Residents in James City County can now hop on their mountain bikes and take a ride around Upper County Park.
“Being on the upper end of the county, there’s not much out there when it comes to mountain biking,” said Michelle Lightfoot, operations manager for James City County Parks and Recreation. “So we wanted people to have that opportunity.”
Previously, the park had a four-mile mountain bike trail but last year the county discovered parts of the trail ran on private property, Lightfoot said. For that reason, the county closed the trail for the past year.
At no cost to the county, volunteers from the Eastern Virginia Mountain Bike Association and members from the Parks and Recreation Department went out and cleared off two miles of debris that accumulated on the path over a year.
“What I did was map out the four miles and see the dividing line between our property and private property,” Lightfoot said. “So it was four miles before we had to redirect it and cut half of it off.”
The new path runs along two miles of wooded area in the park. Lightfoot described the terrain as being specifically useful for mountain biking because there are a lot of hills — and maintains a natural surface.
In addition, the trail will be kept only two feet wide. This is different from the park’s walking trail which is four feet wide.
It’s one of two mountain bike trails in the county. The other is a 20-mile trail through Freedom Park.
The trail will be available during Upper County Park operating hours between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Sunday-Saturday.
