Extending Pidherny Trails is the big goal set by Liam Baker, a local cycling enthusiast and Pidherny Trail director, to take mountain biking to a whole new level in Prince George.
Right now the longest mountain bike trail in the city takes about two or three minutes to ride down a 500-metre long trail. Baker wants to build the trail up the hill until it's three or four kilometres long and takes up to ten minutes to descend.
The Pidherny Trail Network is extensive, beginning at Foothills Landfill and ending on Pidherny Road, with cross-country trails extending all the way west to the cut banks along North Nechako Road. Depending on the trail, they range from easy to difficult. Many of the trails have some basic and intermediate structures and jumps. Most people park at the pullout at the end of Pidherny Road, push to the top and then ride back down.
"The one thing Prince George is lacking as far as mountain biking is concerned is a longer trail system," said Baker. "A lot of the downhill trails are quite short so we're trying to develop a longer trail system by using the terrain and building more sustainable trails and also ones that are really fun, flowy and fast."
The Pidherny area has grown into a mountain biking area over the last 20 years. With the proposed relocation of the Prince George Golf and Curling Club into the area, a group was formed to save the trails.
"So with the help of the Ministry of Forests (as it was called then) they developed a park that's about 600 hectares in size and the Prince George Cycling Club actually has land tenure over the area so we can develop mountain bike trails legally without threat of having them disappear," Baker said.
It took about five years to set it all up.
"Now we're an official stakeholder and have rights over a lot of the land for the bike trails and it is multi-purpose land but most of the work has been done by the cycling community," said Baker. "
The terrain is a mixture of cross country and free ride downhill trails and the club is trying to use the terrain to its best use by developing longer trails.
The club just finished 400 metres of the trail that comes out near the bottom and Baker said it meets their objective and they will keep expanding it up the hill.
"It's quite a fun trail and we're pretty excited about it," said Baker.
The Prince George Cycling Club is always looking to recruit more volunteers and every other Monday is trail building nights.
"The more people we can get out to help the faster we can build these trails," said Baker.
For more information including a work schedule and video of the trail visit http://www.pgcyclingclub.ca.
