Wanna be a kid again? Come ride mountain bikes!
“Want to not have a care in the world?” asks Jeremy Polk, owner of a Gluckstadt bike shop. “Come and ride mountain bikes because you have to focus in a way you just don’t think about other things. It is just good stuff.”
Two different mountain biking trails have served as the home to biking enthusiasts in Madison County; the popular Ridgeland Trails for the bikers looking for a challenge and the Brown’s Landing Trails for those starting to just get their feet wet.
Despite the general flatness of a place like Mississippi, mountain biking has become widely popular in the area. There are 400 members in the Tri-County Mountain Bike Association, of which Polk serves as president.
“It encourages people that may want to try mountain biking that are coming from a road bike,” Polk says. “It is a great place to introduce kids and grow the community.”
That community is the one thing that separates Madison County from other areas that may have more trails. Despite living in the Rocky Mountains, surrounded by trails at every corner, Zac Watts finds himself coming back to Mississippi to ride here.
Watts recently moved from Mississippi to Colorado, but rode the Ridgeland Trails for seven years. He called the community there unlike anywhere else and comes back three to four times a year to ride the trails. He said the trails are one of the things he misses most about Mississippi.
“The sense of community at the Ridgeland Trails is unlike anywhere else you will find,” Watts said. “Everybody is friendly and welcoming and trying to get you out there. It is unlike anything you will find anywhere else.”
The quality of the trails themselves are a marvel to behold. Beyond the beautiful scenery, the surprising amount of elevation found there is hard to come by in Mississippi.
Alison Harkey, originally from Scotland but now lives in Ridgeland, comes from a road bike background but got into mountain biking about 10 years ago. She said one of the things she loves about mountain biking is the ability to get to places one normally could not on a road bike or in a car. To see more remote places and bask in nature.
She said she has traveled extensively over the world while mountain biking and is impressed with the Ridgeland Trails.
“The Ridgeland Trails are an amazing piece of property that the Tri-County Mountain Bike Association has basically built these trails and since Mississippi does not really have mountains for mountain biking, we are lucky to have this in the Jackson area as a place to ride,” Harkey said. “They are fun, you are in the woods and in the summer you don’t have the summer beating down on you the way you would a rode bike.”
The Ridgeland Trails are on land owned by the city of Ridgeland but have a pseudo-permeant lease allowing the TCMBA to use them.
Up until 2006, they oversaw the Little Colorado trails that were across from Northwest Rankin High School on Lakeland Drive. However, the Rankin County School Board, which owned the land, eventually told them they could not use the land anymore which left a void for bikers in the area.
So the TCMBA approached Ridgeland Mayor Gene McGee about finding a place to make trails.
McGee, an avid cyclist, said they recognized the need for outdoor biking trails with the loss of the Little Colorado trails and worked out an agreement with the TCMBA to lease land that the trails currently sit on.
Having land was not enough though as individual trails had to built, a challenge in itself because of the need to add variety to the trails.
The TCMBA started built the trails inch by inch with their own hands. Starting in 2006, they worked on the trails over the next couple years and now have 9.5 beautiful miles of trail for bikers to ride on. Then there is Brown’s Landing, which is rideable yet incomplete. When it is finished it will provide six to seven miles of reservoir landscape for beginner riders to taste mountain biking.
The trails are one of the most scenic places in the county. Between the winding berms and bridges to the rock garden and the TCMBA berm, there is beauty to behold all around riders.
Polk says the condition of the trail changes each day and that provides a different experience when he rides.
“Riding off-road is a wonderful experience, because you have to be fully engaged mentally,” he says. “Things come up, the condition of the trail changes almost every day. If it were to rain today, there might be some slick spots for example.”
On October 21, a Sunday, they will host their 11th annual Lungbuster Race. On Saturday of that weekend, they have races all day long including a kid’s race and some skills clinics. On Sunday, they have the cross country race. The proceeds from the race go back into supporting and maintaining the trails. To race on the Ridgeland trails there is a box of waivers as you walk in and are also asked to pay a $3 fee for two days or you can get a membership with TCMBA for $35 for a single and $50 for a family for a year.
The Ridgeland trails are at 521 Giles Lane, Madison off North Livingston Road and Brown’s Landing is on Brown’s Landing Road, Canton on the Ross Barnett Reservoir off Mississippi 43 near the Natchez Trace.
