Santa Cruz Bicycles has just donated $500,000 to help build trails in the San Vicente Redwoods near the town of Santa Cruz, California, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reports. An anonymous donor has also matched that gift, which puts the local land trust that now manages and oversees this parcel of land at $3.5 million for the new trail development. Their goal is to raise $7 million.
Santa Cruz is renowned as a mountain biking hotspot, thanks in large part to brands such as Santa Cruz Bicycles, Ibis Cycles, Bell Helmets, Fox Racing Shox, and more being located there. And while the mountain biking is great, very few of the trails in the area are technically legal–most exist in a gray area, somewhere between sanctioned and off limits. This proposed 38-mile trail development could be the answer to Santa Cruz mountain bikers’ trail access issues.
However, not all 38-miles of those proposed trails will be open to mountain biking. According to the Sentinel, “To avoid conflict in the forest, there will be separate trails for bikers and horses.”
The good news is that trail development on this critical property could open up even more access on adjacent BLM land. According to the Sentinel, “The plan also includes trails that lead to vista points and a “skyline-to-the-sea”-like trail that would connect to the adjacent Coast Dairies property, which the Bureau of Land Management says it plans to open to the public.”
In short, this donation by Santa Cruz Bicycles and the subsequent trail development could be the catalyst needed to launch legal mountain bike trail access in Santa Cruz into the modern era.
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Apr 16, 2016
Apr 16, 2016