Let It ROLL

By Brian Sorenson

Biking is big business in Northwest Arkansas. Its economic impact is measured in the millions. Bicycle retailers, manufacturers and businesses that cater to the needs of cyclists are finding good fortune in the Ozarks as a result. Supporting the cycling community’s needs is creating jobs and generating income in the region.

It seems that everyone in Northwest Arkansas rides a bike these days. Cruise the Razorback Regional Greenway on a warm and sunny day and you’ll encounter hundreds of people of all shapes, sizes and abilities doing the same. Locals are taking full advantage, but so too are out-of-towners. Cycling tourism is officially a thing.

As a sport and pastime, cycling is more popular than ever, but it’s not a new phenomenon.

The Highroller Cyclery opened in Fayetteville in 1972, making it the oldest bike shop in the region.

The Joe Martin Stage Race started in Fayetteville in 1978, making the amateur race the oldest of its kind in the United States. And mountain bikers have flocked to Devil’s Den State Park near West Fork since the 1980s, when its trail system opened up to fat tires.

The watershed moment was without a doubt the opening of the Razorback Greenway. The first sections were completed in Fayetteville in 2008, and the full length of the trail was dedicated in 2015. Today, 40 miles of paved surface spans from Bella Vista in the north to Fayetteville in the south. The trail’s branches carry riders to bars, parks, restaurants and shopping destinations. It is the thread that ties many of the historic downtowns of Northwest Arkansas together.

There have also been major investments in soft surface trails along the I-49 corridor. Coler Mountain and Slaughter Pen in Bentonville, Centennial Park and Kessler Mountain in Fayetteville, Hobbs State Park in Rogers and Fitzgerald Mountain in Springdale are just a few examples. These trail net- works draw out-of-staters in big numbers, as seen by the many states you can spot on the license plates that fill the trailhead parking lots on the weekends.

Growth in biking as a pleasure activity, a sport, and a mode of transportation creates impact across a broad range of economic categories – tourism, retail, manufacturing and wholesale and infrastructure.

Tourism

Brannon Pack is the cycling coordinator for Experience Fayetteville. His job is to promote cycling tourism and help local businesses meet the needs of cyclists. He said visitors interested in riding the trails are coming in huge numbers.

“The data shows that people are willing to drive in and have multiday experiences around cycling,” Pack said. “That has a big impact on communities here in Northwest Arkansas, including Fayetteville.”

In 2018, The Walton Family Foundation – in collaboration with PeopleForBikes and Bike NWA – commissioned BBC Research & Consulting to conduct a study of bicycling behavior in the region. The study said out-of-state visitors spent $27 million while visiting the area each year. Now, five years since the study’s release, that figure is likely much higher.

“We know the business benefits are there,” Pack said. “In my role I do a lot of work with our tourism partners, like hotels and restaurants, to help them understand how to cater to cyclists as a consumer group.”

Most cyclists prefer to transport their bikes on their vehicles. For Northwest Arkansas, that means drawing from large metro areas within a day’s drive – Dallas, Kansas City, Memphis, Oklahoma City and St. Louis. Pack said he expressed to local hoteliers how important it is for them to allow bicycles in guest rooms; leaving an expensive piece of equipment outside overnight is not practical given the risk of theft.

Pack said visitors crave two things when they are considering a biking destination – accessibility and amenities. “They like being able to park their cars and then not need them again until it’s time to go home. They are looking to spend their money on local food, local beer and local coffee, all of which can be found close to the Razorback Greenway.”

Several new tourist-drawing events have emerged in the region. The Cyclo-Cross World Championships were held at Centennial Park in Fayetteville the past couple of years. Cycling’s governing body – the Union Cycliste Internationale – designated Fayetteville as the United States’ first Bike City.

Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale and the smaller communities that make up Northwest Arkansas have their own biking events and festivals that attract visitors. And when they come they spend their money on goods and services, helping to create a sustainable cycling economy that contributes to the greater good of the region.

Retail

There are nearly three dozen bike shops operating in Benton and Washington counties. One of the newest is PedeGo Fayetteville, an e-bike outlet owned and operated by Liz and Matt Krauft.

The Kraufts became interested in opening an e-bike shop after Liz Krauft experienced pedal-assisted cycling for the first time. “As soon as I hopped on an electric bike I had an epiphany,” she said. “I knew it was the next big thing in cycling. We thought about it for about three years before we decided to go for it. We opened the shop in April of last year, so we almost have a year under our belt.”

E-bikes have gained popularity over the last several years. They have helped increase cy- cling accessibility for people who aren’t able or willing to put full effort into pedaling. Market research agency The NPD Group reported in late 2021 that sales of e-bikes had grown by 240 percent over the previous two-year period, surpassing sales of traditional road bikes. And the trend doesn’t seem to be slowing as more and different types of people are getting into e-bikes every day.

“Most of our customers have been at retirement or near-retirement age, and they are looking to get back into cycling,” Krauft said. “They feel emboldened by e-bikes and the trail infrastructure in our region. But what’s surprising to me is that we are starting to reach the younger generations who are looking for better ways to get to and from the places they need to go.”

Krauft is passionate about cycling as a means of transportation, and not just recreation. She often tweets about her love for Dutch cycling culture, which celebrates biking as a part of the everyday commute. Riding to school or work is becoming more possible at home as additional miles of paved trail are constructed. Pedal-assisted cruisers fitted with cargo racks and saddle bags allow riders to arrive at their destination with all their gear and none of the sweat.

In terms of the Northwest Arkansas market, Krauft sees ample opportunity. “What made us the most comfortable opening a business here is the extensive infrastructure,” she said. “And we chose Fayetteville specifically because it has proven that it will go above and beyond in creating more paved trails to connect different parts of the city.”

