Topeka’s Hidden Gem: A Massive Trail Network | Rick Bean

Cold Open And Sponsor Message

Speaking of studs, I'm gonna talk about stud for a second. He went from Mexico to the Canadian board. Crazy. Yeah, these guys are crazy. He averaged a little over a hundred miles a day. The Topeka area is right up there, round number one or two in mileage of various triples that people don't even know about.

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Meet The Top City Trail Alliance

in the studio. Today we've got Mr. Rick Bean, president of the Top City Trail Alliance, in the house with us. Welcome to the studio.

All right, excellent. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Absolutely, man. So you're you're an outdoors enthusiast. Yes. And Top City Trail Alliance helps oversee and maintain and build trails, hiking trails, riding trails. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Sure, sure. So we're a nonprofit organization. Uh we were organized in 2021. And uh, yeah, our main goal is to make our community better. I mean, we're we're all about volunteers. There's, you know, all the money that comes into our organization goes directly to the trails. You know, our volunteers don't get paid. They're out there doing their thing. And uh, you know, the the primary I guess it could be broken down into four areas. One is maintaining trails. You know, there's a lot of existing trails out there that need maintenance, and we do that. Um and we do that through memorandums of agreement with various land managers. Uh, we also build our own trails, which we've we've built some trails here in Topeka, and uh they've turned out uh, I think very nice. Um we have social events for the community. Yeah. Um that includes uh trail runs, uh hikes, and uh mountain biking. Yes. And then we like to try to educate uh folks on um, you know, uh it it rained today, please stay off the trail, don't leave ruts, you know, and trying to appreciate the trail system that we have here in Topeka.

What Counts As A Real Trail

That's awesome, man. Okay, so I'm gonna ask you a dumb question that falls into number four that you just said. You're gonna educate me here. All right. When you say trails in Topeka, what goes through my mind is the Shawnee County Parks and Wreck concrete trail that I run around on Shunga. Sure. I actually don't run around on it. We walked it off. What other kind of trails are there? You know, what I guess materials or uh whatever you describe it as. What kind of trails are you talking about?

So so we're primarily responsible for what I call natural surface trails. So these are trails that will go through a prairie or woodlands or, you know, they're natural surface, meaning that they're dirt, roots, rock, that type of stuff. Uh and amazingly enough, there's quite a few miles of trails here in Topeka, which is awesome because if you look across the state of Kansas, um I'm thinking, you know, that the Topeka area probably is right up there around number one or two in mileage of various trails that that people don't even know about. Really? Really cool. Yeah. Yeah. So what are some of your favorite trails? Well, here in Topeka or statewide here in Topeka nationally, or yeah.

Uh we can we could go that way.

All right. Uh here in Topeka, I really like Carl River State Park. I really do. And the reason why I do is because uh you're you're looking at uh Kansas natural forests, which how many forests do we have in Kansas? But here's a natural forest, natural hardwoods. Uh you're setting right above the Kansas River, and uh I mean you you're you're talking about elevation-wise of a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet elevation difference between the river to the top of the top of the hill.

That's awesome. Okay, so before we recorded, we were talking about this. I I mistakenly thought that was all lumped in with Governor's Mansion. But it's everything on the other side of that paved hill from Governor's Mansion is a separate park, and that's Car River State Park.

Right. So there's you know that asphalt road that goes down to the boat dock. So on the east side is is the governor's mansion, uh it's Cedar Crest, and on the west side is the Car River State Park. So there are two different organizations that are land managers. Uh the Cedar Crest Organization for the Governor's side, and then uh Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks for the West Side. And we take care of the west side, and and uh we're working on hopefully trying to get uh maintenance on the east side as well. Cool. The interesting thing about the west side, uh by the way, if you want a little more about it, is that Car River State Park is uh the the only urban park that I know of in Kansas. Um it is a parking right, yeah. I mean, right here in Topeka, hundreds a hundred thousand plus can enjoy that park, and it's one of the only state parks that they don't charge a fee. You know, most of the time you go into a state park, you have to get the sticker, you have to pay.

That never crossed my mind.

There's a positive to that and a negative to that. Right. Obviously, the positive is it's free. You know, you can go in and enjoy the park. The negative is that uh their budget for that particular park is probably not as good as the other budgets that have boating and other things.

But yeah, wow. Okay, let me I love that trail, man. Sorry. I just it's such a fun trail. There's so many options, you can take different routes each time. You got the few bridges there. We jog the trail, we'll hike with our kids. It's man, it's a that's a fun one.

