Sherman, Texas—a city of nearly 44,000 people just south of the Oklahoma border—used to be a trail desert. With just over 700 feet of elevation and a few hundred feet of relief scattered across town, the landscape doesn’t exactly scream “mountain bike destination.” For years, local riders made do with a handful of hand-cut trails, while anyone seeking professionally built singletrack faced an hour-plus drive.
That all changed when local riders, the city, and a homegrown professional trailbuilder joined forces to create Binkley Bike Park. Today, the park boasts over six miles of trail, a VeloSolutions pump track, and a rock-armored jump line—transforming Sherman from a trail desert into a regional riding destination.
To find out more about the park’s history, Singletracks spoke to Jeremiah Stone, a trailbuilder and mountain bike instructor with Unearthed Trails; Sean Hemperley, the Cemetery and Parks Maintenance Superintendent with the city of Sherman; James “Jeff” Harrison; Brantley Blackburn, who served on the Parks and Recreation Board for the city of Sherman; and Nathan Voight, a current member of the Parks and Recreation Board for the city of Sherman.
Trails have been a part of the park property since the early 90s
Harrison, a lifelong Sherman resident, grew up riding bikes. He and his friends would often make trails through the woods near their homes to ride their BMX bikes on.
In the early 90s, Harrison discovered mountain biking. He started making his own mountain bike trails, including ones on the property where Binkley Bike Park now stands. Harrison told Singletracks the property had been given to the city with the condition that it be used as a public park.
According to Harrison, the city decided to extend West Center Street through the property where the park is in 1997. The city even put in a tunnel crossing under the new road to connect the park to Herman Baker Park, which also had a trail around the lake. Harrison and his friends would often ride between the two parks.
In the early 2000s, Harrison said IMBA came to town to do an assessment and even started building a new trail at the Binkley property. However, they stopped work when the crew ran into a particularly nasty breed of poison ivy that had leaves the size of a person’s hand.
There was no new trail development for a decade. Then Stone moved to town
When Stone moved to Sherman in the early 2010s, the park property had not had any new trail development in a decade. As Stone described, “it was a forgotten piece of woods between a school and the highway with an abandoned homestead that had been used as a dump by people for at least five decades.”
Stone was an avid rider, competing in downhill and enduro events at the time. He wanted some local trails to ride. “I’d heard a rumor of a trail being approved, so I printed maps, studied the IMBA Trail Solutions handbook, and drew up a master plan to present at my meeting with the local trail steward. He gave me the green light to cut trail.”
Stone cut a two-mile XC trail on the property in 2013 by himself over the course of a month. He named the trail Hammerhead after his dog at the time. While not impressive, the trail was the start of something big in Sherman.
When Stone moved away from Sherman, a friend took up the mantle to turn the property into a full-fledged bike park
Stone had hooked Brantley Blackburn on mountain biking, and the two became good friends. They did a lot of traveling together to Northwest Arkansas and Colorado, and raced enduro together in Arkansas and Texas.
When Stone moved away from Sherman in 2016, Blackburn began building new trails and features on the property at the city’s request. The city also offered to help him, and some of their employees helped cut and build trails, along with some student volunteers from the GreenServe program at Austin College.
Blackburn also devoted substantial time in 2017 to building the mountain bike scene in Sherman. He recruited volunteers to help with the trails and organized group rides. He also began adding features to the trails on the property.
Voight, a good friend of Blackburn’s, said Blackburn’s vision for Binkley “was to have the park be a stepping stone for riding at Bentonville [which was four hours away].”
2018 was a pivotal year for the bike park
Blackburn carried the momentum he had going in 2017 into 2018, selling t-shirts to raise money for the trails and convincing the city to invest more money in the property. He was also appointed to the city’s Parks and Recreation Board, which helped him be a voice for local mountain bikers.
Two other significant events took place that year. First, Stone came back to town to build dirt jumps on the property. The city approved the project and supplied all the dirt, along with the use of a skid steer. According to Hemperley, “We had to dredge out another park due to flooding. I took the dirt from that park to Binkley, and Jeremiah built the jumps with it.”
