With a bit of luck, the Greenbrier Valley could see new biking trails and a pump track in White Sulphur Springs.
Local biking coach Sarah Elkins has applied for two grants and has approval on $25,000 in grant match to create new recreational possibilities.
“We really pushed the idea of a bike park, really because our bike team has exploded. Kids just want to ride bikes,” said Elkins. “In fact, even in the middle of COVID, when our race schedule was canceled last season, … we tripled in size. It was something safe for kids to do outside. They didn’t care that there were no races to go to, they just came and rode their bikes three times a week with us. It was amazing. And now we have almost tripled again.”
With luck, it won’t only be the local group expanding. Referring to a market study facilitated by the Greenbrier County Convention and Visitors Bureau in 2019, Elkins noted how the area and White Sulphur Springs are well-positioned to expand biking and outdoor tourism.
“One of the places we were missing … where we could grow our tourism, was with outdoor adventures. … Even before COVID, we knew this was an opportunity, and then, [the 2020 state tourism report] showed how much revenue we stood to gain from tourists looking for small towns, and looking for outdoor experiences because of COVID. People don’t want to go to big cities and be packed into the subway because they’re afraid. They want to go to a small town where they can walk on the streets and not feel like they’re going to catch COVID. … We have all of that. If we build the infrastructure around outdoor recreation, they will come. … When it comes to really cool trails, we only have about four miles. If we had 25 or 30 miles of trail, that would be huge. … If we build the infrastructure around outdoor recreation, they will come.”
Elkins excitedly noted that more trails would bring National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) races to the area. The local biking team is part of the organization and events can bring 1,000 visitors to an area, if not more. In addition, Snowshoe will be the site of the sixth and final stop of the Mountain Biking World Cup this coming September.
However, an emerging issue with building this type of tourism is the state of southern West Virginia and Greenbrier County’s trails. Elkins explained that competitors in the Mountain Bike World Cup that have previously come to Snowshoe for the race, would say they “can’t believe the terrain West Virginia has, it’s a very unique terrain, it’s perfect for mountain biking. It’s some of the toughest. It’s very wet and rocky, it’s aggressive, the incline and decline is a lot, it’s really steep. The roots and the rocks and the mud, people call it very peanut-buttery.”
The problem with this is teaching local kids how to get involved with the sport.
“West Virginia has these wicked trails that are great for world cup athletes to come ride. … West Virginia doesn’t have easy trails because these trails weren’t built for mountain biking, they’re old logging trails. … The learning curve is really steep, we don’t have an easy trail to put a kid on to get comfortable on a bike. … Some of these kids have barely ridden on a bike, putting them on a trail with some really aggressive features [isn’t the way to start].”
In order to solve this problem, Elkins has applied for two grants.
The first deal would put a pump track in White Sulphur Springs, close to the recently opened Community Pool. City Council approved a field in Dick Gunnoe Memorial Park for the project, leaving it up to the bike team to get funding.
The grant comes from the West Virginia Community Development Hub, which offers funds through the Communities of Achievement Program (HubCAP). Specifically, they “are focusing our efforts on supporting communities that are building recreational tourism-focused economies.”
“The West Virginia Hub collected all the Mon Forest Towns that are next to the Mon Forest, as a focus for 2021 — White Sulphur Springs is a Mon Forest Town,” Elkins explained. “The Hub brings a facilitator into the town to build a committee of people who want to see good things for the forest. … The whole focus is to really rebrand White Sulphur as a recreation destination. When you look at the towns around us, we’re the ones that feed into the state forest, we have the river, we have the creeks running through town, we have all this recreation opportunity.”
Currently, designs from Progressive Bike Ramps are being used as the model for the project.
The second grant is not the only attempt to expand trail accessibility — the Brad And Alys Smith Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative (OEDC) has agreed to supply a $25,000 grant match in order to expand biking trails if Elkins is able to receive a $25,000 grant from the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA).
The grant match would look to bring the biking community and forestry industry to the area.
“I wrote the $25K to IMBA as the Greenbrier Valley Hellbenders,” Elkins said. “We are the 501c3 organization that applied for trail support. … What we have in Greenbrier County is a lot of public land and very few trails. They’re calling it a trail desert. We have a lot of forestry extraction, and historically those two efforts have been at odds with each other. The forestry groups don’t want more trails because it brings more people to the forest and they want to be extracting. Both, I would argue, are important initiatives. What the crew at [the OEDC] wants to do is sew the recreation and extraction [groups together], so they can coexist, cohabitate in the same place. We can do some responsible trail building and [support] where the foresters want to extract. That’s the goal.”
The OEDC funds come after conversations with those involved with WV Ascend, a program that looks to pay remote workers to move to West Virginia and Lewisburg. After a recent meeting between Lewisburg leadership, WVU President Gordon Gee, and more involved in the program, WV Ascend’s sister program, the OEDC, agreed to support the trail project.
“This grant will help us come up with a vision plan for trails throughout Greenbrier County and the Greenbrier State Forest, in collaboration with those other users of the forest, so we’re not trying to come in and [say] ‘everyone must mountain bike now!’ … I could’ve written this grant before but we wouldn’t have had the $25,000 match. There’s no point in asking for $25,000 if there’s no way to generate the rest of the funds, but because of WV Ascend, we have a way.”
If either, or both, of these grants are approved, it could see the expansion of the Greenbrier Valley Hellbenders Youth Mountain Bike Team, named for the Hellbender salamander. The nonprofit was also nominated for the Best of West Virginia in nonprofits for the WV Living magazine contest.
After tripling twice over the past year, Elkins hopes the new trails will bring aid to White Sulphur Springs, new riders, and new visitors.
“We’re huge now! We have 12 certified coaches because it’s hard to take a whole pack of kids into the forest on a single track, mountain biking. The field levels are very different and you can’t lose a kid in the forest, so we have very strict rules on how we take groups into the forest. We have close to 30 registered riders, I think when school starts we’re going to be in the 40s range. It’s a lot of kids, it’s a lot of bikes. That’s our personal motivation, all we really want is to get more kids on bikes and it fits with the rebranding vision of White Sulphur Springs.”
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