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