San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
REDDING GROWS INTO MOUNTAIN BIKE MECCA.
Brian Sindt has had a direct hand in just about every inch of the nearly 100 miles of mountain biking trails surrounding Redding. He has spent the past 13 years mapping, navigating federal land management agencies and physically building trails in the open space around the town, which is quickly becoming a hub of the growing sport.
But Sindt doesn’t like to talk about it. “I’m not much of a promoter. I just like to go build stuff,” he says. That stuff is some of the most varied mountain bike terrain accessible to the afterwork crowd in the West Coast.
Redding’s connection to mountain biking dates back as early as 1981, with the Whiskeytown Downhill — a 36-mile competition believed to be the country’s first organized mountain biking race.
While there are better technical steep downhill trails north in Mount Shasta and further north in Ashland, Ore., both of those scenes lean toward intermediate and advanced downhillers. Redding, however, has something for everyone.
“We are truly a worldclass mountain biking destination,” says Redding City Council member Brent Weaver, the former mayor of Redding and an avid mountain biker. “We have a huge segment of beginner rides, a ton of intermediate rides spread around our 61 square miles, and a dozen two- to five-thousand-foot elevation climbs that will kill you — if that is what you want.”
The variety of quality trails is the result of a triad of a blank slate, plentiful financial resources and supportive city officials. When Sindt started working on trails, in 2005, he was looking at ones cobbled together piecemeal on old logging roads. “If you weren’t already at least a good intermediate rider, you almost couldn’t get started,” he says. “So the first 40 miles we built, any beginner could ride on.”
On top of an open canvas of trails to start from, Redding has a lot of real estate to work with. It is about 15 square miles larger than San Francisco with about a tenth of the population — not to mention that it is the largest city within 150 miles in any direction. Sindt has worked for the McConnell Foundation, which funds projects in the far north of California and has been on board to grow the trail system financially since Sindt started his work.
But the 100 miles of trails for years went largely unpromoted, and getting riders on the trails has been challenging. That’s something Weaver has wanted to change while in office. Last year, he created the Mayor’s Mountain Bike Challenge, a weeklong event in which riders check off trails they complete via a Disneylandstyle passport. There are five trails in each category —beginner, intermediate and
“We are truly a world-class mountain biking destination. We have … beginner rides, a ton of intermediate rides … and a dozen … climbs that will kill you — if that is what you want.” Brent Weaver, former mayor of Redding
advanced — and prizes for completing your category as well as the entire challenge.
The challenge, as well as a mountain bike specific marketing push from Visit Redding, appears to be working. Last year, participants in Weaver’s event logged 18,969 miles with 1,778,445 feet climbed. Both trail miles and number of participants are growing.
“A few years ago, I feel like I knew just about everybody in town who mountain-biked because I have been riding for so long,” says Redding Trail Alliance Executive Director Nathan Knudsen. “Now I am on the trail and I come across people and there are always people that I don’t recognize, which is great. The trails aren’t crowded here by any means. You can still go out and maybe run across one person.”
“Most of our motivation was to give people a place to recreate, live a better life and be healthier,” Sindt says. “Mountain biking kind of turned into something bigger than that because people were so excited about it. Then it became a part of Redding.”