How how many trails in Kansas has that scenario, that scenery, you know, the river, the woods, not very many. Right. So we're lucky.

Yeah, and it is nice. The elevation gain is really nice. Like if you're, you know, we're training for something and it's like, man, yeah, we need something with some elevation here, and maybe you can just go that up and down, and it's great. You can. There, there's a lot of people that train out there.

Yeah, it really is.

Topeka’s Key Trails And Difficulty

How many trails do we have in Topeka?

We have we have quite a few. So so let's let's talk about what I call the the four main trails in Topeka. And I'm again, I'm talking about natural surface trails, so I'm not including concrete and all that. Right yuck. So Car River State Park, uh, Cedar Crest, Skyline, which is a lot of people know that as Burness Mound. Right, yeah, right, and then Dornwood. And and Dornwood happens to be probably the oldest um might call mountain bike trail in Topeka, and um probably in northeast Kansas is one of the older ones.

Do they vary in difficulty?

All four of them are different, yeah. Absolutely.

Let me ask you this here. My friend Johnny Boy here is an experienced trail runner. Okay. I am not. What would you recommend for a beginner of those four? And what would you recommend for someone who's maybe in better shape?

Yeah, so probably you know, elevation, right? You need to be in pretty good shape to run up the hill, if you will. So that would probably be Cedar Crest and the Carbur State Park. Okay. All right. But there are areas there that are easy too. Yeah. I mean, if you stay up on the top of that hill and do a loop up there, you're gonna be fine. Yep. All right. Uh Burnett's Mound, Burnett's Mound has some elevation, but not as much as the other two. And then uh Dornwood is is very unique because we have three loops there. We have the blue loop, the yellow loop, and orange loop, and each one's a little bit different. Um, you know, I think you you'd be probably set to do the blue loop, and then if you got tired with the blue loop, you could run on the concrete trail, which is Deer Creek, that runs through there.

So there's almost different so when you say loops, just different ways to do the trail.

Yeah. Well well, there there's just what we call loops, I guess, is is um they're complete loops. So you can start at one point and end at the other, but they're all different in the sense of like the orange loop to me is really rocky and choppy and uh techy in certain areas, whereas the yellow loop is just a blast, it's a flow loop that goes down into a um abandoned riverbed, and you get a lot of you know what I call dippy-doos. Yeah, yeah. And then the blue loop has a little bit of everything. So a lot of characteristic with that park, which um we um we applied for a grant um on that park, and uh it's with Blue Cross, Blue Shield, with uh Live Will Shawnee County being our sponsor, and I think we're getting pretty darn close to getting that grant, which will hopefully add a fourth loop. Cool, and then do some improvements on the existing park, such as putting up a kiosk and and trail signage and some safety. You know, we had um public availability sessions with the with a community there, and one of their biggest things was you know safety. So, you know, getting getting signs uh and and lights and things like that, I think is important.

Yeah, that's cool. I think that's the one trail I haven't been to is the Dornwood one. A lot of people have not. Yeah, but I've been I've gone past it. Like so the Deer Creek one is what goes from Shunga to Shawnee Lake. Is that that that one? Yeah, so it connects kind of to the Dornwood one.

Yeah, it it connects in fact it goes right by Dornwood. So you can go from Deer Creek right onto the Dornwood Trails, just right from there. You know, Dornwood has a a unique history in the sense it used to be a dairy farm. So if you go up to the top where there's uh ball diamonds, there's also an old structure from the dairy farm, old limestone structure that's sitting there, and that's the entry into the Dornwood Trails. Oh, interesting.

Okay. Yeah. So yeah, I've been to those fields, but I've never gone actually into the park. Interesting. Well, that's cool, man.

How The Alliance Started

So you are the president, um, but also one of the founding members in 2021. How did this come about? Right. Was it uh how how does this even start?

Sure, sure. So, you know, um everybody on our group obviously is is either a mountain bike rider, sure, trail runner, uh hiker. You know, I consider kayaks another trail in the sense of it's water trail. Sure.

Um That's I never thought of it that way. That's cool. Yeah, a water trail.

