Lexington Bicycle Summit 2007

Hey everyone -

I thought you might appreciate a little update from the Lexington Bike Summit. Thanks to Ian and Andy at Schellers I got a late-in-the-game invite to represent KyMBA at Lexington's first ever Bike Summit last Friday. I met up with a lot of the local mtb community while I was there and they are all awesome people fighting the good fight. As many of you know, Lexington's trail system is virtually non-existent, dare I say trail access there is deplorable (preaching to the choir, I suspect). For those of you that don't know, there are about 5 miles of "sort-of" legal trail in one park and that's it. For any substantial riding, Lexingtonians need to roll to Capital View in Frankfort or east to DBNF. Not sweet.

The Summit was essentially an open forum for local leaders, engineers, activists, law enforcement, various cycling groups and general citizens to come together and discuss how to make Lexington a League of American Bicylists' Certified, Bike Friendly Community. (Mountain bikers around the country can thank former KyMBA president Don Vogel for pointing out the need to include mountain bike facilities as part of the League's ranking system and it certainly came in handy while meeting with Lexington's leaders on Friday.)

Overall, I thought the Summit was a huge success. About 250 people came out to talk about bikes and bike issues and it opened a lot of eyes and even more doors. We were able to meet with the Lexington Mayor, the Metro Bike Ped Coordinator, the Director of Facilities and head of Parks and Rec and in all cases, it looks like we'll be invited back to talk more about how, where and when new mtb trails can be opened in Lexington. So while new trails won't necessarily be on the ground tomorrow, the land managers are certainly excited to hear from us.

Watch for periodic updates, but if you have any questions, you can email me: fasterdulin@yahoo.com

Keep the faith people - it may take a minute, but they'll be trails in Lexington's parks soon enough!!