Serious mountain biking comes to urban areas

By Chris Jenkins
Associated Press
August 12, 2006

MILWAUKEE (AP) - Mike McCluskey never would have guessed that he could get his mountain biking fix in the middle of downtown Milwaukee.

Once he found out he could, he wondered if it was safe to do so.

"I called up someone and said, 'Do you ride these by yourself, or do you gotta go with two people because you get mugged when you're out there?"' McCluskey said.

After taking a spin, the verdict was in. The only real trouble to be found on the Milwaukee River Trails lies in quick climbs and descents, jarring rock beds, slippery tree roots and pesky logs that can send even an experienced rider over the handlebars.

The kind of trouble a serious mountain biker would love.

You don't need a mountain to go mountain biking these days, as challenging off-road trails and obstacle-rich parks are sprouting in urban settings across the continent.

Mark Eller, a spokesman for the International Mountain Bicycling Association, says urban trails are becoming more common - a trend the group encourages, figuring that making mountain biking more accessible will boost its popularity.

"We recognize that not everybody lives in the Rocky Mountains or near some epic singletrack ride," Eller said.

The Milwaukee trails, a 10-kilometre loop that rambles through a river valley near downtown to the city's near north suburbs and back, never will be mistaken for a mountain biking haven such as Moab, Utah.

Instead of pristine wilderness, the trail presents a cross-section of city life.

Riders must keep an eye out for broken beer bottles and other debris. Makeshift beds lie under graffiti-lined overpasses, and adults in tattered clothes fish for food as their kids play nearby.

They share the trails with iPod-wielding young professionals out jogging with their dogs. The top floors of shiny new residential buildings peek over the valley wall.

As bikers duck under tree limbs and pedal past thick brush alongside the gurgling river, it's still fairly easy to forget they're in the middle of a city.

"You're like out in the country," said the 57-year-old McCluskey, a retired telephone company worker. "You can't see cars, you can't see houses.

"Next thing you know, you pop out of the woods, well, you're out in the middle of the street."

Mountain bikes already are a fixture in the urban landscape. Since the mountain-biking boom of the 1990s, casual cyclists have taken to riding heavy-duty bikes with suspension systems and fat, knobby tires around town - the bicycling equivalent of driving a Hummer to soccer practice.

Those bikes were designed to handle harsh off-road terrain not normally found in cities. But that's beginning to change:

-In Richmond, Va., the James River Park trails provide a challenging ride a few bunny hops from the city's vibrant historic district.

-In Seattle, a bike club has raised $160,000 to fund the construction of Colonnade Park, a multi-use trail on two acres of land underneath a massive interstate overpass.

-In Cleveland, Ray's Indoor MTB Park allows riders inside an old industrial building to conquer a variety of man-made obstacles when the weather turns cold.

-Several cities have built freeride parks, places where kids can ride mountain bikes over ramps and obstacles. Obstacles often are designed for skateboarders and BMX bike riders, too.

The Milwaukee and Richmond trails have raised their cities' profiles in the adventure sports community, attracting Xterra Series events - off-road triathlons that combine mountain biking, trail running and swimming and are usually held in the woods.

Dave Nicholas, managing director of Xterra, said the Milwaukee trails are surprisingly challenging. The trail's signature feature is the banzai, a six-metre-deep ravine where riders plummet down a steep drop and (hopefully) emerge on the other side.

"They're not at all what you'd think you'd find in an urban setting," Nicholas said. "They're quite technical, actually.

"Again, you think of Milwaukee being the Midwest and being flat. You go out on that course, it's anything but flat."

Nicholas said the series would like to hold more races in downtown settings, but it's still rare to find trails challenging enough in urban areas.

Scott Linnenburger, IMBA's director of field programs, says mountain bikers face a constant fight against commercial development of open lands and government restrictions on trail access.

"It's kind of pushing the sport into a weird place, where we're having to be more creative," Linnenburger said.

How creative? Linnenburger recently spoke to an architect in the Netherlands who wants to put a mountain bike park on top of a high-rise building.

Most efforts aren't quite that fancy. IMBA works with bike clubs, providing advice on everything from environmentally responsible construction of new trails to convincing local governments to keep existing trails open to bikers.

Instead of butting heads with hikers and dog walkers, who sometimes complain about bikers riding too fast, IMBA encourages bikers to join forces and lobby for multiple-use trails.

Sports marketing executive Tom Schuler, who has led efforts to improve the river trails and bring Xterra to Milwaukee, said there hasn't been much tension between different types of trail users - although one homeowner objected to the Xterra race, forcing changes in the course.

"Generally, we've never run into problems down there," Schuler said. "People are good at sharing."

With support from local businesses and officials from Milwaukee County, Schuler and a group of volunteers have made the trails more user-friendly.

"It's been there - we've just helped clean it up and connect it," Schuler said.

Schuler and a small group of recreational mountain bikers meet weekly at a lakefront coffee shop, then ride until the sun goes down.

Even Schuler, a former professional road cyclist who was on the 1980 U.S. Olympic team, isn't immune to the tricks of the trails. His tire went flat on a recent ride.

As he squished a new inner tube into place, a siren echoed in the background.

"You're never too far from that urban jungle," Schuler said.