Santa Rosa moves closer to getting mountain bike park thanks to state funding

Many people flock to Santa Rosa to jump into its iconic natural swimming hole known as the Blue Hole, but Eli Quinn envisions jumping trails on a mountain bike as the city's next big attraction.

Quinn and his nonprofit, Los Senderos de Guadalupe, are in the process of bringing a roughly seven-acre mountain bike jump and skills park to Santa Rosa. The project will carry a Route 66 theme, which inspired Quinn to name it Mother Road Bike Park.

"I think it's greatly needed locally and regionally because there's no riding in this area," said Quinn, a Santa Rosa resident and director of Los Senderos de Guadalupe, which is Spanish for the trails of Guadalupe. "It will be great for locals to have more recreation... and my hope is that it has a huge economic impact."

The bike park just got one step closer to coming to fruition, as Guadalupe County recently received a $499,999 grant to support construction of the park. The county will serve as the fiscal agent for the funding.

Mother Road Bike Park was one of several outdoor infrastructure projects that received more than $3.2 million in state funding, the New Mexico Outdoor Recreation Division announced Tuesday.

The state awarded projects across 13 counties and three tribal communities funding from the latest round of the division's Outdoor Recreation Trails+ Grant program. Awards ranged between $26,400 and $500,000.

Other funded projects include the construction of a multi-use trail around Lake Maloya in Colfax County, now supported by a $26,400 grant, and the redesign of a roughly three-mile, ADA-compliant asphalt trail along the Encantado Channel in Sandoval County, which received $50,807.

Taos County's Rocky Mountain Youth Corps will use the $500,000 it received to expand its young adult, national forest apprenticeship program, while McKinley County's Navajo Townsite Community Development Corp. will use a $33,333 grant to add a kids' bike bump rack to the community.

“This grant will allow us to ... support our growing Navajo mountain biking community, and provide a healthy activity to connect our youth to the outdoors,” said Prestene Garnenez, Navajo Townsite's executive director, in a statement.

The Outdoor Recreation Trails+ Grant program's latest round saw record-breaking demand, receiving 56 applications totaling $12.6 million in requests. The department saw a 60% increase in applicants compared to the last round, state officials said.

“Communities across New Mexico are eager to improve accessibility and provide safe and beautiful spaces for locals and visitors to get outdoors and enjoy all that New Mexico has to offer,” EDD Cabinet Secretary Rob Black said in a statement.

The $499,999 Guadalupe County received isn't the Mother Road Bike Park's first state grant. The project also received another grant from the ORD program earlier this year — that one totaling $99,999 — to support the park's design.

With the park's design completed, the most recent grant money will help the project break ground, funding the construction of the starting hub and up to three trails, Quinn said. The project will likely require Quinn to apply for further funding, as he expects the full cost to total $5 million and for the project to take roughly three years to complete.

In the meantime, Quinn said the latest funding has him excited and hopeful to start construction on the park early next year.

Mother Road Bike Park will offer eight trails totaling a combined nearly two miles. Each trail will feature Route 66 elements incorporated throughout, including structures that resemble iconic Route 66 landmarks Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo, Texas, and the Blue Whale of Catoosa in Oklahoma.

Additionally, the park's starting platform, where riders can descend from to catch speed, will resemble a classic gas station in a nod to Route 66 highway culture, Quinn said.

“It's really going to be a cool, one-of-a-kind park,” Quinn said.