Archival info about Mountain Bike Trails in Tallahassee Florida

Some notes as remembered by Mike McCue.

An example of Bill Oterson's marvelous bike themed graphic art

This is a photo I made of a t-shirt created by Bill Oterson back in 1990. I owned and enjoyed this t-shirt for 32 years, before finally accepting that it was worn out. It was retired to the grease rag bin in 2022, but just before using it to clean a bicycle, I made a photo of the screen print to immortalize Bill's artwork.

FunFacts about Munson Hills Trail

Fun Fact: The original name of the trail was "Register Trail." The Forest Service proposed this name. Register is an old family name from the area south of Tallahassee. "Munson Hills Off-Road Trail" was suggested by Ken Foster and I because we thought that the name communicated a sense of place and referred to the local geology. We explained to the Forest Service that we hoped the name would foster an appreciation of the landscape and ecology found in the area. The place name was adopted before the first loop of the trail was complete.

Fun Fact: The original trailhead, found a mile south of the St Marks Rails to Trails parking lot, was located at the sight of a pre-existing water sampling well. Steve Sherwood, the Forest Service Recreation Ranger, intended for the well to become the source for a public water fountain. It turned out that the well could not effectively be certified as potable. The water was fine, but the paperwork was unwieldy. The trailhead was established as intended, but it took many years before a water fountain was installed.

Fun Fact: Why is Munson Hills so fast and flowing? Back "in the day," the old moto trails north and east of town were rooty, moist, and slippery. The riding was fairly technical, skills oriented, and not all that fast. South of town, the forest was lined with a couple hundred miles of motorcycle singletrack. These trails featured long, sandy, fast-riding straightaways that were peppered with whoop-de-doos spaced to entertain and challenge motorcycle suspensions. When Munson Hills was created from scratch, we had the opportunity to indulge our dreams of a smooth, fast, flowy trail. Ken was an excellent bike handler and athlete. He had experience riding in the Rocky Mountains and a great enthusiasm for spending time in the woods. I was a wheels-on-the-ground road bike rider from an east coast beach town who had grown up surfing and skateboarding when a zen-like flow state was the style surfers and skaters aspired to. We both were interested in designing a rhythmic and continuous experience. It was common for people to tell us that they had manifested the flow state while riding the trail. We received these observations as the finest of compliments.

Fun Fact: Initially, one-way travel was considered as the rule for riding Munson Hills, but two-way travel was mandated after the Forest Service explained the precedent law that had evolved on its snowmobile trails in the northern forest regions. Two-way traffic was preferred because it places the responsibility on the riders to avoid collisions with oncoming traffic. The Forest Service had learned from its snowmobile travel management that direction for one-way travel suggests there will be no head-on encounters. One-way direction introduces a presumption of safety, which exposes the federal management to liability as there is no practical way to effectively enforce a one-way traffic policy. Riders were encouraged to approach every blind corner as if an oncoming rider was about to appear. The two-way system has worked well.

Fun Fact: Once the first 4-mile loop had been flagged, walked, and test-ridden, Ken Foster borrowed a Gravely Walking Tractor from Robert Seidler and cut the trail flush to the ground during a solo marathon two-day work session. The Forest Service folks were annoyed that a machine had been brought out to cut the forest before we were granted approval. We learned a lesson: no power tools. So, for the 4-mile extension, we flagged, walked, test rode the trail, and then groomed the brush from the surface and edges with small hand-held pruners. When the Forest Service representatives inspected the proposed pathway, they found the trail extension was essentially finished. All that was left to do was the painting of blue blazes on the trees. There was an uncomfortable moment while the managers contemplated how to wrangle the situation. However, we straight-faced the issue while pointing out that the entire project had been prepared with hand pruners and only because we wanted the inspectors to walk and survey the proposed pathway in comfort. We probably saved six months or maybe a year of "planning time" by using this method.

Fun Fact: By the time the initial loop was completed Ken and I had already scouted an approximate route for the extension. Joel Bird and J.B. Ritter became integrally involved in our trail design process. Together, we spent many days and hours walking the forest, deliberating where the path should be, test riding the curves, flagging the route, and trimming the brush.

