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A new multi-use trail system is in the works.
Local advocates say a multi-use trail and riding centers for bikers would connect neighborhoods and bring economic development.
A hundred-odd miles west of Duluth, on a weekend in mid-June, hundreds of people with fat-tire bicycles attached to their automobiles showed up in Crosby, MN (pop. 2,386), to inaugurate the International Mountain Biking Association (IMBA) Cuyuna Ride Center, an off-road cycling destination unique in the Midwest and rare in the U.S.
The IMBA explains that ride centers are extensive trail networks built by professional trailbuilders and designed for mountain bikers of all skill levels. Not only are they great for people who love off-road biking, says the IMBA, they also bring economic benefits to the communities where they’re built.
IMBA Midwest Regional Director (and longtime Duluth and Thomson resident) Hansi Johnson says not only is the Cuyuna Ride Center going to be the bar-setter for environmentally sustainable mountain-biking trails in Minnesota and the Midwest, but during that inaugural weekend, “Crosby’s three cafes sold out of food—all their food—and business owners flagged me down in the street to talk about how great the weekend was.”
That center and those events are an exciting precedent for Johnson and other Duluth trail advocates whose vision is to combine new and existing trail sections in this area into a 100-mile multi-use trail called the Duluth Traverse.
“What we’re trying to do is connect Jay Cooke State Park to Lester Park with a multi-use singletrack trail,” says Adam Sundberg, chair of Cyclists of Gitchee Gumee Shores (COGGS).
The trail would be laid out and constructed to withstand biking, but also to work safely and well for human-powered recreation such as hiking, birding, snowshoeing, and skiing.
“Including all our current systems,” Sundberg says, “the plan would give us more than 100 miles of trail.”
The City of Duluth likes the idea. It fits perfectly with the City of Duluth’s Trail and Bikeway Master Plan, which includes the goal of establishing a comprehensive system of easily accessed trails and bikeways.
“This idea of a multi-use trail across the city is fantastic,” says City of Duluth Trails Coordinator Judy Gibbs. “The city and its staff are completely behind it. I don’t think there is another city anywhere in the U.S. that can boast this sort of multi-use system, and we’ve got a different diversity of terrain than anywhere else. No other city rivals us.”
With a laugh, Gibbs says, “During one of our first trail-planning meetings, the mayor said he wanted Duluth to be the trails capital of Minnesota. Then he said the Midwest. Then the U.S. We’ve been kidding around in our Trails Advisory Group meetings that our goal is to be trails capital of the universe.”
City of Duluth Public Information Coordinator Amy Norris co-chairs the Trails Advisory Group with Gibbs. “Duluth is like a string of neighborhood pearls, from Riverside and Morgan Park to Lakeside and Lester Park,” she says. “The Duluth Traverse would give each neighborhood along that string a new form of access to all the others. It would literally open new pathways for exercise and community.”
Initial investment looks expensive—the Cuyuna Ride Center’s 20-to-25 miles of trails near Crosby cost $700,000, and the Duluth Traverse would probably cost at least $750,000—which is one reason that Johnson says the Cuyuna project’s process will be valuable.
“That system established a new paradigm,” he says. “It set a lot of precedents in sustainability and responsibility, and it started a good relationship between the Minnesota DNR and cyclists. Parts of the trail could have been blocked because it runs through sensitive terrain, but it was built responsibly.”
The trust created by that process, and the good example it sets, is going to influence future trail plans and efforts, he explains. Credibility should help clubs like COGGS generate governmental, organizational, corporate, and individual grants and other financial support.
According to a report prepared by IMBA and bicycle-parts manufacturing company Shimano, trails in the well-established mountain-biking destination of Moab, Utah, “produce a consumer surplus value of between $197 and $205 per trip, and the annual value of the trails is between $8.4 and $8.7 million.”
There’s no guarantee that the Duluth Traverse could produce similar value (although Johnson does say that for every $1 spent on a mountain-bike trail, $4 in direct health benefits comes back into a community).
But Sundberg, Johnson, Gibbs, and Norris all say they are confident that because of Duluth’s existing trail systems (including a city-long section of the Superior Hiking Trail), the potential of its unique terrain and urban greenspace, and cooperation among COGGS, IMBA, the DNR, the City of Duluth, and other groups, agencies, and individuals, this area could very well become a mountain-biking and trails destination.
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