LITTLE ROCK — There’s more to mountain biking than just rocketing over trails to get where you’re going without breaking your neck. Mountain bikers also enjoy the journey.
Some even pause to admire the dogwoods.
For example, Saturday at Devil’s Den State Park, the 24th annual Ozark Mountain Bike Festival will attract lots of cyclists for reasons that have nothing to do with racing.
A packed agenda of social riding and skill-building awaits, free to all comers with helmets, on trails very friendly to fat tires. Assistant Park Superintendent Tim Scott says, “We had about 4.5 inches of rain, but all is well.”
At 9 a.m. Saturday, beginners can join a 3-mile, novice-pace trail ride on the Fossil Flats Trail. Terrain is rolling and rocky, with two creek crossings. The group will meet at the trailhead near campsite 15.
At 10 a.m., intermediate cyclists can work on their skills by joining a workshop ride on the Fossil Flats Trail. This group will also meet near campsite 15.
Fifteen minutes later, women and girls can enjoy a 5.5-mile ride just for them, no guys. The women will ride the Fossil Flats’ rolling and rocky terrain.
At 10:30 a.m., you can learn to improve tread, solve water problems and see how trail builders decide where a path should go to limit erosion. A maintenance workshop in the park will provide hands-on experience; the park will supply tools.
At 1 p.m., Steve Schneider will lead a beginner’s mountain biking skills workshop at the trailhead near campsite 15. The focus of this 4-mile outing will be to learn to pedal efficiently and face ruggedness without terror.
At 2 p.m., intermediates might enjoy a 9-mile ride with a big climb and descent. The route will begin and end on Arkansas 74 at Holt Road; cyclists will use the highway and the Butterfield Hiking and Fossil Flats trails.
At 2:30 p.m., you can try agility games on a fun course for children in Area A between campsites 14 and 16. Ride a skinny rail, a teeter-totter, weave around cones, see how low you can limbo.
At 4 p.m., a poker-run game on the Fossil Flats Trail will challenge all ages to pedal around to five checkpoints on the trail, collecting playing cards. Take your cards to the pavilion during Saturday night’s cook-off to find out if you won.
At 6 p.m., cyclists can join a mass road ride from the Fossil Flats trailhead and Campground A to Campground E on Arkansas 170, then on the Lake Trail to the pavilion for food.
At 7 p.m., there’s a hamburger cook-out at the pavilion, and poker run players can turn in their cards. While you wait for a hamburger, you can screen-print a shirt with the festival logo for $3. (You supply the shirt.)
But wait - there’s more: At 8:30 p.m., cyclists with headlamps will ride the Fossil Flats Trail for 5.5 miles in the dark.
After a well-deserved night’s rest, the festival resumes Sunday. At 10 a.m., beginners can go 5 miles together on the Fossil Flats Trail. And also at 10 a.m., intermediates have a 15-miler on Arkansas 74, the Butterfield Hiking Trail and the Fossil Flats Trail, beginning and ending at the Fossil Flats trailhead.
More information is at (479) 761-3325 and tim.scott@arkansas.gov.
Time trials training
The Boston Mountain Cyclists’ central Arkansas contingent will once again present a Two Rivers Time Trial Training Series for road bicycle racers.
The eight-race series begins at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, right where it began last year on Pinnacle Valley Road near Maumelle Park.
On successive Thursdays (April 12, 19, 26 and May 3, 10, 17 and 31), cyclists will meet to race the clock. The idea is to try to do the same course faster and faster week after week. Racers will pay $5 on site before each race (registration opens at 5:30 p.m.); and they must also be members of USA Cycling or buy a one-day permit for each week’s time trial.
The series is once again co-sponsored by The Community Bicyclist bike shop and Willard’s Doggie Emporium (Pete Beland’s parents). Helmets are required.
More information is at (501) 663-2175.
Cap City Classic
The Capitol City Classic 10K returns to Two Rivers Park at 8 a.m. Saturday.
Racers from around the state will run 6.2 miles on a very flat course that begins near the trailhead of the Pulaski County Garden of Trees, dashes out of the park along County Farm Road, makes a breathless jog to the north on Pinnacle Valley Road and then, panting, takes Beck Road back to County Farm Road and the eventual, grateful finish inside the park.
A one-mile race for children age 14 and younger follows the 10K at 9:30 a.m.; it stays inside the park.
Course records, both set in 2009, are Hillary Kogo’s 31:52 (fastest man) and Leah Thorvilson’s 35:50 (fastest woman).
Registration, which costs $20 ($12 for ages 8 and younger), is available online through a link at arkrrca.com or littlerockroadrunners.com. The youth race costs $5.
In the past, this popular footrace, part of the Arkansas Grand Prix Series, threatened to overcrowd the little park with automobiles. But this year you also have the option of parking in River Mountain Park and walking or biking about two miles to the start, or even leaving your car in Murray Park.
Tour de Rock
Training rides begin Saturday for the CARTI Tour de Rock.
The large charity bike ride is June 9. To help cyclists prepare, the Central Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute Foundation plans a series of eight Saturday morning rides of increasing length.
Open to cyclists (with helmets) who have registered for the tour ($30), the outings will help you get ready to enjoy the tour’s “advanced” routes of 30, 50, 62 or 100 miles.
(The day will also include a family ride in which lots and lots of children pedal across the Big Dam Bridge and the Two Rivers Park Bridge. There’s no known way to prepare for that.)
Each week, trainees will gather in front of River Trail Station inside the river wall and near the Interstate 30 bridge in North Little Rock.
Saturday’s 25-mile training ride will be led by Bicycle Advocacy of Central Arkansas in honor of Marilyn Fulper Smith, who was killed while riding her bicycle in 2010.
More information is at carti.com, (501) 296-3429 and on the Facebook page CARTI’s Tour de Rock.
ActiveStyle, Pages 24 on 04/02/2012