“What we’re doing here is not like what’s going on in Northwest Arkansas — not in trail growth, not in cycling adoption, anything like that. [But] compared to most places around, like your average place, Little Rock’s doing pretty good.” That’s Frank Webber, owner of Shift Modern Cyclery in downtown Little Rock, and I found his sentiments to ring true after riding in Little Rock.
While the Arkansas mountain biking boom may have begun in a small town in the state’s northwest corner, the capital city (and the largest metro area in the state with 750,000 residents) has been playing catch-up over the last 5+ years. In fact, the trail development in Little Rock landed not one but three trails on our list of 5 of the best MTB trail systems built in Arkansas since your last visit.
But Little Rock’s story goes much deeper.
The Nature Conservancy kickstarted modern trail development in the region
“The Nature Conservancy kind of started the trail boom with hiring us for Rattlesnake Ridge. And then everybody loved the new trail, and they just kind of kept it going,” said Jeff Gannon, President of Affordable Trail Solutions.
The Rattlesnake Ridge project was designed and managed by Mitchell Allen, who, at the time, worked for the Nature Conservancy. Rattlesnake was Allen’s first trail design project, “and I like really technical trails, and so I built this trail system that was extremely technical, and then later realized, ‘Oh man, I’ve done the one thing you don’t do as a trail builder,’ like just build something for yourself,” he said.
Despite Allen’s rookie mistake, the network offers intermediate and advanced riders enjoyable rock-strewn singletrack with punchy climbs and descents, as well as extended wooden bridges. Several optional features are sprinkled along the trail, which push the difficulty into the black-diamond range. “Farkleberry” stands out as the most prominent.
Rattlesnake was completed in 2019, and as Gannon said, they just kept going.
“Really, it’s a conservation project that is involving recreation, which is something we were really pushing for in The Nature Conservancy — trying to figure out how we build a constituency for conservation through recreation,” said Allen when speaking of their ongoing trail development efforts.
Enter the Monument Trails
Allen has since moved to the Arkansas Parks and Recreation Foundation (APRF), where he is now the Executive Director. The APRF, in partnership with Arkansas State Parks and the Walton Family Foundation, is one of the organizations that has brought the iconic Arkansas Monument Trails program to life.
“The Monument Trails are a collection of world-class mountain biking destinations within Arkansas State Parks,” reads the official description. “These shared-use trails are professionally crafted by some of the world’s best trail builders to showcase natural iconic beauty through innovative and sustainable design and build. [sic] Monument trails are seamlessly woven into the beautiful landscape of Arkansas State Parks to highlight unique terrain, historic landmarks, and scenic vistas.”
Little Rock’s hometown Monument Trail is located in Pinnacle Mountain State Park. Pinnacle Mountain is one of the newest Monument Trails, with the bulk of the trail build completed in late 2021 by Jagged Axe, Rogue Trails, Natural State Trails, and Affordable Trail Solutions. Two of the park’s trails — Chaotic Zone and Middle Mountain Run — were entirely rebuilt in January 2025 by the trail crew from the renowned Highland Mountain Bike Park in New Hampshire.
Local riders all agree that Pinnacle Mountain is the best all-around trail system in the Little Rock region. The rebuilt Chaotic Zone jump trail stands out as a crowd favorite, thanks to its dialed tabletop jumps and sweeping berms. In addition, Pinnacle offers plenty of raw, rocky lines on trails such as Turkey Tracks, Twistflower, Glade Runner, and Carnasaw. While a few of the trails are downhill-oriented, there’s enough mileage to stretch the legs and get in an honest pedal ride.
This expansive network truly covers the range of difficulty, with trails from beginner to advanced. Today, Pinnacle Mountain attracts 600,000 visitors per year, making it the most visited day-use park in the Arkansas State Park system.
A planned trail expansion will create one of the largest interconnected trail systems in Arkansas
In 2023, Affordable Trail Solutions built the Blue Mountain trails, which connect to the existing Rattlesnake Ridge trails. The new trail expansion provides a kid-friendly place for true beginners to get started, but thanks to its connectivity to Rattlesnake Ridge, it creates a fantastic 12-mile loop option.
Rattlesnake isn’t located far from Pinnacle as the crow flies, and a connection between the two parks seems logical. At least, Allen thought so.
Allen is planning a 13.5-mile trail development in what’s known as the Maumelle Pinnacles Conservation Area. The new trails will connect Rattlesnake and Pinnacle, creating 55 miles of interconnected singletrack.
“Whenever we get done with those 13 and a half miles, basically there’s 55, I think, miles of connected singletrack right there in that area, which is pretty insane for 15 minutes from downtown,” said Allen. “I think it’s the most singletrack in one area in the state.”
