“We really want to make eastern Iowa and Linn County kind of the epicenter for mountain biking in Iowa,” said Ted Doscher, Project Planner for Linn County Conservation. It’s a bold goal for the county, which anchored by the city of Cedar Rapids (population 137,000), but the latest trail development underway just 30 minutes north in Central City suggests Doscher might just pull it off.
As Doscher spoke about his plans for Linn County, he referenced many well-known trail systems, saying, “We wanted something similar to Coler,” which is in Bentonville. He also referenced the Castle Hub in Bentonville, and even the Galloping Goose trail at the famous Cuyuna Lakes Trail System in northern Minnesota. Doscher has clearly done his homework, traveling the region to draw inspiration from the best MTB trails in the heartland.
Thanks to that world-class inspiration, the newest gravity trails built in Linn County are already turning out to be winners.
‘The community is hungry. We need something better.’
Wanatee Park, located on the outskirts of Cedar Rapids, has long been home to a few mellow cross country mountain bike trails. But after the devastating August 2020 derecho—a historic windstorm that hammered Cedar Rapids with 140mph straight-line winds for nearly an hour—the county had to rebuild many of the trails at Wanatee. They took the opportunity to build a small jump line with 7-8 jumps and a skills park with a three-tiered drop feature and beginner and advanced lines.
After building that small bike park, “the popularity exploded,” said Doscher. “Every day that site was busy, and we were like, ‘Oh, the community is hungry. We need something better.'”
Shortly thereafter, Linn County began work on a five-mile cross-country loop at Pinicon Ridge Park, just outside of Central City. The builder who was working on the XC trail came to Doscher and said, “You won’t believe this — I found three beautiful valleys and little knolls out in the back of the park. I think we could do something special,” according to Doscher.
A gravity park is born in eastern Iowa
Through winter 2024/25, they worked on a gravity park design and put it out to bid. Tailored Trails won that bid and put renowned trail builder Ethan Quehl of Blankets Creek Quehl Holler fame on the project.
After visiting the site and reviewing the plan, Quehl told Doscher that he thought they could build something even better than what was in the original plans. “We kind of opened it up and said, ‘Okay, here’s features we’d like to see. But what can you pull off?'”
“With his riding experience, that man is a wizard in the woods, and he just built this phenomenal playground,” Doscher exclaimed.
Doscher’s receptiveness to feedback from Quehl and Tailored Trails was absolutely critical for the development of such a unique gravity park. “Very rarely do we get a lot of owners that let us build big stuff, just for fear of liability and everything else,” said Aaron Steele, President & Senior Project Manager for Tailored Trails. “They wanted to just go as hard as they could on some of these. They wanted a true black line, not something that we would build that they call ‘black’ elsewhere, but something that was actually difficult for advanced riders.”
What will riders find at Pinicon Ridge?
Quehl and Tailored Trails built the entire new gravity park during the summer of 2025. They constructed 10 new trails totaling 1.1 miles of new singletrack. This includes five “technical gravity trails,” one “roller coaster trail,” “a couple of just true gravity trails, and a couple technical trails where it’s a little slower,” said Steele. A climbing trail returns back up to an upper hub, where the descending trails all begin — again, inspired by the Castle Hub in Bentonville.
Technical gravity trails in Iowa? Steele says it’s true: “We got a lot of really cool, chunky rock that exists out there. […] Our experience in Des Moines was that there was zero rock, just none to be had, not for 100 miles. But if you go all the way up into that corner, closer to the Wisconsin line, it gets pretty chunky and pretty rocky.” In places, the builders used the rock to armor the trails, including building stone-lined berms.
Quehl and his crew constructed a slew of wooden features using locally sourced white oak. One of the biggest features is a 30-foot over/under bridge, and there’s also “a 75-80 foot skinny boardwalk that connects two lines of a trail over a gulley.” In addition, “there’s a big, custom-built [wallride].”
Finally, there are plenty of tabletop jumps to be had, along with the requisite berms and flow expected of all modern gravity parks.
Popularity of the new trails has dramatically exceeded expectations
The project cost $400,000 and was funded through a local option sales tax, operational reserves, and Linn County’s Land/Water Legacy Bond. The trails opened in September 2025, and Doscher told us that while work had been ongoing to revitalize several parts of Pinicon Ridge Park, this investment in the new gravity trails has proven to be insanely popular — to the point where it’s now redirecting the development of the park.
“Every day that park is busy, to the point that I initially started with a little five-stall parking lot at the trailhead. I’ve had to increase that size to 10 stalls,” said Doscher. “Now I have another 10-stall lot built next to it. We moved an older shelter from one side of the park down to kind of give a gathering area, and we’re currently in the process of redeveloping a group camp area that’s right next to the gravity park that’ll feature sites that are dedicated for truck camping and van camping, a permanent storage facility for our volunteers to keep all the tools to maintain all the equipment, as well as adding an additional 20 parking stalls, just for the gravity park, and hopefully that kind of helps our traffic congestion we’ve created.”
The volunteers Doscher mentioned are the Linn Area Mountain Bike Association (LAMBA), which will handle on-site trail maintenance. Linn County will provide heavy equipment when needed.
Clearly, the demand is through the roof. With the development of these amenities, Pinicon Ridge will soon be a miniature mountain bike destination in its own right, drawing riders from across the region.
To continue serving this local demand for top-tier trails, Doscher plans to complete the five-mile XC loop in 2026. That loop also connects to one of the hubs in the gravity park, allowing riders to stretch their legs on the XC trail and then drop into the steeper, more demanding gravity lines.
If the community enthusiasm continues, Doscher’s just going to keep building more trails, with the goal of eventually becoming “the epicenter for mountain biking in Iowa.”
“I’ve got a plan for another jump line sitting on my desk,” said Doscher. “I’m trying to get it marked up right now to hopefully get some winter bids out.”
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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