But at the Call River State Park, um we were we had been riding that for several years, and there was an area to the west in which renegade trails was being cut in. And uh the park manager at the time, Tony Reets, he he thought, well, you know, this can't happen. I'm gonna have to close, close this whole section of the park. So obviously, trail users, we didn't want that to happen. So we we called a meeting with Tony. Tony was awesome, by the way. But we called a meeting with Tony, and um we had a I bet we had 15, 16 members of uh the trail user groups there. Talk through it with him, and he said, you know, um, Rick, one of the one of the best things that we can do here is uh we need some maintenance out here. Um why don't you try to form a group called you know Friends of the Car or Friends of Uh the Car River State Park or whatever you want to call it. And uh he goes, that way, um, you know, you guys can help take care of some of this stuff. We talked about it a little bit, and we thought, dang, that's a pretty good idea, you know. Yeah, because we do want to keep these trails active. We don't want to lose any part of it. So um we got together as a small group and uh we decided to go forth with it. Uh I ended up putting together our nonprofit organization package, and then I did uh negotiations with uh Terry Bruce, who's was, I don't know if he's still there or not, but he was the attorney for wildlife and parks. And we came up with an MOU, uh TCTA's very first MOU, that uh, you know, we would help maintain and take care of the park. Because again, there's not a lot of money up there.

Right.

And then over time, that has grown uh, you know, into a MOU with Shawnee County and Shawnee County Parks and Rec, Washburn University. Um we we just recently had one with the Wabunsey County on a trail that we've worked on with them in Wabunsey County, and then some private landowners. We have uh agreements with them to work on trails.

So you know what is so cool about this story is it in my but I think it kind of encapsulates Topeka. There's two different kinds of people in Topeka. There's people that see something that Topeka is missing and something that Topeka struggles with and says, We suck. You know, what Kansas City would never, and you just they go to Facebook and they complain about it. Then there's you, there's Rick Bean who says, I'm gonna do something about it. Right. You know, I'm gonna make this better. You know, it doesn't have to be this way. And you put the time in and you know, you made something super uh took a you know an unfortunate situation, low maintenance, and you gave the city something in the community that we can all enjoy. That's so shout out to you. That's really cool. Well, I appreciate that.

And it's not just Rick Bean, it's a group of dedicated, you know, folks that have got together uh to do this. And the only way to make it happen is you know, we we started out, most of the group was mountain bikers, and it was like, well, you know, um, there's a lot of other trail users. You know, we we've got to become diverse, we've got to diversify. Sure. So uh by diversification, I mean we wanted to include trail runners, right, hikers, dog walkers. Dog walkers are probably one of the biggest users out there. I can imagine, yeah. Uh kayakers. So our board actually consists of uh members of each one of those groups to represent all of us. Cool. Because there's power in numbers, right? Right.

And to make sure that there's like uh something exciting there for everybody, like runners and bikers and well exactly.

Like, you know, i if you're building a mountain bike trail, that might be different than what the trail runners want to see or what the hikers want to see. So it's it's trying to get ideas together to make everyone happy. Yeah. So that's cool, man.

Um do you uh what do you So you said these are natural surface trails, is that what you call them? Yeah. What do you call the paved trails? On natural surface trails? I just call them concrete or asphalt trails. So, like if uh if kayaking on a river, that would be like a natural surface trail. That's the way I consider it, yes. What would a water slide be? A water slide. A water slide is kind of like a man-made water trail.

Well, are are you are you talking about a plastic slide? Are you talking about a water slide down rocks?

Because they are if you if you go you go to like world oceans of fun, you're like, hey man, I'm hiking. I'm hike, I'm just doing man-made trails. Man-made trails. Right. No, I'm I'm just joking. Uh I'm I'm curious, how did you get so into uh just outdoor life activity?

I think just you know, growing up, I grew up in northwestern Kansas and uh hunting, fishing, hiking, you know, all of that is is things that we we did. Yeah. And uh, you know, my my parents and my brother encouraged, you know, outdoor activities. We camped out all the time. And I just I love the outdoors. I love the nature. And and I think for especially somebody uh that lives in Topeka, you know, Topeka is not a huge city. It's kind of that in-betweener, what I call. Right. But we all need nature. We all need to be able to relieve our stress. And I think nature does that for us.

Yeah, it's so true. That's so great.

You were telling us off air uh what you uh what you do in your your your day job. Sure. You want to tell the viewers? I think it really it really speaks to what you're doing now. It's really cool how it overlaps.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so um it's a it's a long history. I'm I'm kind of old. Uh but um so I worked uh You age really well, by the way.

When you said your age, I was like, I would have guessed 10 years under that.

I appreciate that. That that's that's a good call.

Shout out to being active outside, right? Yeah, there you go.

