Travis- Critical Mass Summit (Trailblazers)

Local biking nonprofit hosts Critical Mass Summit centered around trail diversity.

By Jack Travis

During the weekend of Nov. 4-5, the Northwest Arkansas cycling community came together for the Critical Mass Summit to explore how they could tear down barriers to inclusion on the trail network within the region.

The worlds of cycling and community outreach generated new ideas for fostering inclusion on recreation trails throughout NWA, said Paxton Roberts, managing director of Trailblazers. Trailblazers is a local cycling nonprofit that hosted the two-day summit at Mount Sequoyah. This is the second year the event has taken place. Trailblazers’ goal with the occasion was to diversify the people involved in recreational and active transportation across NWA.

Those in attendance consisted of stakeholders involved in outdoor recreation, organizations representing minority groups in NWA, and nonprofits serving marginalized individuals, Roberts said. Attendees included nonprofits working in the trail cycling space such as Pedal It Forward, a NWA charity that recycles used bicycles back to families in need, Arkansas Latinas en Bici and the Marshallese Education Initiative.

 

The people at Trailblazers are interested in making sure everyone feels welcome to hop on a bike and pedal across the over 100 miles of Razorback Greenway, Roberts said. In 2021, two cycling nonprofits, Bike NWA and NWA Trailblazers, combined to form Trailblazers, focusing entirely on building trails and growing cycling culture.

Trailblazers is primarily involved in two forms of outreach, Roberts said. The organization is composed of an infrastructure side that focuses on developing trails and a philanthropy sector concentrating on programming and spurring engagement in the community. The Critical Mass Summit is one way the leaders go about expanding their outreach.

“The goal is that if we can bring organizations and members of those organizations together into the same room, into the same Summit,” Roberts said, “we can develop trust and build relationships between groups.”

Over 65 people attended the conference. Trailblazers awarded different stakeholders and interested parties 29 scholarships that waived entry fees, Roberts said. During the summit, organizers held workshops and invited keynote speaker Charles Brown, author, urban-planning researcher, and active transportation expert, to speak to participants.

Increasing trail equity is an issue many cyclists across NWA are concerned with improving, said local trail-builder Kylie Winbigler. She leads community rides for the University of Arkansas and said she is glad events like the Critical Mass Summits are happening to ensure there are few barriers in the way of people who want to recreate outdoors.

Trailblazers has planned gatherings and community rides throughout the end of 2022. Now that the Fayetteville Traverse mountain biking trail runs through the UA campus, Roberts said he hopes to find ways to involve students at the UofA.

“We’d love to get students more involved,” Roberts said. “We want [students] to be involved in the conversations taking place so we can learn what issues are relevant to them.”