Riding the Dirt Wave on the Oregon Coast
Why do you build trails? Why are trails important? There are innumerable responses to those questions. What initially compels people into picking up a rake, shovel, or McLeod is the desire for more and better local trails to shred on. However, at some point comes the realization that the creation of new trails goes far beyond our early motives for involvement. New trails represent hope for a better and brighter future for some communities. That’s what the Ride the Dirt Wave enduro series held on the Oregon Coast is about.
According to their website, “Ride the Dirt Wave was created to showcase mountain bike trail systems on the Oregon Coast.” The race series featured three different trail systems up and down the Oregon coast. The first race was held in early June at Klootchy Creek (Trailforks link) along the north coast. Each location has active bike clubs and trail builders that have built and maintained these trails. Most often, the trails are built with a combination of professional trail builders and volunteers. Klootchy Creek is under the umbrella and care of members from the North Coast Trail Alliance, a sub-chapter of the Northwest Trail Alliance. Klootchy Creek opened in July of 2019, and the trails are possible because of a partnership between Clatsop County Parks, Lewis and Clark Timberlands managed by GreenWood Resources, and the North Coast Trail Alliance.
While Oregon has well-known mountain bike trails and destinations dotted throughout the state, one of the missing or undeveloped pieces has been trails along the coast. The Oregon coast is one of the gems of the state, and each weekend, throngs of visitors pour out of the Willamette Valley, home of Portland, Salem, and Eugene, to traverse over the Coast Range and spend a day at the coast. For years, that meant doing so without your bike since there were very few options to ride. That was until Klootchy Creek (north coast), Whiskey Run (south coast), and the Big Creek Trails (central coast) came into being within the past handful of years. So why does this all matter?
Daniella Crowder started the Ride the Dirt Wave series. She’s also the owner and director of Mountain Bike Oregon (MBO), which I attended this summer as well (see my article “Mountain Bike Oregon is a Symbol of Hope for Oakridge and Other Rural Communities”). Interestingly, there’s overlap and commonality between Ride the Dirt Wave and MBO, and that is showcasing mountain bike trails and bringing in tourism dollars to smaller Oregon communities. Daniella (also owner of Bike Newport on the coast) shared with me, “As a small business owner on the Oregon Coast, we are thrilled to see active tourism as a new sector of visitors. Mountain bikers will bring their whole family, stay for a weekend, go out to eat, find a local brewery, and return to a spot they enjoy riding again and again and we are hoping with our new event, Ride the Dirt Wave, we can expose a whole new area to people to come and explore!”
While I type away on this article, I have two reports on my computer’s desktop: the Economic Analysis of Outdoor Recreation in Oregon and the 2023 Outdoor Participation Trends Report. While we see large data points, like a 22.9% annual growth in all biking categories across the country, we can burrow down deeper on a state level in Oregon to see more. Bicycling on unpaved trails, which is mostly mountain biking, results in users spending an overage of $77 per day. While I’ve seen other reports that suggest a higher per-day spending average, the bottom line is this … new trails bring visitors. When people come to ride, they bring their wallets (and purses and Apply Pay).
Ride the Dirt Wave and other events like it are working hard to promote new trails and riding opportunities. Again, one of the end goals is to continue to grow tourism, which is a lifeblood for these communities. And yet, even among an active mountain biking crowd in Oregon, many had never ridden these trails before. Daniella shared,
Ride the Dirt Wave was a huge success in its first year. Our main purpose was to highlight the coastal mountain bike trails, bike clubs, and trail builders and introduce them to new people. The first event at Klootchy Creek had over 100 riders attend and 80% of them had never been to the trails before. We saw the trend continue at the second event at Whiskey Run where over 150 people attended and many had never been to the area to ride. I spoke with many riders and was surprised to find that even some locals had never been out to the trails before but a majority who had never been were from the northern part of the state. One group of riders from the Seaside area told me they never would have gone to Whiskey Run Trails if it hadn’t been for the Dirt Wave event but now they plan to return! The final even in Newport had over 100 riders and since we were unveiling our new trails, well over 80% had never ridden the new system in Newport.
Ride the Dirt Wave not only highlights the importance of trails, but underlying it all are the countless volunteers who gave up weekends to maintain these trails. If you know anything about the Oregon coast, particularly the climate, that means most often spending most of the day being battered by rain and socked in with fog. Fortunately, an early June race on the coast brought nothing but sunshine, warm temps, and smiles. There is a beautiful dance between professional trail builders, volunteers, non-profit trail organizations, local businesses, and local and state tourism agencies to build, maintain, and promote new and existing trails. Each person and organization involved is essential to the whole process. While for many, volunteering is about making more and better local trails (and rightly so!), the added benefit is that others will want to travel to shred those same trails. We need more events like Ride the Dirt Wave and MBO to continue promoting these trails.
Words: Sean Benesh Photos: Sean Benesh
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sean Benesh
Sean is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Trail Builder Mag. He is also the Communications Director for the Northwest Trail Alliance in Portland, Oregon. While in grad school, he worked as a mountain biking guide in Southern Arizona. Sean also spends time in the classroom as a digital media instructor at Warner Pacific University.
