Adirondack Park Mountain Bike Initiative: A Recipe for Success

NY Department of Environmental Protection, Community leaders, and Mountain Bike Advocates Join Forces

The Adirondack Challenge: winter-use trails often go through wetlands creating challenges for the conversion to summer-use trails.
Community leaders, land managers and area mountain bicyclists joined together in North Hudson, one of the 33 communities working to become a mountain bike center as part of APMBI.
The crew headed into the field for a layout clinic as well as construction of this full bench cut trail.
Riding in the Adirondacks has something for everyone!

August 7-10 found Subaru/IMBA Trail Care Crew, Aaryn Kay and Scott Linnenburger, touring the Adirondacks as part of a region-wide program to build mountain bike centers as a means of community economic development. The Adirondack Park Mountain Bike Initiative (APMBI) is gaining momentum, and it has New York mountain bikers, state Environmental Protection officials, and civic leaders smiling. Why? Because the initiative provides solutions for everyone's problems. How? Through thousands of hours of volunteer time making connections, forming partnerships, and the creation of a 150-page manual for communities interested in becoming mountain bike centers (for a copy that you can use locally, contact Lee and .

A sampling of their successful recipe:

• Form partnerships - NY DEP and the Adirondack Park Agency, along with 33 communities have signed on to enact the initiative.
• Provide guidance - The aforementioned manual that explains to civic leaders how to get trails and connections to their communities approved and what mountain bikers are looking for in a trail experience.
• Volunteer Training - Two IMBA Trailbuilding schools have provided hands-on instruction to over 100 volunteers, city officials, and land managers in the last 3 years.
• Recognition - A recent Bike Magazine article by Vernon Felton described Adirondack riding as "limitless" and the article only focused on one corner of the park.

The beginnings of the plan involve the official designation of trails for mountain bike use and retrofitting winter trails for summer use. From there, the sky is the limit. For more information on the project consult www.bikeadirondacks.com.