A biker's feast: Here's how Love Biketober Fest will aid efforts for trails, bike safety.
When bike trails grow, we get giddy. Look at the new concrete on the Coal Line Trail expansion in South Bend where people are already climbing the hill, even though orange barrels tell us that it’s not officially open and that contractors still have work to do.
But for every gain, there’s so much we’re still missing — gaps in connecting trails and rider safety. Trails end, so we have to ride partly on roadsides and sidewalks. Cyclists are still badly injured in crashes.
That’s what brings back the annual Love Biketober Fest on Oct. 8 with hot food, Oktoberfest beer from Evil Czech, Bavarian merriment and a range of rides on either dirt or paved back roads or the mountain bike trail at Love Creek County Park, 9292 Huckleberry Road, Berrien Center.
The Bike Michiana Coalition counts on this event as its key fundraiser to fuel several of its efforts to aid and advocate for more trail growth and more and safer biking. That includes the ongoing efforts to seek and find ways to extend the Niles-to-Michigan trail so that it reaches Berrien Springs and Elkhart, too.
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New this year, the event will feature a silent auction for a Trek Checkpoint ALR4 gravel bike, valued at about $1,800. Bids will be taken at the event. The Trek Bicycle Granger store donated the bike.
Proceeds from Love Biketober Fest will be split 60% for BMC and 40% for Love Creek.
BMC President Jo Broden shared with me the key programs that the organization plans to support in the coming year:
∎ Riding For Focus takes students at Navarre Middle School in South Bend out biking with mentors during their physical education class, to improve their cognitive and socio-emotional well-being. It started this fall, as I wrote in my Aug. 16 column. The nonprofit co-op South Bend Bike Garage landed the major grant, curriculum and 40 new bikes. BMC provided aid this year, and plans to do the same next year, Broden says.
Aug. 16, 2023: Biking for PE class: Could it help Navarre students to focus better on studies?
∎ South Bend Bike Garage tries to ensure that every kid who acquires a refurbished bike there (whether their parents/guardians buy or earn it) also has a helmet on his or her head.
∎ About 100 adults are receiving bikes from the new nonprofit Life Cycle Elkhart County, which provides refurbished bikes to those in need so they can get to work. BMC dollars will help to provide helmets, too. Life Cycle is a program of the nonprofit Saving Grace Advocacy, Chain Reaction Bicycle Project and Guidance Ministries.
∎ Dollars could help to continue the “bike ambassador” program in 2024 that this summer had AmeriCorps member Jacob Beshara out at public events to provide free valet parking for bikes, minor repairs, cleaning and outreach.
∎ Along with support for Michiana Bike to Work Week activities in the South Bend area, seed money would help to start similar activities in surrounding communities that don’t already have bike weeks.
∎ A group of cycling advocates and planners, called Bike South Bend, hopes to eventually bring back a big, one-day bike ride to invigorate the public’s interest in biking. In years past, we’d seen the Mayors’ Ride come and go and, before that, the really popular Bike the Bend.
Love Creek will use its proceeds to expand the park’s current mountain bike trail, which is now 3.5 miles, “to add a little more diversity,” park naturalist/manager Derek Pelc says. There are ideas for where to expand the trails, as riders saw on a map at last year’s event, but, Pelc says, he hasn’t yet started the process to grow them.
June 14, 2023: Trails galore across St. Joe County, plus one in Benton Harbor: They grow to connect.
At Love Biketober Fest, you can improve your mountain biking in skills clinics that will be led at 11 a.m. and 1 and 3 p.m. A special clinic for kids will start at noon. Kids will also find nature hikes and a scavenger hunt.
Those riding the dirt/gravel routes can choose from 13-, 24- and 36-mile options. Those on the road routes have 25- and 50-mile routes. If you’re just mountain biking on Love Creek’s trails, there will be a trail extension just on that day.
Evil Czech Brewery and Brentwood Tavern will provide the meal and beer.
Registration will open at 9 a.m., and rides start at 10 a.m. Food and beverages will be served from noon to 4 p.m. Cost is $65 through 1 a.m. Sept. 28, $70 through Oct. 7 and $80 at the event. Register at lovebiketoberfest.com.
Niles’ bumpy trail
The many bumps crossing the Niles trail, just north of Fort Street, are so irritating that I’ve seen some cyclists avoid that section altogether. Others learn to take it slow and easy. The culprit resides in the many tree roots in that heavily wooded area, which cause the asphalt to pop up as if there’d been an earthquake.
I asked city administrator Rick Huff what the city plans to do about this. He says the city has applied for two grants to help with trail maintenance, and if those fall through, it will keep seeking grant dollars “so the trail system is well maintained.”
“I ride a lot of trails throughout Michigan and all of them have the same issue with tree roots when trees are located close to the pavement,” he says, adding that the city doesn’t own enough right of way to clear cut trees right by the trail.
True enough, asphalt trails are prone to cracks, bumps and holes that need patching and regular maintenance. The Riverside Trail in South Bend is just starting to see similar cracks. As other trail owners have found, it’s not enough to build a trail. You need dollars to maintain it, too.
In other biking news
∎ Crane Cruise: On Oct. 14, this flat bike ride out of the fire station in Medaryville, Ind., on U.S. 421, takes you through sandhill crane feeding grounds on routes of 14 to 50 miles. Rest stops will have homemade snacks. Soups, hot dogs and sausages will be served afterward. Watch sandhill cranes gather by the hundreds or thousands in a guided presentation at 5 p.m. at the viewing platform at nearby Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area. Registration will run from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. EDT. Cost is $35 per person, $90 per family. Details are at cranecruise.com. For questions, contact Shaun Hauptli at 219-204-1430.
∎ Winona Lake Trail Fest: You’ll help to support a trailhead expansion and the future Winona Lake Bike Park if you join at least one of many events in this two-day fest. On Oct. 14, try a 5K/10K fun run and walk, a free mountain bike skills clinic for kids, a six-hour fun endurance mountain bike race for individuals or teams of up to three, live music and food and refreshments, and a night mountain bike ride. On Oct. 15, there’ll be mountain bike races for kids, a potluck meal and a poker run mountain bike ride. Most events cost $20-$25, while the endurance race is $50. Find details and register at kcvcycling.org/initiatives/winona-lake-trails.
Also playing
∎ Art, bugs and bog: Join nature hikes and take part in a series of art activities from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sept. 30 at Lydick Bog Nature Preserve, 25898 U.S. 20, South Bend. You can paint or draw on a paper mural featuring plants of the bog with help from the South Bend Museum of Art. Make and take home a “pom pom garden” inspired by the carnivorous roundleaf sundew or try your hand at plein air art, where you paint or draw the landscape that you see. Or chat with members of the Northern Indiana Pastel Society, who will be plein air painting throughout the preserve. Shirley Heinze Land Trust, which owns the preserve, runs this free Nature in the Arts event, titled, “Bug-Eating Plants of the Bog.”
∎ Love hike: The Harbor Country Hikers will hike about two miles of hilly trails led by a naturalist at 1 p.m. Sept. 30 at Love Creek County Park, 9292 Huckleberry Road, Berrien Center.
Find columnist Joseph Dits on Facebook at SBTOutdoorAdventures or 574-235-6158 or jdits@sbtinfo.com.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Love Biketober Fest at Love Creek to fill bike trails safety gaps
