SALIDA, Colo.—It used to be that one of the few times you needed a car in this mountain town was when you wanted to go biking.
Not anymore.
Salida is one of the most bike-friendly towns in the state. The community of 5,500 people is small and flat, so everything from work to groceries is reachable by pedal power. And finding a parking space downtown is a pain compared with finding a bike rack.
So a number of locals ride almost everywhere. Old Schwinns and custom chrome cruisers lean against seemingly every bike rack and light pole. Creaking townie clunkers and sleek titanium single speeds mix with traffic on the streets.
Until recently, the only things not convenient by bike were the bike trails.
But Salida is working feverishly to change that. Locals have been working to create trail systems that start at the edge of town. Now many of the trails are open and ready for riding, no car required.
“When I first moved here in 1999 there were two choices for bikers: expert rides that were far away or a concrete path,” said Shawn Gillis, owner of Absolute Bikes in Salida. “We wanted to find something in between.”
He spotted the answer out the back door of the bike shop: dry, grassy hills dotted with juniper, across the roiling Arkansas and just blocks from downtown.
Gillis and other locals, who call themselves Salida Mountain Trails, started drawing up a network of trails and learning the language of local and federal land managers in 2004.
“It was five years before we put a shovel in the ground,” said Gillis.
Environmental studies had to be done. Money had to be found. Plans had to be submitted and approved. But little by little the Arkansas Hills Trail System took shape.
On a recent afternoon, a group of riders meeting in downtown Salida had only to pedal a few blocks past the Boathouse Cantina, and over a bridge spanning the Arkansas, to hit narrow dirt trails.
Leading the group were Chaz Golin, 11, and his sister Melia, 13, followed by their father, Daniel Golin, one of the army of volunteers who made the trail system a reality.
The kids had just gotten off school, and rode their bikes straight to the trails. Friends joined them for the ride.
They turned onto a trail called Frontside that tacks up the south face of a 600-foot hill called S Mountain—so named because the residents of Salida built a big white “S” near the top.
Then they sped onto a trail called Backbone and flew along a fast, contouring chain of turns that weaves through the junipers. They stopped to catch their breath at an overlook of the grid of streets below and the mountains beyond.
Salida’s new trail system is designed a bit like a ski resort, with wide, easy “green” trails near the bottom, intermediate “blue” trails slightly farther out, and expert “black” trails up at the farthest reaches.
Every intersection is clearly signed and the trails are designed with no water bars or other features that could deteriorate over time.
“This used to be the domain of just a few gnarly mountain bikers with secret trails. Not anymore,” said Daniel Golin. “The kids love it, and not just the kids. People run up here. They walk their dogs up here. It is so accessible.”
The community cobbledtogether the eight-mile system. The trail group holds regular Saturday “shindigs” where volunteers dig trail and are rewarded with barbecues and punch cards good for discounts at local businesses.
The city has also chipped in, spending at least $20,000 on professional crews to complete portions of trail. Church and school groups, as well as large trail-focused nonprofits such as Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado, all lent a hand. There is even a prison work crew planned to swing some picks this fall.
Overall, volunteers have contributed more than 1,500 hours.
“They have done tremendous work,” said Gillis. “I can look out the back of the bike shop on a summer day now and see more riders in one afternoon than I did in the first year I lived here.”
The benefits of the system are two-fold. First, it gives locals a convenient way to ride, run or walk in hills that for years were barely visited. Second, it offers visitors some options.
“Not everyone can ride the Monarch Crest,” said Gillis, referring to a demanding route on the Continental Divide that often graces lists of best mountain bike trails in the country. “It used to be we only had that or some pretty boring bike paths.
“The Arkansas Hills are something intermediate, but fun. This way, if you come with a group of riders, some can spend a day on the Crest and some can ride here, then maybe meet in town to get a bite to eat.”
The push to expand trails is not limited to the Arkansas Hills. This fall a hired crew is building a five-mile beginner trail, called Little Rainbow, through the hills on the south side of town.
And the group hopes the network will keep expanding. There’s already a trail snaking northwest from town toward the Pike-San Isabel National Forest. How vast and interconnected it could get is anyone’s guess.
“We’re taking it slow,” said Gillis. “We still have trails to complete before we look at whether it makes sense to try to build more. But we’re making good progress.”
