Kansas City a mountain biking mecca? Oh, yeah!

Kansas City a mountain biking mecca?

EarthRiders Mountain Bike Club

Oh yeah--it already is, and it's only getting better.

According to the KCStar:

What if KC were home to the country’s longest middle-of-the-city trail system for mountain biking and hiking, a spectacular series of paths that squeeze through limestone outcroppings, skirt native glades and follow a twisting river route?

Working on it. Volunteer trail builders — with no fanfare and lots of sweat equity — just completed a phase of the planned trail inside Swope Park.

The total project is an urban mountain biking and hiking trail system more than 50 miles long. With perhaps no peer in the United States, it would surpass urban trails in cities considered far more outdoorsy than Kansas City.

Summary:

•20 miles planned in the Swope Park system; seven are done

•20 miles planned in the connector from Swope to Red Bridge Road; work just begun

•16 existing miles along the Blue River from Red Bridge to 137th Street

And those are only a portion of the mountain biking trails in the greater Kansas City metro area--9 miles at Landahl Park, 12 miles at Blue River Parkway (BuRP), 10 miles at Smithville Lake, and many more:

• Google map of mountain biking trails in the KC metro area
• Earthriders Mountain Bike Club's list of area trails
• ERTA--trail building and maintenance

More details about the Swope Park trails at the SwopeTrails.com.