Right now, it’s just the couple working at the shop, but the goal is to grow the business to the point where employees are needed to keep up with demand. For now, Liz handles front of house duties and Matt handles the shop’s maintenance program, working on Pedago bikes only.

“Business has been good,” Liz said. “We had some growing pains in the beginning, but we learned a lot. We’re looking forward to what Year Two brings.”

MANUFACTURING & WHOLESALE

In addition to retailers, there are a few bike manufacturers located in Northwest Arkansas. Allied Cycle Works moved its high-end carbon fiber manufacturing operation to Rogers in 2019. Custom frame builder Magnolia Cycles is located in Rogers as well. There are others, and more on the way.

But Sam Lutz isn’t building bikes. He relocated his custom bike bag business – Buckhorn Bags – from New Mexico to Fayetteville in August 2022. The bags are but one of myriad products available in the cycling accessory market.

Lutz an avid outdoorsman, has been cycling for many years.

He started making frame bags while working as a carpenter at the University of New Mexico. “It was a fun outlet for me,” he said. “It was similar to carpentry in terms of fitting things together.”

With encouragement from friends, Lutz acquired a sewing machine in 2020 and started an e-commerce website. His bread and butter was making bags for the growing number of bikepackers in New Mexico. A cross between backpacking and cycling, bikepacking requires ample cargo space to carry supplies over long distances. Lutz’s products include frame bags of different sizes and waxed canvas panniers, perfect for hauling gear.

“I picked up some wholesale accounts there in New Mexico,” he said. “It was a nights-and-weekends job for me because I was still working full-time during the day.”

Eventually, Lutz and his wife decided it was time to move closer to family (hers in Lake of the Ozarks and his in Kansas City). Although Lutz attended the University of Arkansas as an undergrad, Fayetteville wasn’t initially the top pick.

“I was pretty disconnected from Northwest Arkansas since leaving school a decade ago,” he said. “But once we started looking at it, I realized the cycling infrastructure and biking community is really strong. All of the trail access and bike-friendly businesses make the area unique, which was a big plus for us when deciding to move the business here.”

Lutz now makes Buckhorn Bags in a shop just off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in south Fayetteville, less than a quarter-mile from the Razorback Greenway. His previous clientele of mostly bikepackers has evolved to include more types of riders. “Now it’s people who are biking to work, or otherwise spend all day on their bikes cruising the trails,” he said.

Business has been brisk for Lutz’s one-man shop. He said he experienced a brief period when the time between receiving a customer’s order and delivery of the final product reached eight to 10 weeks. “That was pretty challenging,” he said. “I was doing significantly more business than I expected.”

Infrastructure

The trails don’t build themselves. It used to be that the shovels and pickaxes were thrown about by volunteers. That’s how Phil Penny got his start in trail building.

Penny is the owner of Rogue Trails, a local firm that designs, builds and maintains trails of all types. Penny’s background is in environmental science and engineering and he started racing mountain bikes in the early days of the sport. Those combined experiences made trail construction a natural career transition.

“We have a soft surface division, a climbing division and a natural resource division,” Penny said. “The natural resource division does all the due diligence in terms of environmental permitting and land management for outdoor recreation projects.”

Penny is a former president of Ozark Off Road Cyclists. Two big projects he worked on while leading the group were the trails at the Buffalo Headwaters in remote Newton County and Kessler Mountain in Fayetteville. After several years of volunteering his time, he founded Rogue Trails in 2017. Since then, his firm has designed over 500 miles of trail and built over 120 miles of path in eight states.

“There are many different layers to trail building,” Penny said. “It’s not just a guy who shows up as a volunteer to build a trail anymore. It’s a multifaceted thing to do it well.”

Rogue Trails employs 25 people who design and build trails all across the United States. A proud Arkansan,

Penny can’t imagine living anywhere else due to the bustling biking scene in Northwest Arkansas, even as he travels across the country riding mountain bikes and manages projects in multiple states. .

“The scene today is at such a higher level than it was in the past,” he said. “Back in the day there were just a few of us racing, and we were in t-shirts and boots. Nobody ever matched because nobody had racing kits. By around 2006 the bikes started improving and the trails were getting better. Now it’s the place to be if you’re into the sport.”

The increasing number of trail miles requires constant attention from professionals. In addition to Rogue Trails, other companies engaged in trail design and construction include Progressive Trail Design and Rock Solid Trail Contracting, both based in Bentonville and both employing significant numbers of people.

Recognizing the need for trained trail crews, Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville recently announced plans to start a trail construction and maintenance program. The school started offering a technical certificate in bicycle assembly and repair in 2021. People interested in a career in cycling now have opportunities to obtain the necessary skills.

Penny sees the program as a valuable asset in the area as the popularity continues to surge in Northwest Arkansas. “We’re involved in the program at NWACC. We are helping them develop a design-based and maintenance-based class. Hopefully my business will continue to grow, and I’ll need to hire those graduates.”

The many individuals and businesses behind Northwest Arkansas’ biking economy are bolstered by local and state government. Pack with Experience Fayetteville said the vision of government, tourism and economic development leadership have created and supported a holistic approach to expanding cycling in the region, and the public has responded accordingly.

“Public input is important because citizens see the value biking brings to Northwest Arkansas,” he said. “The bond we passed in Fayetteville in 2019 meant $20 million in trail projects in this decade alone.

“[Prioritizing biking] is both top-down and bottom-up. Now, a lot of businesses are selecting Northwest Arkansas as their home base. This speaks to the gravity of the trail investments we started making many years ago. If you build it, they will come.”

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