TAP founder hopes for continued success
If you’re a local mountain biker or visiting from out of town to check out Bella Vista’s 100 miles of trails, chances are you’ve heard of Charles Williams.
What is the best route for a beginner? What is the best route in the wet weather? Should I ride the Back 40 Loop clockwise or counterclockwise?
Williams has the answers. But it’s not only his love of mountain biking making him so familiar with the Bella Vista trails. It’s his passion for giving back for the time he gets to spend on them.
Williams is originally from the tourism town of Heber Springs, right on Greer’s Fairy Lake. He’s lived in the state most of his life, minus a stint in the St. Louis area from 1996-2000, when his medical sales day job took him there.
Williams and his brother Mark grew up riding bikes and motorcycles, but Williams gave it up to play competitive golf during his college years.
“I grew up being so competitive and played at the top amateur level. It’s hard for me not to want to excel at everything,” he said.
In the mid-90s, a couple years out of college, he hopped on a mountain bike again because he realized “this going to the gym thing stinks.” Riding bikes was a good way to maintain his fitness for playing golf. He and Mark rode renegade trails — mostly logging roads — in the Fort Smith area and occasionally at Devil’s Den. But there really weren’t many designated biking trails then.
Then his move to St. Louis stumped his biking again: “I didn’t ride a mountain bike again until 2014,” he said, adding it was all the bike racks in the Northwest Arkansas area that got him interested in riding again.
“I lived (in Northwest Arkansas) for four years with no idea there were trails,” he said. “It was July 4. Nine bowls of homemade ice cream drove me to mountain biking.”
He found the adrenaline he had been missing and got whipped back into shape. And Bella Vista trail lovers can thank him for that.
Williams became involved in NWA’s growing and changing mountain biking community, and went regularly to Saturday group workdays where he began to meet more like-minded people who agreed it was important to give back to the trails they spent time riding.
In 2016, the city of Bella Vista celebrated a monumental occasion when ground was broken for the Back 40 Trails — a new system of 40 miles of public, purpose-built singletrack meandering through the city’s wooded terrain. There were so many miles of trails, in fact, that the first miles to be built started to become overgrown before the others were finished and the system was safely opened.
“Trail builders asked for riders to ride the Back 40 trails in sections as they were completed, to ‘burn them in’ and compact the tread of the trail. The city-sponsored program was 10 hours of trail labor in exchange for riding the trails before they were completed, provided they were stamped as safe by the builders,” he said.
“That gave me an idea. I saw that given tools to borrow, people would go work on the trails on their own, when it was convenient for them. Admittedly, only a fraction of the people who participated in the program ever worked their 10 hours, but it was enough to make me think it was a viable alternative to a weekly Saturday morning workday, if we could identify the dedicated people who saw the value in having nicer trails, collectively,” he said.
People understood right off the bat that these public trails were being given to them and they were so lucky they were going to have access, he said. If those people lived near a trail, they rode that section more.
“I thought they would take ownership, like it was
an extension of their backyard,” he said.
And he was right. The TAP (Trail Adoption Program) was born. In 2017 it became an official FAST (Friends of Arkansas Singletrack) funded program with an appointed board of directors.
At first, volunteers trickled in, and it began to grow slowly over time. Today, more than 170 volunteers adopt a section of trail in Bella Vista alone, and some on other trail systems as well.
There are two things that really set the trails in Bella Vista apart from others in the area and even the nation. First, they are easy to access. People from all over are moving to Bella Vista because they can buy a home with trail access out their back gate. And second, they are pristine when it comes to maintenance.
The former absolutely feeds the latter, according to Williams. Direct access provides motive and availability to care for trails in sections. And with 100-plus miles, that is what it takes to tackle such a huge task. With these volunteers in place, it creates an “almost unfair comparison to other systems” and a big influence in people’s decision to visit Bella Vista.
“Who wants to spend time on overgrown trails? That means getting ticks, chiggers, whipped by weeds and limbs, and makes for an unpleasant experience. Being a trail adopter can be as simple as picking up trash on a daily hike to as complex as repairing minor washouts and building trail for those who possess the knowledge and experience,” he said.
Williams maintains his own section – part of The Ledges trail. He’s learned a thing or two about what works and what doesn’t, how fast the sun makes the weeds grow and how little raking is actually necessary.
TAP members are specifically not allowed to use chain saws, but there are rakes, loppers, hand snippers and industrial weed
eaters available for use at a storage unit in town whenever they choose to go out on the trails. A lot of members use their own equipment, Williams said, and just head out for an hour or two on an afternoon and get their designated section done.
And it’s not only mountain bikers who put in the time to keep up the trails. Jason Vore, a local trail runner, was named the 2021 TAP Volunteer of the Year after contributing 86 hours of maintenance in 2021.
Williams also sees the sense of ownership of the trails spread beyond the organized program. He regularly sees older people who walk the trails regularly for fitness “pick up trash religiously.”
While Williams can be credited for the creation of the TAP, he stepped down as its leader at the start of 2022.
“I know how much time I was spending. I knew I couldn’t spend more and knew it needed more. I was torn between continuing the role and finding more help to delegate and restructure or moving on to try to advocate in different ways,” he said.
The system that worked for him should be reworked for something that works for the next leader. It’s time for new perspective, he said, adding he would love to see the momentum continue and more of a community feel return after it went missing during the covid pandemic.
He plans to continue his efforts to give back, however, and is focusing on the donation platform used by the volunteers called LuvTrails. He would like to see the program become self-sustainable and more equipment added.
“There’s never been a better case for ‘the more the merrier,’” he said, referring to the number of adopted trail sections and the people who work on them. “Two people cut the work in half, three in thirds.”
If someone can leave home and work for one
hour, a volunteer is going to be more inclined to do that than spend five hours weed eating and be miserable the next day, he said.
“For me, the trails mean getting away, exploring nature, and getting the added benefit of fitness. Mountain biking makes staying fit sustainable because exercise just to exercise by going to a gym always proved difficult,” he said. “I’ve always been a ‘what’s around the next corner’ type of person and coupled with what I prefer the term ‘borderline adrenaline addiction,’ so (mountain biking is) the perfect sport! I occasionally hike sections of trail even when I’m not working on them as well, and Blowing Springs is my go-to hiking trail system.”
Williams recalls a day “inadvertently eavesdropping” in the parking lot at Blowing Springs.
“I was gearing up for a ride just as a group of eight cyclists came off the trails and were congregated around vehicles with Wisconsin license plates. One said, ‘You know, I didn’t see one piece of trash on that entire ride.’ Another followed that up with, ‘Oh my gosh … you’re right! I didn’t even see one, so nothing triggered me to even think about not seeing any!’ Then a third contributed, ‘Never mind the trash, I didn’t get hit by a single weed, and the trails were in amazing condition! How could you not recommend coming here to ride? I never expected it to be this nice.’
“I couldn’t have scripted a better ad for the Trail Adoption Program if I tried! It made me beam with pride for all the people who are working collectively to make the experience exactly what they had described: The best experience it can be.”
Anyone can get involved with TAP. Williams said the best way to get involved is to reach out to FAST either through social media or their website, https://fasttrails.org/.
“I want to see the TAP continue to grow, add people to share the workload, and have the trails continue to exhibit an outstanding level of maintenance that we’ve seen over the past five years,” Williams said.