A new trail system named “The Driving Range” opened this year near Bolton, Vermont, and “as far as we know, it’s the only fully adaptive trail network,” said Berne Broudy, President of Richmond Mountain Trails (RMT). “There are other adaptive trails, and in fact, in Vermont, something like 10% of trails are now adaptive, with more on the way. And there’s trails in Bentonville that are adaptive. There’s trails in a lot of ski areas that are adaptive, but there’s nowhere else that we know of where all of the trails are adaptive. So that makes this place extra cool.”
Substantiating claims like “the first” and “only” is inherently difficult, especially since we’ve heard of other trail networks also opened in 2024 that are purportedly designed around adaptive mountain bikes — the Trek at Tehaleh trails in Washington and Bean Peaks in Arizona both come to mind. But regardless of whether or not the Driving Range is “the first,” it’s undoubtedly a unique project, especially considering the extremely technical features incorporated into the trail system.
First, what is an “adaptive mountain bike” (aMTB)?
An aMTB is a special type of mountain bike designed for riders “who typically cannot ride a standard mountain bike and require adapted equipment […] to suit their physical, intellectual, neurological and sensory abilities,” according to BreakTheBoundary.com.au.
aMTBs come in all shapes and sizes to accommodate a variety of physical requirements, but generally speaking, they come in either three- or four-wheel configurations, with riders either lying prone (face-first) or in a recumbent (feet-first) position. In addition to increased width due to their three- or four-wheeled design, they also have a longer wheelbase.
The Driving Range: a primer
“This whole network came about because I went for a ride with this guy, Greg Durso, who’s an unbelievable rider,” said Broudy. “Every time we got to a bridge, everybody had to stop. We all had to get off our bikes. We’d all just stand on either side of the bridge and, like, help Greg across a bridge, because, literally, his wheels were hanging off each side by half an inch. And if that bridge had been six inches wider, he could have just cruised through.
“At that point, I was just like, ‘this is entirely stupid.’ Like, this is such an easy problem to fix. We can fix this so this person can go ride and just be able to shred and have a great time instead of having to go with six people so that we can all carry him across the bridge.”
Richmond Mountain Trails proceeded to build this trail system with the goal of making it safe for adaptive riders to ride entirely on their own without any assistance from able-bodied riders. RMT built four miles of trails (although it takes eight miles of riding to hit everything) on a 256-acre parcel of private land that used to be a golf driving range.
Work on the trail system began in 2022 and was completed in 2024. Over 200 volunteers donated over 5,000 hours of labor, plus $270,000 was invested in professional trail builders and an expansive paved parking lot with 53 parking spots, including handicap-accessible spots. While we normally gloss over discussion of infrastructure development, the parking lot infrastructure is actually critically important to this project.
“My trail experience, there’s a lot different from your trail experience, right?” said Durso, who is the Program Director for the Kelly Brush Foundation. “So I pull up to the trailhead. Is there actual accessible parking? Can I get out of my car, and can I get my bike out of the car? Is there an actual bathroom here that I can actually go use? Can I actually get onto the trail? Is there a gate? Is there a fence? Is there something that’s actually, like, prohibiting me to get on it, right? So that all happens before I’ve even actually gone on the trail.”
What does it take for a trail to be accessible to adaptive mountain bikes?
It’s not all that difficult to build a trail that’s fun for everyone, but that can also accommodate aMTBs: it just takes care and attention to detail. The biggest barriers to adaptive bikes are narrow trail widths, large obstacles, and bridges that aren’t wide enough, according to Durso. Trail camber can also cause issues — for instance, off-camber corners or berms on climbing turns can tip adaptive bikes over. And on downhills, aMTBs need larger berms with longer tails to accommodate the wider turning radius.
To ensure that the trails at the Driving Range could accommodate larger aMTBs, Durso rode almost all the sections of trail as they were being constructed. “When we were building these trails, volunteers would build a section. Greg would ride it. We’d follow Greg with a can of spray paint and spray paint any areas that were a problem. Volunteers would go back and fix it right away, and then Greg would go ride it again and be like, ‘Okay, that’s good.’ And we’d move on to the next corner, whatever. So it was real time, and really cool,” said Broudy.
Several professional builders worked on the Driving Range, including Phil and Hailey Kmetz, who donated the entirety of the Skidmarks trail build. Others, like Tom Lepesqueur of L&D Trailworks, were “fired up” to get in adaptive bikes, see how they rode, and build trails accordingly.
Unfortunately, other unnamed trail builders didn’t work out quite so well.
“We had to do a lot of rebuilding on some of those trails, which is harsh once you’ve just written somebody a big check, and then you just gotta go rebuild the whole thing, right?” said Broudy.
Ultimately, the dedication to their original vision has paid off with a trail system where all the features and lines are rideable on adaptive bikes.
“Adaptive” doesn’t mean “easy.”
What do you think of when you hear the word “adaptive”?
“I think everyone just, like, thinks, ADA, right?” said Durso. “But the word ‘adaptive,’ when it comes to mountain biking does not mean that at all.”
Durso and Broudy both emphasized that “adaptive” doesn’t mean “easy.” Durso would know. He’s ridden gnarly mountain bike trails all across the continent, including iconic BC lines. He was also pivotal in getting permission for adaptive athletes to race on the same course as the able-bodied professional downhillers in the 2024 US Open DH held at Killington — for the first time ever.
While the Driving Range does have several flow trails, it’s also home to three double black diamond trails that truly earn the rating, plus a double black diamond alt line off of a single black trail.
Double Bogey
Double Bogey, built by L&D Trailworks, is one of the marquee double black trails. It is “one of the most aesthetic trails you could ride,” said Broudy. “It has massive slabby rock walls. There’s really cool rock ramp features, technical rock ramps that roll into the next.”
“There’s one crux move. It’s a slightly off-camber rock ramp, where on the right-hand side, like, if you were to blow that berm, you would fall a very long way,” she continued. “It’s more mental coming into it, and then you swoop around a corner and go right into another steep little rock.”
Skidmarks
Skidmarks is, if anything, even harder than Double Bogey. “It starts out with a feature called the diving board, [which is] a big rock feature, and it’s crazy technical,” according to Broudy. “There’s a step in the middle, so you can’t roll it — you have to air it. And that feature has been in several movies already.”
The trail “goes through a very rocky, steep part of the forest. It has, like, kind of a dark feel, and there’s constant side hits. Those are the hardest features in the whole network,” she continued. “There’s this crazy, rocky corner […] it’s an S-curve corner, but it’s just insanely steep.”
The Driving Range lets adaptive athletes feel “normal.”
“We wanted to create this environment and this vibe where it felt normal to be there and have fun and socialize, but also create a harder trail network,” said Durso.
And it’s worked.
Even though the Driving Range just opened in 2024, Broudy shared that, anecdotally, she’s already heard of multiple adaptive athletes who have moved across the nation to Bolton so they can live close to these groundbreaking trails.
“Out of all the communities I’ve been around, the mountain biking community has felt the most normal, like, where I felt like I can go and be ‘Greg Durso,’ and not have to worry about this other side of this life that I have to live too. It’s nice to be able to just go out there and ride with your friends and all ride the same trails and tracks, and be going at the same speeds, and have the ability to do that. It just doesn’t come very often.”
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Dec 11, 2024