Many fans state traces to locate mountain bike trails, but mountains aren’t a requirement fortuitously for Nebraskans. However, there are two mountain bike trails within the Lincoln area, one at Branched Oak State Recreational Area and one at Wilderness Park, that provide a course to journey close to home. Avid riders Roxanne and Ryan Feagan first met on a trip for mountain biking lovers to Moab, Utah, in 2002. Since then, from teaching mountain biking instructions to running the Psycowpath mountain motorcycle racing collection in Nebraska, the Feagans have pedaled tough to build hobby in the sport. The couple has also performed a giant position to improve and maintain the mountain bike trails in the vicinity.
“The awareness on destination constructing of trails has completely changed,” Roxanne Feagan said. “Building trails in the direction of domestic, wherein human beings can access and experience within riding distance or riding distance is a massive part of the movement.” Feagan is a beyond president of Trails Have Our Respect, a trail-keeping enterprise now led by Todd Saylor. Saylor stated that Trails Have Our Respect, higher called THOR, is focused on design, construct, upkeep and schooling.
“On an everyday foundation, we by and large do upkeep,” Saylor stated. “We do not own any of the paths, so it is all assistance, and it’s alongside the proprietors.” While volunteers offer their time to paintings at the trails, THOR has the equipment they use in widespread maintenance. Mowers, weed eaters, and old-fashioned elbow grease make the trails what they may be. “A lot of its miles preserving the paths open and accessible,” Saylor stated. “We’re focused on mountain bikers, but anyone is open to using the paths. Anybody who is a hiker, dog walker, or chook watcher, it’s open. We have a big path-going for walks community, too.”
The 70 miles of trail that THOR facilitates hold in Nebraska preserve volunteers busy. Saylor said in lots of instances; people take an hour after their workday ends to work at the trails. Trail leaders are in charge of overseeing individual courses’ desires and then allocating sources to preserve them in shape—trails for mountain biking range from ordinary biking trails in several methods. For the most component, they are dirt-based totally. Recreational trails for running and cycling in Lincoln are in large part hard-surfaced.
Mountain motorcycle trails are also surrounded using natural grasses and, as a result, are extra secluded. That can create numerous work for the ones overseeing the preservation of the paths. “It is a massive venture,” Saylor said. “Especially when it rains lots within the spring, and the grass can grow up to a foot in at some point.” Nevertheless, Saylor sees mountain bike using gaining momentum in Nebraska.
Youth schooling applications, along with one run with the aid of THOR, are developing, and Saylor stays centered on his purpose of making Nebraska a “destination spot to experience, but a domestic spot for riders in our place.” Swanson Park in Bellevue currently received a grant to assist with the construction of a mountain motorcycle course. “I would love to look humans creating a stop right here, somewhere in Omaha or Lincoln, to experience our trails on their way to Colorado, Arkansas, wherever they’re going,” Saylor said. “That’s what I want for our trails.”