Second, Stone built a dirt pump track later that fall. Those two additions boosted the park’s popularity. More people began to ride there, and the city saw that the park was becoming an asset to the community.
From 2021 on, the city went all-in on Binkley Park
In March of 2021, Stone came up with a plan to revamp the Hammerhead trail. The trail was in a low spot that was prone to holding water. A friend of both him and Blackburn, Scott Sanders, owned a rock yard. He donated rock (four semi-trucks’ worth), the city rented an excavator, and Stone, Blackburn, and a host of local volunteers revamped and armored the trail.
The next year, Sanders donated more rock so Stone could return to Sherman and build some downhill trails with a hub (known as Copperhead Castle). Then, in 2023, Stone would return to armor the dirt jumps with more rock donated by Sanders. Additionally, the city invested in a VeloSolutions pump track. These two projects “gave us a piece of Bentonville in town,” according to Blackburn.
In 2025, Stone built a new jump line at the park
By 2025, Binkley Bike Park was a popular spot. More features had been added to the trails, and the city had installed lights at the pump track so riders could continue to have fun after dark.
As Stone put it, “Prior to my building and the VeloSolutions pump track, the idea of bike trails and this type of recreation wasn’t even considered. The city had been focused on soccer fields and pavilions. Seeing and hearing that people would actually travel from neighboring towns to ride the trails was an absolute game-changer for everyone involved.”
The amount of use, as well as erosion, had taken a toll on the original dirt jumps Stone had built at the park in 2018. He came up with an idea for new ones that used rock and gravel to make them sustainable and pitched it to the city.
The city gave Stone the green light to build the new jump line in October, and he made his way back to Sherman. As Stone described it, “the plan started to come together like some sort of country-fried A-Team plot.” His dad, who lived in town, had room to accommodate Stone’s truck camper. The city gave Stone free rein to make his vision a reality, and Sanders provided more rock.
Stone built the jumps with black clay, capped them with decomposed granite, and armored them with rock from Sanders. He created three distinct lines—beginner, intermediate, and advanced—and completed the project in a month. The result is a thing of beauty.
Today, Binkley Bike Park is a popular spot for both locals and out-of-town visitors
Currently, the park has approximately 6.5 miles of trails, according to Voight, and expands to over eight miles when you connect it to the trail at nearby Herman Baker Park. Both the pump track and jump lines are lit, so riders can have fun even after the sun sets.
Most of the work was done by volunteers, and Stone himself donated many hours of labor. Most of the materials, including the rock and dirt, were donated as well. The city only spent $500,000 on the park, according to Blackburn, and most of it went toward the VeloSolutions pump track.
The work done by Stone, Blackburn, and others at the park has been transformative for the city of Sherman. Blackburn said, “When you go there on the weekend, the parking lot is full, and people are coming from out of town to ride.”
Hemperley echoed Blackburn’s sentiments, stating, “Binkley is bringing in people from the [Dallas-Fort Worth] Metroplex.” He also said it has had a huge impact on the local youth, so much so that the city is planning to add some skills features, a Strider pump track, restroom facilities, and expanded parking.
The city held its first bike festival at the park last May and plans to make it an annual event. The festival included food trucks, a live DJ, pump track races, live demos, group rides, and giveaways.
In Voight’s view, Binkley Bike Park has really transformed the area. “The park is a regional riding destination. It’s techy, flowy, and fast.”
Blackburn and Voight give a lot of credit for Binkley’s success to Stone. As Voight put it, Stone “has a love for this place and wants to do his best. It’s a blessing to know him and watch him build.”
Know about a new trail project we should cover? Whether you’re breaking ground on the next must-ride destination or putting the finishing touches on a neighborhood flow trail, we want to hear about it. Drop us a line at [email protected] with high-quality photos of your build, plus details like trail mileage, location, difficulty, and what makes it special. We’re always on the hunt for the next great trail story, and there’s a good chance your project could be featured in an upcoming article.
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