Queens Tribune
 
....September 4, 3:23 PM
 
 
 
A Ride In The Park: Bikers Bring The Mountains To Queens

The park includes trails for all ages and experience levels.
By Michael Lanza

Just a few short years ago the woodland trails weaving through Cunningham Park – lying dormant and littered with the evidence of neglect – would be the last destination on the minds of local sportsmen.

Jerry Emerson, a mountain biker and the co-owner of Peak Bicycle Pro Shop in Douglaston, remembers riding through the park trails when they sat decaying under the residue of years of illegal dumping.

“You don’t have to have mountains to go mountain biking, you just need some trails,” Emerson said. “Cunningham Park, it was just a whole corridor of unused parks. They were just sitting there rotting away and being used as dumping grounds. It was just filled with garbage and abandoned cars.”

But until recently, Emerson and his avid group of local mountain bikers rode at their own peril. New York City’s Parks were off-limits to mountain bikers; riding was illegal.

Then two-years ago, Emerson got some surprising news from Concerned Long Island Mountain Bikers (Climb), a non-profit organization that builds and maintains local mountain biking trails.

“Mike Vitti [CLIMB’s president] came to me and told me that the City had just granted them Cunningham Park,” Emerson said.

With CLIMB and a small group of dedicated volunteers leading the way, they transformed the neglected trails into the City’s second mountain bike park and the only mountain bike course in the outer boroughs.

CLIMB opened the North Woods Mountain Bike Trails at Cunningham on Memorial Day in 2007. The network of trails, which begins at the intersection of 210th Street and 67th Avenue, now spans the entire northern section of the park.

“In Cunningham Park they took literally two-miles and turned it into nearly seven,” Emerson said. “In the same amount of land they added another five miles. They made it take longer to get from point A to point B – and that’s what just makes it a really awesome park.”

 
 

Jerry Emerson owns Peak Bicycle Pro Shop in Douglaston with his wife, Joani Giambrone. The bike shop helps raise funds to improve the trails at the Queens park.

With the help of Emerson’s periodic fundraisers, the group has created local course for New Yorkers that both embraces beginners and challenges veterans.

“We used to have to drive out to Long Island,” Emerson said. “And here it’s in our backyard – and it’s better than any of the Long Island trails. It has far more technical features.”

Emerson said he felt obligated to contribute to the project both as a biker and as a business owner.

“Cunningham’s our backyard, that’s why I had to give,” he said.

Emerson and Peak Bicycle Pro Shop have raised more than $9,000 towards the signs, tools and labor needed to build and maintain the trails.

“All of it is going to Cunningham Park,” Emerson said. “They’re building so many cool technical features in there.”

Today, man made dirt mounds, rocky hills and log bridges have replaced the trash heaps and broken cars along the park’s trails.

“It’s a great park for everybody to learn on, you can be a novice rider or you can be a skilled rider – everybody has something to ride on,” Clifford Toy, a Flushing mountain biking enthusiast, said. “Anybody can ride Cunningham Park; just grab a bicycle and go.”

Toy has joined the group of nearly 20 volunteers who come to the park every Thursday to maintain and expand the bike trails.

“The CLIMB organization is constantly fixing or improving the mountain bike park,” Toy said. “We’re just trying to give back to the community.”

And with the most recent Cunningham Park fund raiser last Tuesday, riders can expect even more improvements coming up in the near future.

“It’s a great organization.” Emerson said. “They’re taking boring parks and making them really cool.”

For more information on the Cunningham Park mountain bike trails, visit www.climbonline.org.