planned a trip around the riding, not the hotel.

Maybe you moved somewhere just to ride more.

Maybe you pulled a pad off your tailgate and found damage underneath.

Then this story is yours too.

06 / The Crew

Two families. One shop.

Scott

Founder, CEO & Inventor

I spent 20 years in the Wyoming fire service and retired as a Captain. Our department covered 5,300 square miles of structure fires, wildland fires, high angle and water rescues, and more car wrecks than I can count. When your job is someone else's worst day, a stubborn tailgate problem doesn't stand much of a chance.

TerraGnar is the fifth company I've started. While I was still on the fire department, I ran Tile Innovations, a hardwood and tile company. A goofy t-shirt company called Lime Industries grew into 1890 Inc., a design, screen printing and private label apparel brand that landed in Forbes. I also left the fire service early to run operations as COO of eval.com, a property valuation tech company. I've built brands and run operations before. Doing it with bikes is what I've been waiting for.

I design and prototype a lot of what we make. The first cradle was cardboard in my garage. 25 versions later, it was aluminum and patent pending.

Today I run TerraGnar out of Fruita, and I'm a REALTOR® with The Christi Reece Group.

Jess

Co-Founder & VP of Experience Unofficial title: Chief Gnar Officer

If you've read this far, you already know Jess makes the calls that matter. She picked the test ride. She found the job that got us out of Wyoming, and she made eight months of commuting work.

She has also spent nearly two decades keeping people breathing. Jess is a Registered Respiratory Therapist who has worked the ICU, the operating room as a neurophysiologist, and hospital leadership as an Associate Director of Respiratory Care. She even ran operations at eval.com, so TerraGnar isn't the first company we've built side by side. Today she's back at the bedside caring for critically ill patients at Intermountain Health St. Mary's.

At TerraGnar she owns the whole experience, from the events we show up at to what happens after your rack lands on your doorstep. She calls herself the Cruise Ship Director, and anyone who has met her at a booth knows why.

And she still sets the pace on the trail.

The McDonoughs

I went looking for an attorney. I walked out with a partner.

When I sat down with Crystal McDonough to form the company, she was the attorney. She's an incredible one. She also believed in the mission, and everything lined up so well that teaming up was an easy call. Her family came with her, and TerraGnar is better for every one of them.

IanCOOCrystal's husband. Ian brings years of experience in equipment and machinery sales and manufacturing. He's the reason we can build racks at scale, not one at a time in a garage.

CrystalLegalThe attorney who helped form TerraGnar and then decided to help build it.

JasonLead FabricatorJason left his career as a mechanic at Mercedes to trade engines for aluminum. If a TG Rack has been welded, Jason's hands have been on it.

AnnaControllerA licensed CPA who keeps the numbers honest so the rest of us can keep building.

MelodySocial MediaTaking a gap year from college, living her best life, and helping tell the TerraGnar story on social along the way.

Build it like it has your name on it.

Our Purpose

Made by riders, for riders.

To build innovative gear that people are excited to use, because they can feel the heart and craft behind every product we make.

Made in America

It shows up in every weld.

We source materials made in America at all costs. The TG Rack is built by hand in Fruita from marine-grade aluminum and full stainless hardware. We love our bikes and our country, and it shows.

Three mountain bikes loaded on a TerraGnar rack at a desert trailhead

Find your Gnar. We'll help you haul it there.

Come ride with us. Order the rack we built for ourselves, or join The Gnar Collective and tell us your story.

Order the TG Rack Join The Gnar Collective

Scott & JessFruita, Colorado