Bike Trails at School?
Bike Trails at School?
Growing the future of bicycling at the grassroots
When New York State awarded the Colden Elementary School $12,000 through its ‘Creating Healthy Schools and Communities’ initiative, the school’s Wellness Committee proposed a walking path behind the school and through the surrounding woods.
As the hub of a family of five avid mountain bikers, Colden’s Erin Georger had a much larger vision for all the opportunity that the planned quarter-mile loop could provide. As the Co-Chairperson of the Wellness Committee and a registered nurse, she recognized the tremendous value to the entire community in having a well-designed, properly constructed walking path that could also be used by children and beginners to learn the lifelong sport of bicycle riding.
“I was really surprised when my sons came home from school and told me they knew plenty of other kids who didn’t know how to ride a bike yet,” she explained. “That’s when I started to realize that we could end up with so much more here than just a walking path.”
Georger began with the simple notion that every child deserves to be able to ride a bike. Then she considered that in Colden, the proposed wellness trail would give all students the chance to be part of a school-based, learn-to-bicycle program - without regard for who could afford it.
With the initial funding in place for the project via the grant, Georger checked in with the Western New York Mountain Biking Association (WNYMBA), an organization she and her husband David belong to, for help with designing and then creating the actual trail.
A non-profit organization of approximately 350 members, WNYMBA is not only responsible for the creation and maintenance of trails, the group also seeks to grow the sport through grassroots initiatives just like the Colden Elementary Bike Trails and also by creating educational opportunities for youth and beginner riders.
Although WNYMBA was limited in the amount of ground work and trail construction it could help with this summer, it is expected group members will help “build out” the existing path next Spring, as well as contribute to the construction of the second phase of the project. When Phase II of the project continues in the Spring, trail designers envision creating more-difficult trails a little further up in the woods around the school, where young cyclists can build confidence and grow their technical ability.
Probably the most significant help the Colden Elementary Bike Trails project got from WNYMBA this summer, however, was when the group’s Vice President, Chris Holmes, was able to put Georger in touch with two of the region’s biggest supporters of mountain biking - Springville’s Greg Culver and Ellicottville native Chris Perks. Culver and Perks have spent most of their lives supporting and creating outdoor playgrounds for skiers, snowboarders, and the entire mountain biking community - from Sprague Brook to the HoliMont Bike Park.
If you have ever ridden in the park at any of the local ski areas in the last 20-plus years, chances are you were navigating through Perks’ handiwork at some point.
An artist, graphic designer and marketing guru, Culver also provided the project with logo designs and created logo shirts for the first fundraising event through his business, Hot Wing Designs. “I started with a Google roadmap overview of the Elementary School and I just looked down and drew the line that I wanted the bike trail to follow,” Culver explained.
And just like that, with a few strokes of Culver’s pen, the Colden Elementary Bike Trails were born.
But now that there was a trail on ‘paper’, it was time to create the real path - outside in the ground - and that’s where Perks, the ‘Builder of Parks’ came in.
“In terms of wooden features for our trail, we reached out to HoliMont to see if they’d sponsor one feature,” Georger explained. “Then Chris Perks told us that as long as we supplied the building materials, he would build all the features we needed!”
“When they first got in touch, it seemed like we could do more than just build one feature,” Perks explained. “We talked about me building the trails, but decided it would be a better use of my time to build wooden features at home throughout the winter and have pre-built, drop-in-place features that would be ready to play on in the Spring.”
The manmade wooden features that’ll be included on the mountain bike trail include berms, rollers and “skinnies” (narrow, skill-building features).
For Culver, a former bike & board shop owner in the town of Colden, the local mountain biking Mecca of the trails at Sprague Brook Park is the place these kids will graduate to. “That’s really the third phase of the project,” Culver explained. “We want these kids who first learn how to ride a bike at the Colden Elementary School to improve their skills, grow their confidence and move up to Sprague Brook Park.”
Just like it’s been said that it takes a village to raise a child, Georger found out that it also takes a village to build a bike trail. Donations of materials, time and money have come into the project from sources all around the community, including Rucker Lumber, Lowe’s of Springville, Cappellino Chevrolet and Go Bike Buffalo, which provided the school with two new bike racks for the front of the building.
Colden Elementary School has signed up for the “All Kids Bike” program through the Strider Education Foundation and is accepting donations to help fund their complete kindergarten program at https://stridereducationfoundation-bloom.kindful.com/colden-elementary-school-2022/colden-elementary-school. The program consists of instructor training and curriculum, “balance bikes” that can be converted to pedal bikes, pedal conversion kits and helmets.
With the grant money, Colden Elementary purchased 450 tons of gravel, six youth bikes, an adult bike and 18 helmets. The faculty and families of Colden Elementary held their annual chicken barbecue and halloween-themed “Creepy Coin Toss” to benefit the PTA last month, with all proceeds going directly towards the Bike Trails project.
“It’s been a big passion of mine to see it progress from the point where it was going to be a walking/wellness trail to where it could be a truly unique addition to the community,” Georger said.
For those who’d like to keep track of their progress, the Colden Elementary Bike Trails project has set up an Instagram account at @coldenelementary_trails.
Temperatures are expected to stay unseasonably warm for now - it’s a great time to take the kids and check out the newest addition to the Colden Elementary campus!