# bike access on the dirt along the American River Trail in Sacramento??



## SNS1938 (Aug 9, 2013)

I've recently moved to Sacramento, and walk, run and ride along the American River Trail most days. I see that all the dirt trails are closed to bikes, yet horses are allowed on most.

I've found reference to a trial of letting bikes on the dirt trails by Cal Expo, but not much more.

1) *Anyone know of any organization lobbying for access?* It appears that the trail has many different management authorities running parks along it, so it would appear there are many places to lobby.

My ideal would be bike access on any trail, but even if it was just some CX racing in one of the parks along the river like River Bend Park, that would still be life changing for me. The trails look most suitable for cross bikes, as they're not technical at all.

2) *Now track cycling* ... I found a site for a group looking to get an indoor (I presume) velodrome in Sacramento, but they didn't seem to be moving forward much. Anyone got any advice about how I could help with this? The city has the population to support a velodrome, and would pull in people from San Francisco to Reno for events etc (i.e. probably 10 - 11 million people live within 2 hours of Sacramento).

Thanks,


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## ctflower (Dec 25, 2012)

SNS1938 said:


> I've recently moved to Sacramento, and walk, run and ride along the American River Trail most days. I see that all the dirt trails are closed to bikes, yet horses are allowed on most.
> 
> I've found reference to a trial of letting bikes on the dirt trails by Cal Expo, but not much more.
> 
> ...


I don't do much dirt, but what I do is up near Folsom. MTBR.com is a good starting point as I believe many posters are tuned into which associations are fighting for access.

Folsom Lake SRA trail access designations (includes Lake Natoma)- Mtbr.com

For the velodrome ... not sure other than the Sac Valley Velodrome Assoc. That's been hot and cold in terms of getting things going. There was a site planned out near Granite Park, but that was 2 years ago...

http://sacvalleyvelodrome.org/


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## SNS1938 (Aug 9, 2013)

ctflower said:


> I don't do much dirt, but what I do is up near Folsom. MTBR.com is a good starting point as I believe many posters are tuned into which associations are fighting for access.
> 
> Folsom Lake SRA trail access designations (includes Lake Natoma)- Mtbr.com
> 
> ...


Hi, thanks for the reply.

I have been meaning to look into mtb up around Folsom and Auburn, but haven't yet (I realized recently that I've not ridden my mountain bike since August 2015 ... time). 

I've done more riding on the paved American River Trail (ART from now on), and all the little sections of dirt trail look just amazing. I've seen a few people biking on them without issue, but all it takes is one annoyed hiker or a ranger and all the fun of the ride is turned into frustration etc. I'm still looking for an organization who is lobbying for bike access to those trails. I'll look up the trial near Cal Expo and see if it's still on.

The Sacvalley Velodrome is the site I'd found. The 'latest news' is May 2016. It amazes me how few indoor velodromes there are in the US. The building of indoor velodromes directly correlates to increased numbers riding on the track, which correlates to increased olympic success. Look at the UK, Australia and New Zealand. 

I'll see if there is a mailing list for Sac Valley and hope they have some way in which I can help by lobbying/letter writing, as I'm about $20 million short of the $20 million it would likely cost to build a velodrome 

Thanks,


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## SNS1938 (Aug 9, 2013)

Just looked at the 'Support Us' tab on the SacValleyVelodrome. The only option is to donate money. When the project needs some tens of millions of dollars, I don't see what my $20 will pay for ... seems it would just buy lunch for the board when they meet to talk about how they can't build a velodrome because they're missing $20,000,000 ...

Oh well, cross riding on the ART it is then.


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