Benefits, right? Come on. So um I worked uh 30 years for the state of Kansas. Uh I retired from there in 2014. I'm a professional geologist, so I have my license in geology. That's what I studied in in school. And after I got done with uh the state of Kansas, it was like, you know, I'm not done yet. I'm I'm young, I'm I'm ready to go. And a good buddy of mine who I went to college with, he gave me a call and he said, Rick, uh, we need you. Uh we'd love to have you. And um he at that time uh owned a company called GSI Engineering. It was stationed in Wichita. And um he uh he asked me uh to be a partial owner, which there's there were three of us owners, and he goes, I want you to open up a shop in Topeka. And I opened up a shop in Topeka, and uh boom, everything, everything happened. It was going great. And uh, you know, we suddenly looked at each other in 2021, the year of COVID, and it was like, dang, we're all of a sudden like over 60. And uh, what are we gonna do? You know, do we want to try to sell this thing or or keep going? And uh uh the three partners got together and we said, let's let's put it out there and see what happens. So we put it out on the market and uh we had lots of offers, and uh we ended up going with a national company out of Orlando, Florida, uh called UES. And uh we went from a small business of 84 to 4,500 nationwide. Wow. And as part of that, the uh two of the partners, uh, we were the older partners, uh, we signed to give them to to allow the transaction to happen, we had to give them three years to make sure that the transition uh from small business to the large company uh went well.

84 employees? I mean, that's that's a small business, I guess. That's a lot of employees. I mean, that was a big that's a big deal.

Uh what was your role with that company before you All right. Yeah, with GSI, I was the director of environmental services and the vice president. Okay. So uh director of environmental services, what that means is we and we do many different things from an engineering standpoint, a geologic standpoint. But environmental services means if if somebody had a uh a wreck and uh hazardous waste was spilled uh that caused the environment, soil and groundwater to be contaminated, we go out and find ways to clean it up. Uh if you're uh if you had a private well and your private well water was contaminated, we figure out where it was coming from and we try to get you to where a treatment system would clean your water up. That's interesting. So things like that.

That's cool. Stupid business question. Um how does one put their business on the market? Like, is there like a Facebook marketplace or like a Zillow for businesses? Like you list it on Zillow or something, you're like, oh, I'm interested in the business. We're gonna look to, you know, how does that work?

There there's you know market managers. Uh you you re you reach out to uh you know a business manager that that markets businesses and uh gotcha. Okay. So it's kind of a plan and all sorts of stuff like that. You have to show them all your you know your books and and all that.

So there are people that kind of like broker deals like that. Specialize brokers that specialize in that. Gotcha. Gotcha. Interesting. Uh it's it's interesting the Just what you said about the overlap. If I was working for the city and uh like you brought up the meeting that you had with the city guy, and he was like, why don't you start a if I was that guy, I don't think I could have found a better person than a professional geologist to be the guy who makes and maintains hiking trails in Topeka. Like if I was gonna plan this from the beginning, I'd be like, well, we need a geologist to be the hackers. Need Rick Bean. And then here you go. Like, man, you're passionate about mountain biking and your geologist, like that's like the perfect Venn diagram for this, right?

Yeah, it it was good uh being able to continue to work with soil and rocks and roots, but you know, quite honestly, our board, which is just awesome. I mean, we have we have engineers, a couple of engineers on the board. One engineer, you know, he works at GSI engineering, and and he he is really good at uh stormwater control. Uh, you know, so stormwater is crucial in maintaining trails. You have these large erosional features if you don't maintain them, right? You don't put in the right erosional features, uh, you have these big ruts and it just it's almost impossible to hike. Right. So having a diverse board that have many different, you know, technical backgrounds is very important. It's not just about geology, it's about engineering, it's it's about just understanding, you know, trail maintenance and elevation. Our our trail coordinator, the guy is is just incredible with um working with backhoes and working with mini X's and skid steers, and you name it, he can do it.

That's

Trail Building, Erosion, And Volunteers

what I was gonna ask is like when you put in trails, are you the ones physically digging these out and cutting down trees and and you are so it sounds like you have a guy who does that really well.

It's a hundred percent volunteer work and uh you know, like the Washburn trails, a majority of the Washburn trails were all hand cut. You know, as a true Which ones are the Washburn trails? Uh so the Washburn trails are over there uh we talked about the Carr River State Park. So if you go to the west of the Carr River State Park, there's the KTWU radio tower. Right. So we have built trails in the woods on that property through a MOU with Washburn. Okay. So that was pretty much that Washburn University owns that they do. Interesting, yeah. But that was pretty much all hand built. You have hardly any equipment at all. Whereas we have some downhills. I don't know if you've heard of our downhills called the Hornets Nest. It's on the Carl River State Park property. The mountain bike downhills? Well, there's two mountain bike downhills. And of course, if you if you make downhill for bikers only, you got to have another one for hikers only. So we've got a hikers only uphill and downhill.

