Imagine being a mountain biker and moving to a place that didn’t have any trails to ride. What would you do? For riders in Huntsville, Ontario, this scenario became the catalyst for forming a club that is now 400 members strong and has built 20 kilometers of trails to date.
To find out how Huntsville transformed itself from a trail desert to a riding destination in such a short period of time, Singletracks spoke to Stephen Draper, a current board member of the Huntsville Mountain Bike Association (HMBA), Buck Miller, a co-founder and the first president of the HMBA, and Adam Billinghurst, the lead trail builder for Earth Odyssey.
Huntsville has historically been an outdoor recreational area, but it had nothing to offer mountain bikers
Huntsville, Ontario, is a small town of just over 20,000 residents that is located approximately two hours north of Toronto. It is home to several lakes and a couple of ski resorts and is a very popular destination for outdoor recreation all year round.
However, Huntsville had no public mountain bike trails. This fact was not lost on Miller, who moved to the area in the late 2010s. Miller and Graham Henderson decided to do something about it. Together, they formed the Huntsville Mountain Bike Association in 2018 and immediately got to work building trails that would be accessible to the public.
HMBA began building trails in 2019
Miller told Singletracks that, in 2019, HMBA built the first trails in the Huntsville area. It put in approximately four kilometers of trails at Echo Valley, a 30-acre parcel located east of Huntsville. Unfortunately, a tornado destroyed the trails in 2020.
Undeterred, HMBA looked for another place to build trails. A private ski hill known as Hidden Valley Highlands Ski Area provided the perfect location. “The ski hill had 130 acres,” Miller said. “They told us that, if we could get the city to provide insurance, then we could build trails there.”
HMBA reached a three-way agreement with the city of Huntsville and the Hidden Valley Highlands Ski Area in 2020. HMBA would build and maintain the trails, and the city of Huntsville would lease the ski hill from May 1st to November 1st and provide liability insurance for mountain biking.
Once the agreement was finalized, Draper said the club began building trails that year with only volunteer labor.
HMBA’s work on the ski hill caught the attention of other landowners, who wanted in on the action
Within a year, HMBA’s work at Hidden Valley spawned a demand for trails at other properties in the area. Deerhurst Resort, which is located adjacent to Hidden Valley, approached HMBA about building trails at the resort, said Draper.
While the trails HMBA built at Hidden Valley were conservative due to the city’s involvement, Deerhurst gave HMBA latitude to build more technical trails on their property. The resort is now home to the majority of the town’s enduro-style trails.
While HMBA began working with Deerhurst, another private landowner who had a parcel of land in town approached the club about building and managing trails on it. “The landowner was tired of seeing motorized vehicles on the property,” said Miller.
According to Draper, the landowner leased the property to HMBA for a dollar a year. HMBA has built seven kilometers of trails on the property to date, which are known as Lance’s Loops. “It’s close to downtown and family friendly,” said Miller. “We have a weekly race series there [during the summer riding season].”
After initially using volunteer labor to build trails, HMBA was able to raise enough funds to hire a trail builder
By 2022, HMBA had raised enough funds from membership dues and grants to hire a professional trail builder to help with building trails. The club was fortunate enough to have one in its own backyard.
Billinghurst grew up in nearby Bracebridge and skied at Hidden Valley when he was a kid. He moved back to Bracebridge in 2017 after gaining extensive experience building trails. Billinghurst’s résumé includes stints at Whistler Bike Park in British Columbia, Red Bull Rampage, and Velosolutions.
“I was building trails for the Muskoka Off-Road Cycling Club, and my work caught the attention of the club in Huntsville,” said Billinghurst. He began working with HMBA in 2022.
His first project was to create a green trail at Hidden Valley. “The terrain there is very rocky and chunky, but there’s great dirt when you can find it.” He used machines to remove rocks and create a smooth flow trail.
Since then, Billinghurst’s main work has been revamping some of the trails the club hand-built during its early years. “I’ve smoothed out sections and added features like berms to make them more beginner-friendly.”
HMBA’s work has helped Huntsville become the host of an enduro race
For the past three years, Huntsville has hosted one of the races for the Canadian Enduro Series. “For the last two years, we’ve had to cap the entries at 120 riders,” said Miller.
The area is perfect for that style of riding, Billinghurst said. “It’s the real deal for enduros.”
Miller said the club saw the races as an opportunity to showcase the trails they had built. “We have beautiful climbing trails and short, technical descents,” he said.
Draper describes the area as a mini-Quebec, saying, “It’s very rocky, rooty, and loamy.”
The races have generated a lot of money for the club as well. Draper told Singletracks that they net the club around $10,000 per year.
HMBA hopes to carry its momentum into the future and transform Huntsville into a major riding destination
Since 2018, HMBA has grown to over 400 members. Membership dues are a major source of income for the club. Draper told Singletracks that riders must either be a club member or purchase a $5 day pass to ride the trails at Deerhurst and Lance’s Loops.
Additionally, Draper said that HMBA gets a substantial amount of revenue from yearly races. In addition to the summer enduro race, HMBA hosts the annual Greystone Gravel Grinder at the start of the summer riding season in early May, which also nets it approximately $10,000 in profits.
Draper also told Singletracks that the club has received grant money, too. All these funds are essential if HMBA wants to build more trails in the future because it has exhausted its volunteer resources. “We’re making a big push to get the money to bring more professional trail builders in to revamp existing trails and build new ones,” Draper said. The club is also working with the city to get a pump track built.
No matter what the future holds, what HMBA has achieved in the past seven years is impressive. “It’s a testament to the demand for trails in the area,” said Miller. “I walked into an area that was hungry for them.”
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