I’m not sure if there is anyone in Knoxville who has avoided the media blitz created by the Appalachian Mountain Bike Club. I’ve honestly never seen anything like it. I met with Matthew Kellogg, president of the club, and told him as much. I’d had my car papered over with leaflets several times. I’d seen in mentioned dozens of times on Facebook. And Twitter. It was on the nightly news.
And I said those words to him before I saw the #SoKnoLimo and the bicycle suspended over Gay Street. I’m not sure who I’ll reach with this article who hasn’t already been hit up. Maybe some of you still haven’t gotten around to voting and this will be your reminder. Maybe some of you have been off-grid for the last week or so.
You are familiar with the Urban Wilderness – forty-two miles of trails easily accessible from downtown for hikers, bikers and runners. You may not realize how unique that is for any city. You may not realize that the AMBC maintains the trails, but they do. They also maintain trails at IC King Park, Sharps Ridge and Concord Park. They’ve spent $15K on Sharps Ridge in just the last six months. Typically they sub-contract with professional trail builders and supplement the hired work with lots of volunteer sweat equity.
They work closely with the Legacy Parks Foundation and its Executive Director, Carol Evans. The foundation typically secures the land and the club steps in to build and maintain trails. The Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency also serves as a partner. The land for the current project was donated by the Wood family of south Knoxville.
When Bell Helmets opened a competition for $100,000 for a trail-building project, the coalition of Knoxville/Knox County government, Legacy Parks Foundation and the AMBC was ready with a proposal to build the Urban Wilderness Gravity Trail. It will be rated at the highest level of difficulty given to bike trails: Double Black Diamond.
A preliminary round narrowed all the proposed projects across the country to just three. One on the west coast, one in the upper mid-west and only one in the south and on the east coast: The Urban Wilderness Gravity Trail. The three are now pitted against each other with online voting determining who will be awarded the money. Currently the Knoxville project is doing very well, with nearly 17,000 votes, and it is in first place. But we need everyone to vote.
Why is this important? Matthew told me a story of a family who came to Knoxville from British Columbia for Destination Imagination with their bikes aboard. They brought them because they had heard of our urban wilderness trails and contacted the AMBC when they arrived in Knoxville. There will be much more of that – especially if we are able to add unique features like the one in this project.
Is $100,000 really that important? Consider that it represents 40% of last year’s entire budget for biking in Knoxville – and 10% of the current, much elevated budget. Consider that if less than a couple of hundred people came to the city as a result of this trail – an easy assumption, the economic impact of that 100K would be doubled. Consider what would happen if Bell Helmets decided to host one of their televised downhill competitions in Knoxville – and why wouldn’t they if they fund the building of the trail? Knoxville would have an influx of great publicity and then more bikers than we’ve ever seen. This is big.
Matthew said it best, “This is a really exciting opportunity for us to put Knoxville in the big leagues with other biking destinations. If we can build this trail, we add a progression to our trails that we don’t currently have – with awesome opportunities for beginners to expert riders.” He also made, I thought, a statement that says a lot about how many of us feel about the city, “This project is unique because it’s not about biking. It’s about making Knoxville a unique place.” And that it does.
Carol Evans reported the following statistics:
- Recreational bicycling is a $200 billion industry in the US
- One in 20 Americans makes a living off outdoor recreation – that’s 70K in Tennessee
- For every dollar spent on bicycling tourism, $7 more is spent in locations they visit
- Property values close to trails and greenways are up to 30% higher
For more information about the project, check the AMBC website at www.downtowndownhill.com. But please vote today at www.bellhelmets.com/bell-built. Voting ends Thursday night at midnight and every vote matters. As an aside, I tried to vote three times using my Comcast email account and it didn’t send me the confirmation email. It worked immediately with my Gmail account. Be sure you respond to the confirmation video or your vote didn’t register. There are some tips on the downtowndownhill site regarding problems you might encounter. It’s important to vote, so do whatever you have to. This is important.
I’ll leave you with a few videos produced for the effort. The first is Matthew explaining the project. The other two are more humorous takes on the topic, but all have the same message: VOTE