JANESVILLE
A local biking club is teaming up with the city of 糖心Vlog传媒 to give kids a place to ride bikes where they won鈥檛 have to tangle with packs of running dogs.
This spring, the and a group of affiliated with the club plan to bring mounds of clay, topsoil and gravel to a swath of woods near Spring Brook south of Palmer Drive.
A sign stands where the entrance to a new mountain bike trail and skills area will be developed on the south end of Palmer Park. The location is not far from the city鈥檚 leash-free dog exercise and training area.
The project will leverage donated material and labor to create the start of a 1.5-acre, downhill training course for young riders to learn mountain biking. It would be the start of a bigger mountain-biking trail system on the south end of Palmer Park that replaces a decades-old, ad-hoc bike trail that local youths had rekindled last year during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The trouble: The sudden renaissance of use of the old bike path, known locally as the 鈥淐razy Eights,鈥 had put a growing influx of kids on bikes on the same turf as the city鈥檚 leash-free dog exercise and training area on the northeast side of Palmer Park.
The influx created tension between dog enthusiasts and bicyclists that boiled over onto the floor of City Hall last year.
Last year, the city moved to bar bicyclists from using the old trail near the dog run in the park. At the same time, the Velo Club offered to work with the city on a public-private plan to give kids an alternate place to hit ramps, jumps and hills in the woods just south of the dog park.
Cullen Slapak, the city鈥檚 parks director, said the city is allowing the Velo Club and a local excavating company to start work soon on a series of clay-topped moguls in the woods just southwest of Palmer Drive. The clay mounds will be designed to flesh out a 鈥減umptrack鈥濃攁 downhill, slalom course for beginning mountain bikers to learn how to tackle off-road hill courses.
It鈥檒l be the first part of what Slapak and the Velo Club envision as a training area and trails network for off-road biking in the 30 acres of woodland along Spring Brook, south of the main area of Palmer Park.
A full build-out of a few miles of hilly and flat-terrain off-road biking will likely require grant funding, but Slapak said the city worked with the Velo Club and a bike trail designer to come up with concepts for initial projects including the pumptrack and a separate training area with wooden ramps, hills and gravel chutes.
鈥淭he first areas we鈥檒l probably be able to do with some in-kind donations and some sweat equity from some of the (Velo Club鈥檚) mountain biking members. That鈥檒l be just to get things started and get things established and at least give the kids somewhere to ride and learn on,鈥 Slapak said.
The city has an expansive network of biking trails, along with some off-road trails for mountain bikers at Rockport Park, but the new course the Velo Club is starting at Palmer Park would be the city鈥檚 first area aimed at introducing young, novice riders to off-road riding and mountain biking.
Slapak said workdays are planned in the coming weeks for the pilot project. The project would create an initial area for youths to practice mountain biking maneuvers that is separate from other park users鈥攊ncluding those in Palmer Park鈥檚 dog-run area.
Slapak said the clash between bicyclists and dog park users last year, if nothing else, alerted the city to a resurgence in local youths who are interested in biking.
Slapak said the adjacent woods at Palmer where the city could eventually carve more mountain biking trails would pair with a proposed walking path that would create a link to Palmer Park and the Ice Age Trail for residents of a set of apartment complexes south of the park.
Families in those apartments could have multiple ways to use the trail system, including a convenient link into Palmer Park.
Once the Velo Club grooms the first set of youth bike training areas this year, Slapak said the city likely will review plans to further develop a more expansive trail system. He said that work could rely on grants to offset development costs.
鈥淥nce we get it established and up and running, I think it鈥檚 going to be pretty cool. The mountain biking really is the up-and-coming thing or the new thing that a lot of parks and different communities are doing,鈥 Slapak said. 鈥淚 think it鈥檒l tie together nicely with our other parks amenities.鈥