Fun Fact: Steve Sherwood, the the Apalachicola National Forest Recreation Ranger that made the first official mountain bike trails possible, served a long career in the service. Steve had a vision that would modernize the resource management of the forest system. During his tenure, he earned the position of Director of Recreation, Heritage, and Wilderness resources for the 22-million acre, five-state Rocky Mountain Region. That's quite a trajectory; rising all the way from a backwoods exile in Florida's Big Bend to overseeing all of the forest system's premier Rocky Mountain region.

Steve was introduced to Florida mountain biking by Robert Seidler. Robert was an old time motorcyclist and bicyclist who was involved with the Tallahassee Trail Riders, a motorcycle group that hosted an annual 90 mile enduro out near Fisher Creek. Robert and Bruce Means, a local world renowned biologist, were working to protect the forest area just south of the airport from being developed into Tallahassee's primary wastewater spray field. While they were accomplishing that, Robert met Steve and they started talking about motorcycle use. When mountainbiking became "a thing," Steve asked Robert what to make of them. Robert recalls "There was a big issue with motorcycles just starting new trails anywhere and the national forest was thinking bicycles would do the same." To make a long story short, Steve figured out that bicycle recreation made a positive contribution to the balance of a forest service management plan and he began brainstorming how and where a mountain bike trail could be placed.

Fun Fact: This paragraph briefly describes my personal experience helping create the Munson Hills Trail. I came to Tallahassee to attend the FSU School of Art. I was a sculpture major and had a specific interest in interactive public art. Speaking for myself, the Munson Hills Trail is the most gratifying sculpture I have ever taken part in creating. I am very thankful and extremely grateful to have had the chance to help create an interactive sculptural experience that so many people have enjoyed.

Early Mapping of Munson Hills Trail

Here are some pictures of the working maps I meticulously drew by hand as we were mapping out the Munson Hills Area. The info is a composite of the Forest Roads published on USGS 7.5-minute quad maps, the double tracks we could discern on the low-resolution aerial photos the Forest Service provided, and the numerous paths and trails we found by walking every inch of the area. The blue line example highlights the locations of all the Ephemeral Ponds found in the area. It illustrates how the trail was laid out with a fond appreciation of the unique habitat and ecology that occurs near these depressions.

The trail's curves and squiggles shown on these maps are not just decoration. Each curve actually occurred on the ground. The curves were mapped with an intimate familiarity of the trail's location and the surrounding terrain. Years later, when GPS surveys were made of the trail, the accuracy and detail displayed in these maps became readily apparent.

I am still searching for the older versions of the maps and hope to find them someday.

The simplified map shown below was used with paste up for a 8-1/2" x 11" photocopy handout that was widely shared at local bike shops. These unofficial hand outs were infamously referred to as the "Hippy Map" by members of the Forest Service.

Original Munson Hills Information Kiosk

Here are three pictures of the information kiosk designed and constructed by Ken Foster, Mike McCue, Patrick Schuler, and J.B. Ritter. The sign featured basic information about the trail and mountain bike safety, but its real purpose was to tell the story of the forest and its inhabitants. The information board popularized an understanding of the Big Bend Uplands Long Leaf Pine fire ecology, explained the geology of a Limestone Karst, and detailed how living creatures share the habitat in symbiotic relationships.

If I recall correctly, someone called in a special favor with Wilderness Graphics, which resulted in the production of a wonderful painting showing that many animals use Gopher Tortoise dens. Wilderness Graphics delivered the painting for our use at a deep discount to help kick-start enthusiasm for mountain biking as a back-to-nature activity.

The kiosk was our original design, as we felt the existing Forest Service designs lacked artfulness. Our sign was purposely designed to function as a two-sided information board, whereas the typical Forest Service sign was a single-sided board with a small asphalt roof tile overhang. The Munson Hills sign was constructed above and beyond the standard with heavy Yellow Pine posts and beams. It featured regional detailing, such as a Cedar Shake Shingle roof. It was entirely volunteer-built. The Forest Service funded most materials, but to make good use of time, the volunteers frequently found it more expedient to purchase some of the materials themselves.

