Mountain biking mentioned as a way to boost Adirondack Park’s economy
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RAY BROOK — More than 40,000 people traveled to a rural part of Vermont last year to ride a mountain bike trail system known as the Kingdom Trails, boosting the area’s economy by an estimated $4 million.
That’s the kind of economic impact a mountain biking network in the Adirondack Park could have, supporters of the sport told the state Adirondack Park Agency Board of Commissioners on Feb. 12.
“When you think about that kind of money and those kind of visitors, with the minimal amount of impact mountain biking has, I just see it as a big win for the local community,” said Bill Schneider of Saranac Lake, manager of Placid Planet in Lake Placid and an avid mountain biker.
Steve Erman, the APA’s economic adviser, assembled a panel of mountain biking enthusiasts to discuss economic development opportunities related to the sport during the Feb. 12 meeting of the agency’s Economic Affairs Committee. Erman said mountain biking could help to build the region’s economy.
“Creating attractions, creating multiple attractions that are part of a system, and knowing how to advertise them so they become a major economic activity region-wide is really what economic development in places like this is all about,” Erman said.
The effort to improve mountain biking opportunities and boost mountain biking-related tourism in the Park is not new. In 2001, Lee and Judi Borland spearheaded the Adirondack Park Mountain Biking Initiative, which brought together a group of 20 organizations to work with towns and villages to develop a network of multi-use trails.
Erman talked about three of the mountain biking projects that got their start from the initiative. A 21-mile network of trails was built on then-International Paper lands in Speculator and the Lake Pleasant area. Erman said the network, which opened in 2004, includes the first trail in the Adirondack Park built to the standards of the International Mountain Biking Association. The state later purchased a conservation easement on the lands, which are now owned by Lyme Timber.
Another mountain biking network in the Park just opened last May. The Flume Trail System in the town of Wilmington is an eight-mile loop located on state land. Also built to IMBA standards, the Flume system connects to the more aggressive mountain biking trails at Whiteface Mountain Ski Center. Plans are also being developed to link the Flume system to mountain biking trails off of nearby Hardy Road.
A third mountain biking network, built by volunteers on 260-acres of land owned by the town of North Hudson, hasn’t been as successful, Erman said. After a strong first year, the North Hudson trail system wasn’t able to repeat its success because there wasn’t a strong enough organization in place to maintain and promote it, Erman said.
“We have two success stories, and one that’s been less than successful, but has the potential to come back,” Erman said.
To highlight another success story, Erman invited the director of the Kingdom Trails Association, based in East Burke, Vt., to speak to the agency.
Tim Tierney, former director of field operations for the Adirondack Mountain Club, said the Kingdom Trails were a small, community-oriented trail system when he took over as the organization’s director in 2004.
At that time, the area was visited by about 4,000 mountain bikers, Tierney said. Last year, the association recorded 40,000 riders and had an estimated economic impact of $4 million, he explained.
“We’re a major attraction now,” Tierney said. “We’ve changed the economy in the area and become quite a success story.”
Tierney said they’ve had success without spending much money on marketing, in part from good publicity. The Kingdom Trails have been dubbed the “Best Trail Network in North America” by Bike Magazine and were named a top family getaway by Yankee Magazine. Mountain bikers who’ve visited the Kingdom Trails are also spreading the word, Tierney said.
“The mountain bike world is a word-of-mouth world,” he said. “It’s a small community. They’re on the Web. If they come to visit, they go back and tell their friends.”
The Kingdom Trails, which are open from May 1 to the end of October, conditions permitting, are located primarily on private property through agreements the association has with 50 different landowners. The network includes about 100 miles of trails, including challenging runs and easy-to-moderate trails that attract tourists and families, Tierney said. It costs $10 a day to ride the trails, which are used for cross-country skiing in the winter.
Commissioner James Townsend asked how Tierney convinced the private landowners to see the benefit of letting trails cross their property.
“What we tell people is it really can help out the community,” Tierney said. “If people know it’s for the health of the community, they don’t have an issue with it.”
Asked by Commissioner Art Lussi what areas of the Park could provide the best chance for creating a similar mountain biking system, Tierney, who used to live in Jay, said Wilmington has a lot of potential because of its existing trails and the nearby mountain biking center at Whiteface Mountain.
“I think it’s a great location for a mountain bike center,” he said. “The town needs something. It needs an economic driver.”
When the Borlands retired and left the Adirondacks in 2006, Erman said the regional approach to improving mountain biking opportunities “fell off,” and people focused on their own local projects.
“But we’re at a point now where we’re close to being able to restart and give a new push to this regional initiative,” Erman said.
The Adirondack North Country Association, which was involved in the Adirondack Mountain Biking Initiative, is currently working to develop an online biking atlas and already has a mountain bike trail atlas at bikeadirondacks.org. Erman, an ANCA board member, said the organization could lead a new regional mountain biking initiative.
Bill Fraser, an avid mountain biker who lives in Lake Placid, said there’s no shortage of local people who are willing to build and maintain the trails.
“There’s a lot of people that are into it and are willing to do it for free,” Fraser said. “They just need the go ahead. It could be a great thing for the area economically.”
Matt McNamara, a Wilmington resident who works as trails coordinator for the Adirondack Mountain Club, said he’s starting an organization — the Barkeater Trails Alliance — that will represent mountain bikers and create more opportunities for the sport in the Park.
“We’re serious,” he said. “We expect to work toward creating a trail system here. Some of the vision that the Mountain Biking Initiative created is still out there and there’s a great group of people in the Tri-Lakes that would like to carry it forward.”
