Discover Bringle’s mountain bike trail, a continued volunteer project
The Bringle Lake Mountain Bike Trail System offers an intriguing recreational option to those in the biking community.
Started by a grassroots effort about 2013-2014, competing bikers collaborated with the Texarkana Texas Parks and Recreation Department to bring this unique attraction to the community.
“The city Parks and Rec Department let us build it, which is great. But financially, they weren’t involved with it. It was all done in volunteer dollars,” said Terry Berridge, owner of Berridge Bikes. “People have come and gone over the years, as far as the management keeping it up. But it is 100% an organic, volunteer trail system.”
The trail includes various loops labeled by color with varying levels of difficulty to ride.
It starts out at the green loop, which is two miles, easier to ride and is just a circle — the beginning loop. Then, comes the red loop, which adds about 5.2 miles to it. This is considered the intermediate loop, with a bit harder climbs.
Halfway through the red loop, bikers can tag onto the blue loop, which is more difficult, where you’ll get harder climbs. There are no bridges so far, as the volunteers are trying to cut a mile of trail a month to expand it. Upcoming projects will be the orange and black loops, which will increase the levels of riding difficulty.
Krista Anderson, a local contractor and mountain biker who Berridge described as a “trail master, blood, sweat and tears person who’s doing the work out there,” has been an integral part in maintaining the trail. She also credited T.J. Coltharp and Jeff Heath for contributing heavily to the path over the years.
“T.J. Coltharp and Jeff Heath were competing mountain bike racers, and they wanted something to ride locally. So, when the city was opening Bringle and they cut the big Wilderness Trail, they asked permission to be able to go into the woods next to it and cut a mountain bike trail,” she said. “It started with one trail, and it’s been working out from there.”
A competitive mountain biker who hopes to one day host a bike tour from Texarkana to Yellowstone National Park, it’s safe to say Anderson has a passion for mountain biking. She uses that passion to assist in keeping the trail up and running, which is no easy task.
“We all like it, and we’ve ridden the heck out of it. It’s all volunteer labor, so usually people come out and ride it,” she said. “And then if they complain about a bridge or tree being down, we’re like ‘you know what, we take volunteers for trail work.’ So, then they come out and start working the trail and they become hooked because it’s like it’s their trail.”
Trail work includes tasks like constantly fixing bridges when it rains, blowing leaves, weed-eating and brushwork, cutting trees when they fall, setting markers and just clearing out paths to extend trail lines.
“When the rains come down really hard and fast, it backs trash and limbs up against the bridge and moves the sections,” Anderson said. “It’s just one of those nagging maintenance issues that we keep having to address.”
Coltharp said they are ready to try to get the city to help them maintain it, as there is quite a bit of work that is being done by a small number of people.
They even have a GoFundMe set up to crowdsource some funding to fix bridges, as there was lumber stolen from the trail lumber yard recently.
Nonetheless, the dedication and hard work that is put on display by this small biking community has kept the mountain biking trail alive for those who love biking to enjoy.
“Everybody that’s ridden it seems real pleased with it,” Anderson said. “There’s lots of local people who either ride or hike it.”
(To learn more or to contribute to the mountain biking trail system at Bringle, call 903-794-2453)