Unfortunately, the kiosk was destroyed during the rework of Munson Hills when the then-current recreation ranger, who wanted to relocate the trailhead, explained that the signage had become dated and faded and would cost too much to refresh. While it was being torn down, the recreation ranger is said to have finally realized and appreciated that the structure had been constructed to last for years and years, but not before he had seen to it that the kiosk was demolished and broken into pieces.

The Munson Hills Off-Road Bicycle Trail Association

By the early 1990s, with the Munson Hills Trail nearing a phase of completion, we had amassed an impressive number of volunteer hours. The Forest Service had funded their internal efforts to manage the trail development by accounting with a Challenge Cost Share Assessment. A value was placed on the volunteer hours, and funding was provided so that Forest Service resources could be devoted to the trail's development.

The many hours credited to so few volunteers caused concern within the Service management. Those directly involved understood how much work we were doing and recognized how incredibly efficient we were at producing results. Still, it was suggested that we form some official public club so that the Forest Service could operate with a public entity in a context with which it was familiar. Thus, the formation of the Munson Hills Off-Road Bicycle Trail Association was announced. Then, we resumed operating as we had in the past. The association was never much more than a figment of imagination. There were no meetings, no rules of order, no monies being handled, no tax concerns, etc.

So, it was with great pride that members of the association accepted an invitation to accompany a delegation visiting from the Washington D.C. offices of the U.S. Forest Service for a grand review of the Munson Hills Trail. The people in Washington had heard about the trail and were eagerly curious to learn about it. The local Forest Service members were proud to show it off. We were thanked for our help and told the trail was the very first officially designated, made from scratch Mountainbike Trail in the entire National Forest System. The association was awarded a nice plaque to commemorate our service.

Here is a photo of a plaque awarded to the Munson Hills Off-Road Bicycle Trails Association.

The Munson Hills Off-Road Bicycle Trail is promoted with a press release

I do not recall the association having a post office box, but apparently, it did. Someone, I don't know who, wrote an excellent press release promoting the trial. The information included a very thoughtful description of the habitat and ecology, making it worthwhile reading even today.

Munson Hills as it was regarded by land managers

Here is a document referring to the Challenge Cost Share funding. You may notice that in 1991, we still used the Fat of the Land moniker as our umbrella organization. Some of the core members of the Fat of the Land community did not approve of efforts to introduce mountain bike trails as formally recognized infrastructure. There was a philosophy that trail riding should remain secret and exclusive. Some members went so far as to vandalize our trail work. Most of us old-timey mountain bikers are still dear friends; we learned to agree to disagree and moved on. This story is a long-winded way of explaining why our use of the "Fat of the Land" name was gradually deprecated until eventually, the use of "Munson Hills Off-Road Bicycle Trail Association" was adopted.

Florida's mountainbike advocacy is recognized by national media

By 1995, Florida's rapid acceptance of the creation of purpose-built off-road trails was recognized by the national media. A writer from Mountainbike Action was calling around and finding people to speak with about Florida's trail-building movement. A group of Floridians, including a handful of Tallahaseans, had just completed a circumspection of Lake Okeechobee while advocating for a trail to be created on the top of the levee. We rode 112 miles through waist-high grass and weeds. It was a brutal, fun-filled experience. The organizer, Herb Hiller, had arranged and held numerous press briefings that sparked the media's curiosity nationwide. Here is a photo of the magazine and an excerpt of an interview focused on the trail building in Tallahassee.

Errata regarding the Magnolia Trail

Here is an early giveaway photocopy of a hand-drawn map of Magnolia Trail, which depicts how it was blazed and existed in 1997. At that time, the trail sections on the eastern side were known to be old and well-established, while the trail sections on the far western side were all brand new, having been cut and mapped by Mike McCue, Wes Lucas, and Adrien Mariner. The trail sections in the middle were an assortment of old and new, as the recent construction of the Animal Shelter and the drainage structure were worked around.