Oh, okay.

Okay. Those were built uh by Trevor, who who again is is the handy-dandy guy. And he basically volunteered his own miniacs, his own fuel to go and and build those. And he spent weeks and months out there. Wow. Of course, the rest of our trail crew went out and did the handwork for him. Right.

So he'd do the major stuff and then everyone clean it up.

And that guy is he's one of the most dedicated trail guys I know. I mean, he's just awesome. What's his name? Trevor Dabney. Nice. Shout out to Trevor. Yeah, seriously.

That's awesome, man. Wow. So this is all volunteer driven.

All volunteer. And you don't know how many times we've been asked on the on the on the trails, so are you guys getting paid? And it's like, no, we're not getting paid. We're not, we're not. So why do you do it? Because we love our community, we love our trail system, and we want to make our trail system better. And at TCTA, we we have kind of a little slogan. It's called earn your dirt. Earn your dirt. So if you're if you're running a trail, hiking a trail, biking a trail, you're using that trail system, right? Yeah. So earning your dirt means you're gonna put in, you need to put in some volunteer hours with our group.

So I shouldn't have to make admitted how often I use your trailer. I'm just kidding. I'm not feeling in these at all. We're gonna see you out there one of these days, right?

Yeah.

That's funny. Yeah. So what channels do we have in Speak Again? Yeah.

Uh how many volunteers would you say, different volunteers do you guys have that are maybe you'd say part of the the nonprofit that help?

Yeah. So so uh member wise, um, so we have memberships. Okay, you do? Okay. We we do. Uh and our membership's $50 for a lifetime member. Nice. Um, and that all goes again towards organization and all that. Um, and that includes your entire family. So, you know, we I think we're up to maybe 60, 65 families. We're up to a little over 900 followers on Facebook, so there's a lot more followers. Um, and out of that 65, um, you know, there there's probably what I call 15 to 20 dedicated uh trail crew uh folks. Not saying the others aren't dedicated because they'll volunteer money or equipment or whatever. You know, sometimes you just physically can't go out and work on a trail. So we've got many folks that will just donate money, and that's just as important as working on the trail. You gotta have all of it, yeah, right to make something successful. Uh, but we have trail days on our trails once a month. So every month there's a trail day and it's gonna be at a different park. So you've got plenty of opportunity to come out and help. And earn the dirt. Yeah, earn the dirt. Uh and uh we oftentimes get a lot of volunteers that aren't members that will come out. Yeah. In fact, um last year we had the opportunity of having an entire frat come out. Uh, you know, that they had their volunteer projects for Washburn and they brought a bus out. Wow. And it was awesome.

Funny. Awesome. Put those guys to work and they worked.

So you did a good job.

That's great. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Um, you mentioned uh a lot of the trails in the broader Kansas area and maybe even nationally. Do

Best Rides Beyond Topeka

you have some favorite trails? Uh yes. So you primarily you're doing mountain biking?

I'm a mountain biker and a hiker. Okay. Um I I can't trail run. I had uh a couple surgeries on the knee from basketball, and I just I can't do the trail running.

But okay, I'd be curious if you had to list your top three or five favorite mountain biking trails anywhere that you have ridden. Yeah. What would be your top five favorite trails anywhere that you've ridden before?

I'm gonna that is a good question. I'm gonna start in Kansas. All right, I you gotta start in Kansas, and it's it's switchgrass. Okay. Switchgrass is out at Wilson, Kansas. And it's a it's a 20 plus mile long trail. And uh it is primarily uh it's a very unique trail in the sense that the surface of the trail is Dakota sandstone. So it's not your dirt, and I mean, there's sand, there's sandstone, there's rock, there's rock gardens. And for me, as a mountain biker, you know, I'm kind of ADD in a way. I I just, you know, and mountain biking makes you focus on every step because you don't want to fall off the trail. You don't want to die, right? Yeah. So switchgrass is just it's incredible. And there's an uh organization called Emba, uh International Mountain Bike Association, which have epic trails. They call them epic trails, the best trails around, and and Wilson is or switchgrass is one of those. Wow, okay, okay here in Kansas. Wow, cool. So awesome. Where is Wilson Kansas? I was just getting ready to ask that. So uh it's out by Hayes, Kansas. You probably know where Hayes Kansas is. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. So very cool. Yeah. Um, then I've got to go south to uh to Arkansas. I wondered if Arkansas Oh my god. I've got a uh uh Airbnb down there. Oh, let's go. And uh hundreds of miles of trails in Arkansas. Wow. I mean, in Bentonville area.

