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[url:x69lyw70]http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/060809/new_448576179.shtml[/url:x69lyw70]
Bike, horse riders agree to share paths at Oconee’s Heritage park
By Adam Thompson | [email protected] | Story updated at 11:50 pm on 6/7/2009WATKINSVILLE – For Linda Kundell – and her horses, too – there’s nothing quite like a ride through the woods.
"It’s a very therapeutic thing for a horse to be out in the woods, instead of just riding around in a circle," said the Oconee County resident. "You can only ride around the pasture so many times."
Now that the county government has approved new equestrian trails at Heritage Park in Farmington, Kundell and dozens of other local recreational horse owners will have a place to trail ride very close to home.
Kundell, along with what she hopes will be a small army of volunteers, this summer will help clear more than 4 miles of trails at the 364-acre rural park.
She already has a list of 100 local horse riders interested in riding there, she said.
"We’re trying to make it a group that that’s what we’ll do, work on (the trails) and keep them in good condition," she said.
But the horse enthusiasts who volunteered Saturday to begin clearing trails – just a few days after commissioners gave the green light – weren’t blazing a new path, so to speak.
They’re joining a steady flow of mountain bikers who regularly ride nearly 10 miles of off-road bicycle trails already meandering through the park’s thick woods.
Back in 1999, members of a local mountain biking group tamed the Heritage Park wilderness.
They carved through the brush, filled potholes in some old roadbeds and bridged small streams to get the paths in shape.
County government officials said then the members of the Southern Off-Road Bicycle Association saved taxpayers $10,000 by working on their own to build the trails.
SORBA members bristled a few months ago when some Oconee residents and parks department officials suggested people should be able to ride horses on the bike trails.
The members were worried about safety and what the horses and their hooves might do to the trails they had worked hard to build and maintain.
"The issue just really came down to the preservation of the trail, the destruction, the wear and tear of the trail and who was going to maintain that," said Howie Davis, manager of Sunshine Cycles in Watkinsville, a SORBA sponsor.
Although bikes and horses successfully share multi-use trails elsewhere, those trails usually were built wide and with both uses in mind, Davis said. "Unfortunately, Heritage Park was built for cyclists, so they’re very narrow trails."
However, any controversy that flared up mostly died down over the next few months, as the two groups worked out a compromise with the parks department and a citizen recreation committee.
SORBA members agreed to abandon or reroute parts of their trails to make room for the horse paths.
The horse owners agreed to stay off the bike trails except for two wide, shared sections.
"Hopefully it’ll be a great shared venue for everybody to enjoy themselves out there," said Todd Horsley, an Oconee resident who bikes the Heritage trails a couple times a week.
Like Kundell, Horsley loves having the trails nearby, and he said the two groups will have to respect each other for this to work. "But if everybody’s willing to recognize that and maintain it as such, I think we’ll be fine."
Davis agrees. "It’ll be great – the more people devoted to the park system the better. It just didn’t need to be on the same trail," he said.
Parks department officials are pleased with the compromise. The department will pay for trail signs that clearly mark which mode of transportation belongs on which section of trail, acting parks Director Lisa Davol told commissioners at a meeting last week.
To build their trails, the horse folks don’t have as much work to do as the bike crew.
Once they knock down a rough path, the horses will take care of the rest, and riders can cut higher branches while riding through the woods, Kundell said.
Another local horse rider, Jack White, laid out the horse trails and marked them, she said.
Both have taken classes on trail building and know how to look at the lay of the land to find the best path.
"This is a very, very good start, and Jack and I have worked very hard with the bike people to make sure they have what they need and we have what we need," Kundell said.
Meanwhile, it likely will take SORBA about three or four months to reroute their trails, depending on how many volunteers they get, according to Davol.
Once everything is done, it’ll likely be up to the riders – horse and bike – to keep peace.
"There are certain etiquettes between the bikes and the horses," Davol said.
Originally published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Monday, June 08, 2009 -
It’s refreshing to see people working together.
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hey, i ride that trail all the time! well that’s interesting. i’ve seen all of the signs saying "no horses allowed"… but it sounds like they’ve worked out a good system. sweet sweet.
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The heritage trail seems to be popular around here. I have not been yet, but some say it’s the best, and most advanced (difficulty) around.
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its popular, that’s for sure. i wouldn’t say its the best, or the most difficult. it does have a good number of roots and such, and some sweet singletrack, but i prefer hawkes creek: http://www.singletracks.com/bike-trails … creek.html the trail is narrower (higher-quality singletrack), technically it is harder, but nothing that i would categorize as really difficult. less traffic, and the trail flows really well! i like it a lot.
but don’t get me wrong, heritage park is pretty good!
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How far out past the walmart is it? I may give it a try this weekend.
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Hey Chris1911, what kind of bike is that in your avatar?
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"chris1911" wrote
How far out past the walmart is it? I may give it a try this weekend.
um… its several miles, its over the oglethorpe county line. so do you live in statham? we should ride sometime dude.
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"fleetwood" wrote
Hey Chris1911, what kind of bike is that in your avatar?
09 GF Wahoo Disc
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"Goo" wrote
[quote="chris1911":3f94592j]How far out past the walmart is it? I may give it a try this weekend.
um… its several miles, its over the oglethorpe county line. so do you live in statham? we should ride sometime dude.[/quote:3f94592j]
I live just outside of Statham. I would be up for riding sometime.
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