The first mountain bike race I rode at Tom Brown Park would have been an event promoted by the Great Bicycle Shop in 1988 or 1989. I remember this because I rode with a brand new pair of recently invented clipless road pedals that I was eager to try. It had rained the night before, and my pedals jammed with mud. That was a big mistake, and I still remember Jim Greene looking at me with a "what were you thinking" look on his face. At this time, the trail was shorter and simpler than it is now, but it was nevertheless an established network of sections well-known to mountain bike enthusiasts.

In 1994, the modern trail layout was almost complete. David and Terri Berger of Gone Racing brought a stage of the Florida State Championship Series to Tallahassee. On the Friday before the race weekend, David and I walked the then-existing trails and defined a nearly 5-mile loop. We marked it with flagging ribbons because the official trail blazes had yet to be placed.

Click here to see the results of the 1994 race.

Between 1994 and 1997, Revolutions Cyclery and Kent Whittington promoted a few events at Tom Brown. The combined interest in Tom Brown resulted in the formalization of the Magnolia Trail. Numerous people volunteered many workday hours during this time.

The Arches at Magnolia Trail

The arches at Magnolia Trail were installed as an act of whimsy. The trails at Tom Brown were accessed from so many entry points that there was never a prominent trailhead, so J.B. Ritter and I thought it would be fun to make one up. The old roadway that went into the woods and intersected the trail behind the BMX track was a convenient trailhead for people who drove to the park. At that time, J.B. Ritter lived east of Monticello, and I lived out at Fisher Creek. Unlike all our friends who lived in town, we usually drove cars to Tom Brown, so we were most familiar with entering the trail system at that place.

Burl Lashley, who is Ace Lasley's father, facilitated the installation of the surplus utility poles. J.B. Ritter and I designed and fabricated the sculpted arches. There was an intention to mount signs shaped like a Magnolia leaf to display the trail's name, but it never came to fruition. I had cut the wood and painted the green panels but never finished painting the lettering. I stored the wood for many years. The leaf shapes may still exist, as I gave them away when we moved from Tallahassee to Moab.

The End of the Beginning

By the mid-1990s, mountain biking, and bicycling in general, had become recognized as an adult sport and a legitimate pastime. The City of Tallahassee had hired a Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator. We volunteers were used to working with Chuck Goodheart and his let's make it happen workflow, but now layers of oversight were being introduced by a new class of middle manager. This trend ultimately de-emphasized volunteer involvement and trended towards grant chasing and imperious budget management.

Some notes about Redbug Trail

Thomas Heerema

Redbug Trail and the Elinor Klapp-Phipps Park is located on a portion of the old Orchard Pond Plantation property. Colin Phipps and the Phipps family sold the parcel, which became Phipps Park, to the City of Tallahassee in October 1992. Long before the the park was open to the public mountain bikers had been riding the trail they called the Red Bug. If I understand the history correctly. Colin Phipps' son, and some of his friends, had pioneered the trail with motorcycles many years before mountain bikes were first sold at bicycle stores.

Word spread about the trail and it attracted local mountain bikers. In 1985 there were only a couple dozen dozen purpose built mountain bikes owned in all of Leon County. One, a 1985 Jamis Dakar, was owned by a born and bred Tallahassee local named Thomas Heerema. Tom happened to work as a gardener and woodsman for Colin Phipps so he became a sort of spokesman for all the bikers that were sneaking onto Colin's property and riding the trail. Colin was very gracious about sharing the trail, but he was concerned about maintaining privacy in and around the family's horse stables and out buildings. He also had a reasonable concern about liability and did not want to be held responsible if a trespasser got hurt on the private property. Somehow Thomas and Colin dreamed up an agreement where mountain bikers, who agreed to abide by Colin's stipulations, could sign a waiver agreement, and in consideration of a $3 payment, be granted a small frame decal, which once affixed to the riders bike, would indicate to Colin, or any of the groundsmen, that the rider had permission to ride the trail. This system seemed to work very well for a number of years.

The Redbug stickers were produced as a collaboration between Thomas and Peter Mamatey of Mamatey Graphic Design

Ken Foster recently found one of the old Red Bug stickers. It was still stuck on one of his first mountainbike frames. This is possibly that last remaining example of the circa 1984 "Red Bug" bike frame sticker.