I've heard it's kind of the like mountain biking capital of the U.S.

it is amazing. I mean, you can get up at six in the morning and there's bikers and trail runners and hikers, and then you can go to bed and you know, we're we're pretty close to the trail, and there's still people going. I mean, it's just incredible. Wow. And they're all healthy, they all look great, they all have smiles. I mean, it's it's amazing what outdoors can do for you. Yeah. So the trail systems down there, I'm not gonna pick one or two. I just that whole trail system is incredible. Yeah, they have uh a greenway. So a greenway is like Shonger, it's concrete, and it runs from Bella Vista, Arkansas to Fayetteville, Arkansas, which is about 40 miles. Okay. Wow. So you can go on that and you can then pop off on all these different mountain bike trails as you're going, or breweries, or coffee houses, or whatever. Dude, that's cool. So you can do like a really cool tour with a mountain bike. And I would love to see that in Topeka to where you have some connectivity with these trails.

I mean, you can do that between Topeka and Kansas City. Like, can you go like have if you had a trail from here to Lawrence to Kansas City that was paved, then you could pop off. Because there's mountain bike, there's trails here, there's trails in Lawrence, there's trails in Kansas City. Yeah, that would be that would be sweet. It's kind of like the the brew-to-brew like marathon people do. Yeah. The like Absolutely. The Lawrence to Kansas City. Lawrence to Kansas City thing. Yeah.

Yeah. So uh that that whole area. Mount Nebo in Arkansas is one of my favorites as well. Mount Nebo? Yeah, it's down by Russellville, but it's it's a blast. Wow. And then uh quite honestly, uh a friend of mine uh we went to New Zealand and uh we did a mountain bike trail. I can't even remember the name of it, but man, it was incredible. That is epic. You know the Lord of the Rings mountain bike. I was thinking it was so much.

I was thinking of mountain biking through uh uh through the Hobbit, yeah.

Yes, through Hobbits in there or whatever it's called.

Right. Yes, but we try to shire. I mean the Shire, yeah. We we try to do uh different riding, like you know, Costa Rica done that, Hawaii, New Zealand, yeah, all of those.

New Zealand was uh top tier. Yeah.

The way you talk about uh mountain biking and going to all these different places is how I I feel about golf. You know, it's like you know, this golf course is one of my favorites because of this, or you know, this has a really cool you can do this when when you're golfing, you can stop at this place. That's that's super cool.

Yeah. So cut come down to come down to Bentonville because there's about five different golf courses down there, right in the area. Absolutely. Right in the area.

Okay, mountain

Mountain Biking Starter Gear And Costs

biking. Yeah, I know very little about it. Someone wants if someone wants to get into mountain biking, what's kind of the starter equipment you need? Obviously, you need a mountain bike, which is different than a bike bike. What is kind of that entry cost look like? What are some things that you would recommend for people to get into it? Quick heads up if you've been thinking about moving to Topeka, Topeka might actually pay you to move. Seriously.

You could get up to $15,000 to live and work in Shawnee County. Check it out at Choose Topeka.com.

Now, back to the show. Right. So so we have a couple of bike shops here in town. You know, obviously Caps, everybody's sort of caps, and then at Astro Bike Company is another one. And uh both very good. And and uh I would go to them. I wouldn't go to your your di I'm not against discount stores or or you know uh super stores, but I wouldn't I wouldn't do that. I'd go to one of our locals. Right, don't get a bike at Walmart, get a bike at one of these bike shops. It's not gonna last on some of these trails, right? Right, quite honestly. Yeah. Um, so yeah, and I'd get an entry-level mountain bike, a hardtail is what they call it. Okay. A hardtail. Hardtail, okay. So it's got shocks in the front, but the seat doesn't have a shock. Oh, yeah. Whereas, you know, as we get more advanced, we want shocks both in the seat and yeah. Okay. So a hardtail. And uh you're probably looking at I'm gonna just say 600 to 1500 bucks for for just an entry level. Uh 1500 would be entry level. Oh yeah.

Wow. I I knew they were expensive. Uh to be honest, that was less than I was thinking.

Yeah. So I mean, I so when you get advan more advanced, you start getting into carbon and lighter weight stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I I have a I had a Santa Cruz, I just sold it, and it cost me $7,500. Yep. Whoa.

You know, I was wondering. Yeah.

It was carbon fiber. Carbon fiber. Wow.

So is it just like lighter, easier to move?

