By FERNANDO DEL VALLE
Staff Writer
HARLINGEN — When Henry Roberts closes his eyes, he sees mountain bikes riding up dips and jumping berms across a dirt track near the banks of the Arroyo Colorado.
Roberts is envisioning what will become the city’s newest trail — a 6.2-mile mountain bike trail across a 23.4-acre site next to Arroyo Park and the Arroyo Hike & Bike Trail.
“This place could be a jewel,” Roberts said yesterday. “It’s like a wonderland because it’s right in the middle of Harlingen.”
Earlier this week, city commissioners approved plans to turn the site into a mountain bike trail that will tie into the city’s expanding trail system.
“It’ll be a great part of the trail network,” Javier Mendez, the city’s parks director, said yesterday.
The track will tie into the Arroyo Hike and Bike Trail running from McKelvey Park, across Arroyo Park to C.B. Wood Park.
“The thought is to create connectivity in trails and create new trails,” Mendez said.
He said the project is not expected to carry a price tag.
But the city expects to provide labor and equipment to help develop the trail, he said.
Roberts plans to lead a group of volunteers to build it.
Now, he is working with developers of Brownsville’s mountain bike trail to design the track.
“This is grass-roots,” said Roberts, owner of Bicycle World.
Roberts has no fixed construction timetable.
However, part of the trail is expected to be completed by early fall.
“The public should have something to ride by October,” Roberts said.
Idea a year in the making
About a year ago, Roberts proposed the project before the Mayor’s Wellness Council, which supported it.
“It’s good for your health, too,” Roberts said.
Then the project won the support of the Parks Advisory Board.
Roberts expects the trail to draw mountain bikers from the Rio Grande Valley to as far as Austin, Houston and Dallas.
“It’s big,” he said of the popularity of mountain biking.
The trail, he said, is also expected to draw runners and nature buffs.
“Off-road running is becoming a real big thing,” he said. “So many people don’t want to ride on the road but want to ride off-road.”
Roberts said the project will be fashioned after the Brownsville trail and a mountain bike track in Mission.
“This land is better because of the elevation than the other two,” Roberts said.
He said he plans to build berms and dips along the winding 5-foot-wide trail.
“You want it to be natural,” he said. “We’re going to use dirt to create hills. We’re going to have steep hills to run through.”
Roberts plans to design the track to make it a fun course for beginners, but challenging for experienced mountain bikers.
“We want to make this for the slow poke and the radical,” he said. “As you get more experience, you want to be challenged more, so there are going to be off-shoots at some points for the more radical person. He gets into go on a merry-go-round that’s scary to other persons.”
Roberts said he plans to work with organizers in Brownsville and Mission to hold mountain bike tournaments at the three tracks.
In 2016, Maxine Pace Elkins donated the property to the city.
Then, the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department granted the city’s request to use the land as part of its parks system.
The city has scoped out the 23.4-acre site.
“We flew a drone over it just to see what was out there,” Mendez said. “It’s a lot of brush. There’s a lot of grass and concrete riffraff and tires.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, Mendez told Commissioner Michael Mezmar the project would not impact the area’s native habitat.
“For the most part, we’d be clearing out grass and maybe a few trees but for the most part we’ll be leaving it the way it is,” Mendez told commissioners. “A lot of trees they want to leave as a type of canopy.”
