Last week, the first gravity bike park in the region held a preview for some local cyclists and non-cyclists to much fanfare in Bella Vista. Daniel Caruth was there and brings us this report.
Andrea Krol watches a boy in a yellow bike helmet just manage to slot his mountain bike's wheels into two metal holders before a chairlift scoops him up.
"Got it? OK."
Krol is operating the lift at the new Oz Trails bike park in Bella Vista, and at first glance, she says the 2,500-foot metal and wire apparatus may seem familiar but out of place here.
"It's unique in that we don't have snow and we have bricks. There's a little more friction for people, so that takes a little bit more learning for them, I think. But it seems to be working out all right."
Instead of brisk mountain air, snow and aspen trees, it's a balmy 90 degrees with dirt trails and Arkansas oak and pine trees, and in place of skiers are a line of giddy mountain bikers.
Bella Vista local Chris is with a group of riders and is queued up for his third run down the mountain.
"It's just way different. It's a whole different variety of trails. There's jumping, there's some tech stuff, there's just a little bit for everybody. So if you want to get away from some of the super fast, flowy stuff that we have, like the Back 40 and Little Sugar, this is a great variety."
This new bike park, developed by Tom and Stuart Walton's holding company Runway Group, offers 20 miles of trails on just 300 feet of elevation. It's also the first chairlift-operated bike park in Arkansas. Gary Vernon is general manager for the OZ Trails bike park and says the lift has the capacity to carry 1,000 people per hour up the mountain.
"This is a high-speed quad, meaning four people per chair. And it's detachable, meaning that it's really fast when you sit down and it goes up the hill. But when the chair comes into the terminal, it releases from the cable. So it slows down and we can even stop it. So if you want to load somebody — I just put my mom on it, who's 86. We rode the lift up. She loved it. But it was really easy to get on and off because of the way this thing is designed. And it only takes a little over three minutes to get to the top."
Two of the cyclists at today's preview of the new lift are husband and wife John and Jennifer Leech, who let me join them on that three-minute ride up the mountain.
"We've ridden bike parks in Washington state, we've ridden at Angel Fire, we've done Spider Mountain. And this one is just in our backyard, and it's something you can do year round. For a year-round bike park, it's world class. I feel like people are going to come from all over the states, even from outside the country, just to experience Bentonville and Bella Vista and Northwest Arkansas in general, and make this a selling point to travel here."
Caruth: And for those of us who aren't bikers — why is it interesting to have a chairlift for mountain biking?
"The downhill riding is fun, it's fast. You can get 10 times more riding in in a short period of time when you're using a chairlift. If you want to just do the downhill stuff — the jumps, the drops, the techy stuff — you can get a full day in here and ride twice or three times as much as you would without a lift.”
“One thing is the location — some people think you've got to go to Colorado or the East Coast or the West Coast or Canada to get really cool riding. Arkansas is a hidden gem in the sense that you've got tons of mountains and elevation and it's so central. Anybody from Oklahoma — we're three and a half hours away. So many people don't know the beauty of Northwest Arkansas. Add the mountain biking into it, and it's a very cool location."
The couple, who are from Oklahoma City, bought a house in Bella Vista for their own mountain bike trips and to operate as a short-term rental.
"We were looking, and then the next week they put the announcement out for the bike lift. We were like, oh, we've got to get on this now."
Vernon says while the lift may seem intimidating, it actually helps make the sport more accessible, with 75% of the trails geared toward beginners.
"We're going to have a bike shop. You can rent a bike. You can learn how to ride here because we're going to have a top-notch bike school. Five-time world champion Annika Beerten is helping us develop this bike school, from small kids or beginner adults all the way to expert levels wanting to improve their skills. We really know that this place is going to get kids outside, because some kids don't want to go out into the woods and pedal hard for 40 miles. Here you'll come and ride the lift with your friends and just whoop and holler all the way down and do it again and again and again."
The park is still under construction, with work still to come on a restaurant, a venue building and other amenities before opening to the public this summer. Joel Feemster is director of the Oz Mountain Bike Patrol and expects a lot of interest in the park, which also means a lot of work ensuring riders of different ages and abilities stay safe.
"Most people that we have here will be EMTs. We will be providing BLS, or basic level of care. Somebody crashes, breaks an arm or has a scrape — we'll have people here that can assist with that. And like any sport, mountain biking can be risky at times. So we'll try to assist riders and do prevention as well, try to guide people down the right trails and things like that."
Vernon encourages everyone, biker or not, to come catch a ride, like Amanda Willis and Libby Smith, who came out with their tennis group to check it out.
"It's not even the best time of year you would think for the view, but it's still amazing. I bet mid-May it's just going to be fascinating."
"I love the building. I think it fits in so well to the slope of that hill right there. It just looks nice. I think it's lovely."
The Oz Trails bike park will officially open to the public June 12. John Leech offers this advice to any beginners trying out the lift.
"Remember to have fun and to move quickly when you get off. You know when you're at the grocery store and your kid's pushing the cart behind you and they always clip your heels? You don't want that to happen with the chairlift. But I mean, we're sitting down, we're catching our breath, we're socializing. And then we're going to go get on a trail and go down. And then we're going to do it again. Rinse and repeat."
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