It it's lighter. I think the maneuverability is a little bit better. You know, obviously the the components like the shocks and the drivetrain and the brakes and all that's better. Yeah. Yeah. You know, higher quality. But you know, so so the bike, definitely a helmet. Yep. Definitely a helmet. Gloves, you want gloves, uh, which don't cost that much. And usually uh some sort of hydration, either a pot a pack for the back. Oh, yeah. Uh, you know, for your bike.

Here's a dumb question. Mountain biking, even for someone who's advanced, like you are, I mean, you're wearing it. Oh, and I'm not advanced. Oh, come on. I've only been doing it for 13 years old. You are the president of a nonprofit. Yeah.

No, 13.

Bro, you're right, you're riding a $7,500 carbon fiber bike. That's not advanced.

So no, so advanced is is somebody that's been on the racing circuit, and we've got plenty of them in town. Really? Uh yeah. There are people who are. A lot of members, a lot of our members, you know, have have been on the racing circuit. Lyle Reedy is well known. Really? Uh he's been out there, you know, racing. Alex Sage, you know, there's a lot of them. But speaking of studs, I'm going to talk about a stud for a second. And his name is Andy Phillips. And Andy is is on our, he's he's on our uh uh he's a TCTA member. Cool. And he's a trail coordinator for um uh Dornwood. So here's Andy's latest race. He started at the Mexican border on a single speed bike, so no gears, you have one gear. Fixed or fixed, and he went from Mexico to the Canadian border on a fixed gear. Fixed gear. Wow. Took him 28 days, he averaged, I think, uh a little over a hundred miles a day. Wow, and he beat all his competitors by like a day and a half or two. Oh, wow.

Oh, this is like a full-on race. Like an organized race.

How does a guy do that? That's crazy. And this same guy, like races here in Kansas, like Marysville, for example. He will ride his bike to Marysville, he will do the race, which was a hundred-mile race, and then he'll ride his bike back. Wow. You gotta be kidding me. Oh, that's crazy.

That's crazy. I used to be really into fixed gear bikes back in the day. Uh, this group of friends that were really into fixies. And so he did that on a single speed bike from Mexico to Canada. Single speed bike. That's crazy. Did he have brakes on the bike? Does he have brakes?

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's a regular bike. Well, I mean maybe I'm not thinking of it. It's a single speed. Oh, so maybe not a fixed bike, but a single speed. Oh, yeah, yeah. One gear. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so we would have uh we would have, I forget what they called it, but the the gear on the back, uh, a flip-flop hub. Oh. So you could flip the tire. So on one, you could coast. And you would obviously you'd have brakes, but it was single speed, but it would coast. Yeah. And then the other, it was it was fixed to the wheel. There's no coasting. If the wheel was moving, your pedals were moving. So like a kid's bike, but kids' bikes have the brakes where you like gently resist and it breaks. This didn't have that. So if you resisted, it would buck you off. Oh, I gotcha. And you had to like, you know, anyway.

So now this this single speed bike. So and we we have similar studs though, uh basically ultra marathon runners. That are part of our group. And when you can run a hundred and some miles in a like a weekend, isn't that nuts? That's nuts.

See, you keep seeing saying the word stud, and I'm just thinking crazy. Yeah. These guys are crazy. Yeah, different definitions. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I agree.

So are most are most like the the are there mountain bike races in addition to like like what you're describing Mexico to Canada, I assume, is a road race, not like a trail.

Well, or am I wrong? That was kind of a gravel trail. It wasn't on roads. Oh, really? I mean, they they have one from uh another one that now Andy didn't do this, but one I'm familiar with it starts at the Mexican border. And you know, but before we got on air, you were talking about Grand Canyon. So they have to ride to the Grand Canyon, they have to disassemble their bikes, put it on the back, hike the Grand Canyon, and then ride from the Grand Canyon all the way north again. What?

Yeah, that is crazy. That is the craziest race ever. How do people do this? I don't it's like people are like, hey man, life, my life isn't hard enough, and you come up with new harder, more painful things to do. That's crazy. Isn't it? Wow, that's wild. So the those guys in Topeka, those are the kinds of races that you're describing when they're like, you know, we have guys doing race circuits. Is that what you're talking about?

Well, when no, when they are on a circuit, I mean it it would be like just uh races around the Midwest, you know, and in which they would, you know, they would do, you know, some hard riding, you know, 15, 20, 25 miles, whatever, and you're racing against others with similar talents. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, like on a mountain bike trail kind of a thing. Mountain bike trail, uh technical, you know, all of that stuff.

