New bike trails will offer off-road action

Calumet course designed for both novice and experienced mountain bike riders

By DAN SCHNEIDER
Mining Gazette
October 05, 2006

CALUMET - Rick Oikarinen cut out of work at his bike shop to make Applesauce Tuesday afternoon.

He also spent Sunday morning making Applesauce. He wasn't behind on his fall canning.

But he was grinding up apples.

He was grinding them with a roto-tiller along with grass, roots and dirt; cutting a new swath of mountain bike trail at the Swedetown trails. He's not the first Oikarinen to make trails in Swedetown.

"My dad (Len Oikarinen) was known as 'Mr. Ski,' he was the one who laid out the original Swedetown Trails," he said.

After helping construct 12 miles of mountain bike trails at Swedetown over the last three years (that's 12 miles of trail independent from the 30 kilometers of cross country ski trails), Oikarinen might soon be called "Mr. Mountain Bike."

But there are two others who can lay claim to that name in Swedetown: Marc Norton and Jeff Parker.

Norton got the bike trails started back in 2000, looking for a way around muddy ruts left by four-wheelers.

"Any time we went to Swedetown, you always ran into these dumb mud holes and you had to walk around them, so I started making some trails around them and then the loops," Norton said.

The trails progressed in fits and starts for a few years until summer, 2005, when Parker poured hundreds of hours into building new trails.

He constructed both the Muggan Creek Loop and the Lake Shore Loop on the west side of Swedetown, which together comprise roughly a third of the mountain bike trails there. Parker's trails bring bikers past some of the named natural features of the recreation area: Muggan Creek, the beaver pond, the Cathedral Pines.

Other named mountain bike trails include "Burly Trail," "Two Hoots Trail," and of course, "Applesauce." They completed the original Applesauce trail last fall. It was so named, Oikarinen said, because "we go under a lot of apple trees."

The new Applesauce is a beginners' loop close to Swedetown's parking lot. Most of the trail built so far was designed to be accessible to new riders.

"Even though its got long, long lengths of benched hills - we got a lot of hillside here - we're trying to make it wide enough that you can ride it even if you're not familiar with single track," Oikarinen said.

"Bench cutting" is the term for cutting a level path into the side of a hill. The trail builders at Swedetown use a tiller to make the process go faster in areas with thick grass.

They shoot for a trail width of about 32 inches. Another nod to new mountain bikers is the absence of major climbs in the trail thus far. Oikarinen's philosophy is to make the trail rideable by as many bikers as possible.

"The gentle ups and downs and the sweeping turns, that's fun for everybody to ride," he said. "Newer mountain bikers don't have the skills to ride extremely difficult trails, but skilled mountain bike handlers can still ride easier trails.

"Good riders can ride it and still have fun, they just go faster."

They also build the trails to last.

"That's the big thing for us, when we do these trails, we do it by IMBA standards, that's the International Mountain Bike Association," Norton said.

They take steps to make the trail surface resistant to rain runoff and other forms of erosion.

The trail builders have scouted territory for building more difficult, technical trails. These would take advantage of a topographical feature Oikarinen calls

"You Are Here Hill," which he named for its location in the middle of a twisting, confusing section of ski trail.

Burly Trail, the first extended piece of mountain bike trail constructed at Swedetown in 2004, already offers some tight corners and technical terrain.

"I purposely made that narrower, real narrow, and it curves all around," Oikarinen said.

"Before that, people were already riding on the cross country ski trails so it (had been) really casual."

Oikarinen estimates the three trail builders have put a combined 1,200 man-hours into construction of the trails. Usage by mountain bikers is starting to pick up, according to Norton.

"In the weekends, you've probably got 30, 40 people out there riding it," he said.

The trail is accessable from the Swedetown parking lot and from a trailhead off M-203.

To get to the M-203 trailhead, park across from the sign pointing toward Cloverland Road, ride down the wide dirt path, and look for singletrack on the left.

To get the most out of a ride, Oikarinen recommends stopping by his Cross Country Sports store on Oak Street in Calumet to pick up a map.

This year's inaugural "Great Deer Chase" mountain bike race, held Aug. 19 at Swedetown Trails, attracted 79 adult riders and 33 children.

Proceeds from the race will be used to add more trail markers and make other trail improvements. Tuesday afternoon, Oikarinen was happy with how the second Applesauce trail was progressing.

"This is going to be a cool trail, this is going to ride real nice," he said.

He spotted an apple free of worm-holes perched in a nearby tree.

"And if you run out of energy, you can always stop and, this time of year ..."

He grabs the apple. "That looks like a good apple," he says, biting in. "It's a very good apple."