Fun Fact: The first few times I rode the Red Bug trail I did it on a road bike. My mountain bike was a 27" Schwinn Varsity bike converted to 26" wheels and fat tires. The rear triangle had been spread apart by cutting the seat stay brake bridge and replacing it with a piece of steel bar stock. The front fork was the infamaous Ashtabula fork with the solid forged steel blades that were skinny enough to fit the fat tire. The bike used Weinman sidepull brakes making in nearly impossible to stop.

Emily Howton, a mutual friend of Thomas Heerema and I, owned a 1983 Trek 850 mountain/touring bike. She and I would ride from the FSU campus up to Red Bug and ride a few laps. I found it much easier and safer to make the commute to the north of town on my road bike, so settled for using it to pick my way through the trail and across the twisted roots. Not long after that I purchased a shiny new 1985 Jamis Dakota that was equipped with the rim crushing Roller-Cam brakes. It was a huge upgrade. I put a Red Bug sticker on it as quickly as I could.

Chuck Goodheart and the voluteers

Many people were riding around Red Bug before the City of Tallahassee officially adopted it as a mountain bike trail. Chuck Goodheart spearheaded the efforts to convince the city to adopt the existing trail. It is my sense that the volunteer work done at Red Bug was a higher profile than that done down in the back woods of Munson Hills. Numerous volunteer work days and special sessions were held at Red Bug, with friends from Revolutions Cyclery, About Bikes, and Joe Bikes making a strong turnout. It was common for gentlemen riders from Tallahassee's north of Interstate 10 neighborhoods to stumble upon the volunteer workers and inquire about how trails were made, maintained, etc. These encounters were influential in shaping a positive impression of the culture of trail building, which led to a broader acceptance of mountain biking in the Tallahassee community.

Revolutions Cyclery and Redbug Trail

Kent Whittington and Revolutions Cyclery held several well-attended racing events at Red Bug during this time period. I enjoyed the events. Kent might have some fun memories to share.

Gone Riding and Redbug Trail

In 1995 David and Terri Berger of Gone Racing brought a stage of the Florida State Championship Series to Tallahassee. The race was held at the Red Bug trail. On the Friday before the race weekend, David and I walked the then existing trail and flagged off the race course. We spent a long weekend visiting with the Berger's event crew. During the evenings we barbecued and told stories. We swapped a lot of ideas about trail building, working with land managers, and making trails happen. Several of the early Gone Riding staff members went on to become the driving force behind developing the mountain bike trails in the Santos - Belleview Trail system.

Click here to see the results of the 1995 race.

Tallahassee and Gone Riding

The Gone Riding race promoters required each event to be underwritten by a sponsorship package consisting of prizes and awards. This sponsorship was usually done by a bicycle shop operating near each event location. Gone Riding and the many out of town riders who traveled to and participated in the state-wide series greatly enjoyed the trails in Tallahassee, but no single bicycle shop in our area could justify the expense required to underwrite the event. In other parts of Florida, the big shops were eager to get a chance for sponsorship, but Tallahassee's market was relatively small, and of course, we had many shops competing for the limited business available. I persuaded the Gone Riding organization to make an exception for our town, and they agreed to let me volunteer to build a coalition with the local bike shops that would cooperatively sponsor the local race event. Some of the shop owners made it easy. Some said yes with justified reservations, and some could not imagine how the arrangement could benefit them. In the end, the State Championship events held in Tallahassee were very successful and emphasized the solidarity of Tallahassee's cycling culture.

At one event held at the Magnolia Trail, a handful of us volunteers served hamburgers as a fundraiser. We started with one hundred dollars of seed money and made repeated trips to the grocery store as operating funds were accumulated. We sold a lot of hamburgers at five dollars a piece. Hungry riders who did not have five dollars paid what they could. A lot of good will was shared. At the end of the race weekend, we presented Chuck Goodheart with a little over one thousand dollars to put in the city's trail fund.

Here is a letter of appreciation that Terri Berger from Gone Riding sent as a follow up to the 1998 racing season

Tallahassee Mountain Bike Festival 1998

The following 4 maps were prepared for the 1998 Mountain Bike Festival which was organized by members of the Capital City Cyclists.