The District of Houston’s bike library is operational again and has already started seeing community members signing out bikes to ride the trails.
The bike library was started in spring of 2019 as a result of a grant that the Houston Mountain Bike Association (HMBA) received. The grant was for 10 bikes and has been used to buy four bikes for adults, two for youth and two for toddlers.
The Northern Health Authority, gave the club $5,000 in 2019 to buy these bikes so as to offer people a way to exercise at no charge.
“Along with Northern Health, it allows HMBA to get members more active and maybe try a new sport,” said Miake Elliott who has been helping through Pawesome Adventure’s community involvement.
Mountain biking is known for trails offering some adventurous descents with advanced trails often having grades of 15 per cent. But a beginner trail may have grades of a very manageable 5 per cent and that’s what the club has to offer those who will try out the bikes.
“The bikes are designed well enough to do trail riding on Mount Harry Davis as well as easy stuff in town or the Nordic center,” she said.
As part of the community involvement, Pawesome Adventures administers the bike library and also maintains bicycles along with Wild Bike in Terrace. Pawesome Adventure and the Steelhead Building also help the program with additional administration and storage according to Elliott.
There is no end date to the library loan program and Elliott said that the library will continue to run as long as there is enough interest, storage and administration.
Community members can sign out a bike to try the Houston trails with a valid ID.
“As an outdoor activity the only regulation is keeping the bikes sanitized and we are not able to loan out any helmets,” said Elliott.
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Priyanka Ketkar
Multimedia journalist
@PriyankaKetkar
priyanka.ketkar@ldnews.net
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