The first-ever mountain bike trail in the city of St. Louis had its ribbon cutting in Carondelet Park yesterday, and organizers are hoping that with the trail in place, the city’s mountain biking scene will kick into higher gear.
Ryan Hanlon, who sits on the board of the Friends of Carondelet Park and spearheaded the trail’s construction, says that the catalyst for the project was the South City Otters, a youth mountain bike team that competes in the Missouri Interscholastic Cycling League. The team had nowhere to practice—until now.
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The one-mile Federer’s Folly features a couple of cool, steep switchbacks, and a good portion of it hugs the rim of a pair of basins in the woods. A dozen or so strategically placed bumps in the path keep the ride the right amount of rocky. A rider’s trail guide describes it as a “fast and flowy” loop. Its trailhead is conveniently located right next to a park entrance off Holly Hills Boulevard. Its namesake, William Federer, is the developer who founded the Holly Hills neighborhood a century ago.
Hanlon has built trails in the Ozarks since 2009 with the Ozark Trail Association, where he saw firsthand how efficiently trails could be built by all-volunteer crews, who cut brush during the day and then hung out over a meal or a cold drink afterward. “I realized this is a very transferable model to a mile of trail in the city versus hundreds of miles that we have to build and maintain,” he says. The new Federer’s Folly was completed by volunteers using donated money, machinery, and design know-how from local businesses. No city money was used, though city Forestry staff has been crucial in keeping the trail, once blazed, clear of invasive plants.
Hanlon and others at yesterday’s event say the trail, in addition to being fun for riders, is all about planting seeds, both in terms of turning the young kids into life-long riders but also about boosting St. Louis’ outdoorsy bona fides. Annie Schwartz, with the league, adds that the trail is more than just about bikes; it’s about kids’ development, getting them off cellphones and outside.
On that first point, Hanlon points out that there are great places to mountain bike all around Missouri, but until now, kids in South City were missing a place to get that initial exposure to mountain biking. (The trail makes for a fine hike, too.)
“My whole thing was, we need recreation in the city,” he says. “Because all these kids, if they’re not riding bikes, they’re not getting to the next level.” After they ride here, he hopes they’ll want to go to Council Bluffs or the Little Fork section of the Ozark Trail. But it all starts with that first step closer to home.
Matt Green, executive director of River City Outdoors and no stranger to mountain biking, says that experienced riders will find much to appreciate at Federer’s Folly, too. More seasoned riders can make the trail as fun as they want, he says, and ride as fast they want, even as, crucially, “You don’t have to drive 30, 40 minutes” to get there. The project won an “Outdoors For All” micro grant from River City Outdoors to build signage at the trailhead.
River City Outdoors also operates Big Muddy Adventures, and Green says that he likes the idea of mountain biking in Carondelet for the same reason he likes paddling the Mississippi River—it’s better when outdoors recreation is basically in your backyard.
Which all speaks to the other way the trail builders assembled yesterday hope that Federer’s Folly plants a seed. “We want people to recognize you can do cool outdoorsy things in St. Louis,” Green says. “You don’t have to go out west to do it.”
Ward 1 Alderwoman Anne Schweitzer, who was key in the trail’s development, says that she’d like to see St. Louis’ outdoor offerings one day mentioned in the same breath as its restaurants, cultural institutions, and neighborhoods when people talk about what makes the city thrive. She notes that St. Louis is “located along the banks of one of the world’s great rivers, in the center of some of the best climbing and mountain biking in the Midwest, with hundreds of acres of public parks within our city’s boundaries. These are some of our major resources, and it’s up to us to activate each and every one of them.” Yesterday’s ribbon cutting, she adds, is just one example of what can be done.
Hanlon notes that there are a lot of people in town “who want to do cool stuff in Colorado and California and Alaska, but also want to do cool stuff here.” He adds: “And there is a lot to do here.”
Though the ribbon on Federer’s Folly was just cut yesterday, it’s never too early to start wondering where the city might get its second mountain bike trail. After the ceremony, organizers could be heard talking about the North Riverfront Park, 250 mostly under-utilized acres in North City, along the banks of the Mississippi. There are plenty of mountain biking spots in West County. Now South City has one. Why shouldn’t North City be next?
Schweitzer says that yesterday’s ribbon cutting was about two years in the making. The new trail began as a “What if we did this?” idea, she notes. “From there it was just about building out partnerships and getting people in the same room.”
