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The Oldest Cross Country
Mountain Bike
Touring Center in North
America
Back Country Excursions, the oldest
commercial cross-country mountain biking tour center in North America, is
getting ready to celebrate its 20th birthday.
Founder Cliff Krolick, who turned 60
last December, described how his company got started.
In 1990 my son, who was 13 years old
at the time, and I
had just gotten a couple of mountain
bikes and we rode
off deep into the surrounding forest
around our home.
Even though back then bikes had no
suspension, we
spent an entire day riding and hiking
and crashing over
and through almost everything.
There were lots of discontinued and
old town roads and logging trails in the area -- many being very rocky and
washed out. In a way, these were more like highly
technical single track than roads.
That day we experienced an amazing sense of adventure and accomplishment.
I had purchased 15 acres of heavily
forested land in the foothills of the White Mountains in the early 1970's
with the intent of raising a family and growing some food. We soon
discovered that our land was located in the midst of a very large tract of
private forestland.
For nearly a century this tract,
almost 9,000 acres, was managed by one family and used primarily as a wood
lot and for hunting and fishing. Subsequently over the years it was sold to
larger paper companies like Scott paper but it had always remained as one
lot. The local people were always permitted access for hunting purposes and
with the advent of motorized recreation many of the more passable/logging
trails were enjoyed by ATVS, hikers, and occasionally by horseback riders.
After returning from that first day
riding mountain bikes together, my son turned to me and said, "Dad, you
should start a mountain biking business here." I understood why he would
suggest this, as we had just spent amazing day together discovering the
potential of the mountain bike. We had stumbled onto some very narrow, very
old logging and deer trails that no motorized traffic would ever find let
alone be able to squeeze through.
I was convinced that such an
undertaking might be possible. I had spent the past 15 years running a
masonry business and was ready for something new: something requiring a
whole new set of skills, something that would have no road maps or guide
books to follow, mountain biking as a sport was just beginning and I had a
golden opportunity and the right location to get started in this new
industry. After several months of planning and preparation, we opened for
business in 1991.
Those first years brought many
challenges. I learned the hard way what marketing and promoting was all
about. Slowly, over time, I started to grow my operation as I learned about
press releases, advertising budgets, getting good free publicity from local
publications. I eventually developed some special themed events focused
around mountain biking. These events quickly became the big drawing card
that brought many folks to Back Country Excursions to ride and experience
this amazing peaceful place.
By the mid 90's we were off and
running. Over the years some great articles came out about our operation
including one in Bike Magazine in September 1998 highlighting our brew-fest
and Mountain Bike Magazine also wrote about the annual brew-fest in April
2002 in their “Trippen With JT” columns. The brew-fest and our other events
were the first real mountain biking events in the United States other then NORBA Racing.
By the late 1990’s it was clear I
needed some help. For the most I had been running the operation single-
handedly. Some days I guided and rode my bike for 6-7 hours. With help I was
able to start an ambitious trail-building program. We began constructing 2
to3 miles of singletrack each season. By then BCE was a well known local
business we had lots of town and local support. The motorized folks WERE
HAPPY and stayed on the dirt roads and we were now well underway to having
an extensive system of deep woods hand-built singletrack for mountain
bikers.
The ice storm in January of 1998
provided a new opportunity. My trail system was decimated by the storm
damage. Early the following spring I began trail work to clear away all the
downed trees. As I worked, I realized it would be possible and make far more
interesting and challenging riding to build structures to ride over downed
trees and up into the canopy. Several popular trails soon became notorious
as high-flying stunt riding trails. Mountain Bike Action ran an article
about them in March of 2000.
All was fine in paradise, or so it
seemed, Well not quite. In 2002
I heard, from talking to neighbors and
the town selectman, that the present owner of this large tract of forest
land I was using was planning to break up the land into 22 parcels for
separate sale.
I quickly mobilized all the users and
we asked the company not to break up the land. We asked them to hold off
until we could locate a single buyer for the entire parcel. Back Country
Excursions teamed up with the Nature Conservancy, the Town of Parsonsfield,
and the State of Maine to raise three million dollars to be used to purchase
permanent recreational rights from the soon-to-be new owners.
In addition we were able to get other
restrictions instituted on the land. Finally, after several years of
negotiating, in 2006 we were able to completely protect the integrity of the
entire parcel for permanent recreational use. No commercial development of
any kind would be permitted that was not environmentally sustainable.
Back Country Excursions was heralded
as a perfect example of how two sustainable industries might respectfully
share the same land. To this day logging goes on and we continue to build
trails and ride. Our trails are always respected by the managers of the
logging operations and are left intact and out of harm’s way.
Ya Hoo Happy days and trails!
Cliff Krolick
Founder & owner of Back Country
Excursions
Posted By: Diesel
Date: 02/01/2010 |