“It’s not trails that are in and out of houses,” Allen quipped with a not-so-subtle dig at the Back 40 and Little Sugar trails in Northwest Arkansas. “This is truly a wild landscape that these trails are on.”
While downtown Little Rock might only be 15 minutes away, the trails have been designed to provide residents with a progression from a manicured state park to a wilder landscape. Between the Arkansas State Parks, Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, the Nature Conservancy, and Central Arkansas Water, about 30,000 acres of protected land are located right outside of the city — and these mountain bike trails cover just a fraction of it.
In-town trails provide easy access for residents
Little Rock boasts a plethora of small in-town trail systems, such as River Mountain, Allsopp Park, and Boyle Park. River Mountain was constructed by world-renowned builders Rock Solid Trail Contracting, and it provides two flowy downhill lines and several drawn-out XC trails to pedal.
The Gravity Falls and Whirlpool downhill runs at River Mountain may be short, but they’re feature-packed. A few of the steep roll-ins and optional features on Gravity Falls earn it a black-diamond rating, though B-lines have developed around the hardest features. Whirlpool offers a more intermediate-friendly descent, with big, sweeping berms and mellow tabletops.
Allsopp Park was home to some of the first singletrack trails in Little Rock, and Affordable Trail Solutions is currently in the process of rebuilding 3.5 miles of singletrack there. “We were contracted to go in and keep the same flavor for the historical value of it, and then revamp and reshape sections that were too steep,” said Gannon. They’re going to do some reroutes and “modernize it and clean it up.” In addition, Gannon’s crew is constructing about 1.5 miles of new bike-optimized trails in the trail system.
Boyle Park is another in-town trail network, and it’s providing residents with easy pedal-access jump laps. “It’s only got 30 or 40 feet of elevation, but […] instead of just doing like a pump track or just doing a skills park, we were like, ‘Well, what if we just do little downhill lines, little flow lines, and you could lap them over and over and over again?'” said Allen. “It’s cool, because the kids can lap it so easily. But it ends up getting used a lot.”
Burns Park, located just north of the river, offers some 15 miles of mountain bike trails as well, and it ties into the paved bike path infrastructure lining the Arkansas River. Burns Park offers easy access to the Big Dam Bridge, which, at 4,226 feet long, is the longest pedestrian and bicycle bridge in North America specifically designed for this purpose.
The historic trails haven’t gone anywhere
Allsopp is one of the oldest trails in the area, but historic trails at places like Camp Robinson, just north of the city, haven’t gone anywhere — even if some people may have forgotten about them.
“I think it’s a lot like a lot of other places — you got a bunch of old volunteer-built trail that everybody loves, until you get new trail, and then they kind of forget about the volunteer-built stuff just because the new stuff flows better and is more fun — optimized for bikes,” said Gannon.
That said, the Camp Robinson trails are still “very popular,” according to Richard Machycek, owner of Arkansas Cycling & Fitness. “It’s a lot of people that have been riding for longer than I have [that] go out there,” said Machycek, who’s 58 and has been riding in Arkansas since he was a kid.
The Camp Robinson trails were built decades ago on a military base that allows public access with a background check and the purchase of a pass. “There’s probably close to 50 miles of trail,” said Machycek. “It’s all old school, hand-cut singletrack — real twisty and turny. There’s a number of retired people that keep those trails well-maintained. It’s one of the best places to ride when there’s been a lot of rain, because it drains well, and there’s such a variety of it that you can avoid the lower wet stuff.”
Should you plan a mountain bike trip to Little Rock?
Admittedly, Little Rock doesn’t offer the massive number of trail miles that you’ll find in destinations like Bentonville. Even so, the capital city makes a strong case as one of the most trail-rich towns in Arkansas. Based on my time riding in Little Rock, you could easily plan a long weekend to ride in the city and leave wishing you had more time.
If you want to plan a longer trip to Central Arkansas and skip NWA entirely, consider combining Little Rock’s trails with the Northwoods Trail System in nearby Hot Springs, less than an hour away. Between these two towns, you can easily fill a full week with top-tier singletrack built by some of the best in the world.
Finally, Little Rock provides a great destination for riders who like to combine cultural experiences with their mountain biking. The city’s downtown provides a wealth of fantastic dining opportunities, including eclectic spins on classic southern dishes at acclaimed restaurants like The Root Cafe. The downtown murals and street art could make for their own tour, and the paved bike paths beckon riders to take a relaxed cruise along the churning waters of the Arkansas River.
Thanks to tireless work by advocates like Mitchell Allen and the boots-on-the-ground construction by the likes of Jeff Gannon, Little Rock is rewriting its destiny with the words “mountain bike town.”
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