The Syllamo Trail System the largest mountain bike-specific park in the country. |
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A handful of ongoing bicycling projects in Arkansas has the state’s tourism officials seeing dollar signs.
Bicycling, both off-road and on, could some day provide the same kind of economic impact as the Little Rock Marathon, the U.S. Youth Soccer South Regional Championships and the American Taekwondo Association’s annual event currently contribute, they say. And with a $12.5 million pedestrian bridge spanning the Arkansas River set to open at the end of the month with the 17-mile River Trail system at its wings, Arkansas as a cycling destination is set to enter the sport’s mainstream.
“We haven’t done much with cycling until recently, and we’re particularly interested in this because there aren’t many poor people biking these days,” said Joe David Rice, himself an avid cyclist and director of the Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism. “They ride expensive bikes and when they come here to do it they’re going to stay in better hotels, eat fine meals and generally spend a lot of money. Anytime you can attract people to the state for an event who normally wouldn’t come here, it’s good.”
This month’s grand opening of the $12.5 million “Big Dam Bridge,” a span of nearly 3,500 feet across the Arkansas River more than 65 feet above the navigation channel at the Murray Park Lock & Dam at Cook’s Landing, is billed as an attraction that will promote not only tourism but also a healthy lifestyle among the state’s residents. Among the fanfare surrounding the bridge’s opening will be an inaugural 100-mile bike race, which will be the annual feature that hopes to eventually spur the big tourism dollars.
Off-road cycling also now has an international destination in northwest Arkansas, as the federal park service has recently completed 51 miles of single-track mountain biking trails, making the Syllamo Trail System the largest mountain bike-specific park in the country. Though its newness has kept it from completely hitting the mainstream and being flooded with visitors, the trail system has been featured prominently in a handful of national magazines and has received a rare “epic” rating from the International Mountain Biking Association.
“After it started getting mentioned in some of the national magazines and on the Internet, we got a lot of calls and see a lot more traffic,” said Tracy Farley, a park service public affairs specialist in the trail’s home of the Ozark-St. Francis and Ouachita National Forests. “And we still have plenty left that we want to build and expand. I suspect it will become a destination for many visitors who normally might not think about coming to Arkansas for a getaway.”
Big Dam Deal
The largest one-day “century ride” — cyclist lingo for a 100-miler — is the Hotter ‘N Hell Hundred held every brutal summer in Wichita Falls, Texas.
What began as someone’s clever (and somewhat masochistic) idea to help the city celebrate its centennial in 1982 with 1,200 riders has since grown, bringing nearly 12,000 sweaty cyclists to the city every year.
“I think with the monumental aesthetics of Big Dam Bridge and the uniqueness of the trail system along the river and everything else growing in central Arkansas, we have a shot to maybe grow something like that,” Rice said. “We’re still a few weeks out from our event and we’ve already surpassed the goals we set.” The Big Dam Bridge 100 was aiming to register about 500 cyclists for its inaugural event, Rice said, but has surpassed that with nearly three weeks to go.
The Big Dam Bridge 100, set for Oct. 1, starts in Burns Park in North Little Rock and crosses the new bridge and continues into downtown Little Rock. The route then goes over the Broadway Bridge to North Little Rock, back along the river all the way out to Maumelle and Conway, and then back through Mayflower, eventually ending back in Burns Park.
Marathon Mirror?
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