Mountain Bikes in Tryon Park

Will mountain bikes be allowed in some Monroe County Parks?  That is the hot topic in the local trail community.  Today, mountain bikes are barred from hiking trails in all parks in the county except for Dryer Park in Victor.  Sherwood Fields, a small park in Penfield, is being developed to accommodate mountain biking but has not opened to the public yet. Dryer Park.  The Dryer Park trail layout is like a ski resort.  There’s a plateau at the top of a large set of fields and downhills on all sides.  The trails have been cut into the downhills, winding back and forth with some obstacles and drops.  Mountain biking on difficult terrain requires a lot of skill.  The Dryer Park trails are designed to allow riders to practice skills on short runs of trail.  The Genesee Regional Off-Road Cyclists (GROC) website (www.victormtbc.com/) has maps of the trail network and, especially helpful for those unfamiliar with single-track riding, videos of cyclists on the trails.  The Dryer Park trails are described as being multi-use trails, i.e., in this case meaning that hikers and runners are allowed to use them in addition to the mountain bikers.  The trails seen in the video look like they might interest trail runners.   If you have run them, let me know what you thought of the trails and whether you observed any problems with sharing the trails with bikers.  Proposed Trails in Tryon Park.  Aside from Dryer Park, the hundred and perhaps thousands of mountain bikers in Monroe County have to drive many miles to find single-track trails that can be legally ridden, e.g., Ontario County Park near Naples, Harriet Hollister Park near Honeoye and Letchworth State Park all have single track trails open to cyclists.  The organized mountain biking community (e.g., Genesee Regional Off-Road Cyclists, www.victormtbc.com/) has been talking with Monroe County Parks for years about opening up additional trails to bikes.  The current focus for the discussion is the new master plans for five County parks:  Ellison Park, Tryon Park, the Wetlands, Irondequoit Bay Park East and Irondequoit Bay West. As of March 10th, the draft master plan calls for allowing mountain bikes on trails in Tryon Park for a trial period and perhaps development of new shared use trails suitable for intermediate bicyclists in Irondequoit Bay West Park.  Of special interest to Around the Bay runners, a trail connection from Irondequoit Bay West Park to Empire Boulevard has been proposed. Tryon Park contains 82 undeveloped acres on the western shore of the Irondequoit Creek Wetlands between Browncroft and Empire Boulevards.  Access is via Tryon Road off of North Winton Road.  Some mountain bikers have constructed trails and jumps in the park.   You can see them do stunts on YouTube (search for “Tryon Park Rochester”). For the latest news on the parks master plan, check out the GROC site for the pro-bike view and the Genesee Valley Chapter of the Adirondack Mountain Club (http://gvc-adk.org/conservation/local.php) for the hiker perspective.