That's why it is it's crazy how like there are so many like rabbit holes in life you could just go down. Oh, yeah. And you could become like, you know, like I didn't even know there was mountain bike racing, let alone like that that could become your whole life where you throw yourself into this. I didn't even know that existed. Yeah.

John, can I go a step further?

Yeah.

Okay. Wanna

Ultra Races And Youth MTB Teams

go a step further? So in Topeka, we all actually have a youth mountain bike racing team.

Really? Really? There you go. I didn't know that either.

It's uh uh sponsored by Nica, and uh these are kids from all of our school districts. Um, you know, I I can't remember the age group, but it, you know, it may be from like sixth grade on up. Um but yeah, we've got coaches. Some of the coaches are on our uh board, and uh, you know, they train them and and they go around the state and other communities within our state have mountain bike teams and they race each other. And it is a blast. We used to have uh last year uh we had a race at the Caw, for example. Uh they didn't race there this year, and and hopefully I'll be back. But uh um and then I spoke of Bentonville. Yeah, Bentonville actually has uh mountain biking in junior high and high school. Wow. Really? So yeah. Like the schools have that?

Yeah. Like on in high school, you could be on the mountain biking team. Yeah, certain schools. Certain schools, yeah. Can you imagine? That would be so awesome to go to school. We have a mountain biking team.

I gotta go to mountain biking practice.

I got mountain biking practice. That's awesome. Go a step further, Fayetteville, uh, University of Arkansas, they have a mountain bike trail that goes through their campus. So you can you can get on the mountain bike trail a little bit and and go to your class.

Wow. Yeah, that's cool. That's sweet. Yeah, that's sweet. Whereas KU, it was just up a paved hill that was impossible to ride your bike in. It was a steep hill, though. Bro, riding your bike to class is pointless at KU. Yeah, that's awesome. Man, that's very cool. Yeah, that's yeah, it's wild to me. I mean, we just we had on a guy who's a super cross racer, and it's like uh another whole world of things that I was like, I don't even know how any of that works. But it's like people have dedicated their lives, and same with like mountain biking, and there's so many things like that that I think so many people have no idea.

There's so many things out there to do with your life, right? You just pick a niche and get into it, right? And you know, the the the thing that just bothers me is, and you hear it, is oh, there's nothing to do in Topeka. There's plenty to do in Topeka if you just look for it, guys. Yeah, there is.

That is wild. It kind of makes uh it it like uh it kind of reminds me of like uh you guys ever get on Netflix and you don't have something you want to watch when you get on. Like you're like, oh, I need to we'll find something. Well then you spend 45 minutes looking through all the options, trying to figure out what to watch, and then you end up like, well, if it's too late to start something now, we're just going to bed. You know? Yep. It's like that's a little bit like the decision fatigue of like, hey, you like you gotta commit. Like you gotta find something that you commit to. You do. Instead of like, well, let me weigh all the options like, hey man, you just just find something, throw yourself into it.

You know? Yeah. And usually, you know, being out on a trail, for example, hiking, whatever, is a little bit healthier than watching TV.

Yeah. But 100%, yeah.

But you know, you gotta you gotta have some of that TV time too, you know, a little bit just to relax.

I just mean as a metaphor for like how many options there are to like is um am I am I gonna throw myself into mountain biking or super cross or running or this or that or whatever, chess club, yeah, you know, it's like, hey man, it's you're wasting your time spinning your wheels. Like just find something.

And and some of those uh sports, if you will, are I mean, they're starting to grow, right? I mean, like the trail runners, um, the trail runners, I mean, we'll go out, we have um, I think we talked about this maybe off-air, but we we have for our community social events. So every Tuesday, there's trail runs out at uh the call on, you know, for trail runners or hikers. Uh Wednesday morning at 7 30, there's a hike that we do. Um Thursday, there's mountain biking, you know, a group mountain bike ride. Wow. But the trailrunners, for example, last last Tuesday they had 38 people out there. Wow. And in fact, um we we had a uh uh an event that we held this weekend, uh Summer Solstice, that we had 90, I think 92 participants. What? Um the trail runners, this is at Skyline, the trail runners cranked out over 900 miles in one day.

Is this uh is there an event? What's the event at Skyline? I don't know if it still happens, but I've heard about it where it's like it's uh one of those races where you just like go until you can't go or anymore or something. It's 24 hours or something like that.

That's the Skyline Scramble, and that's in March, I think March of every year. And uh it's a growing event. I mean, what I think uh Jonathan is up to you know, I don't know, 150, 200 participants. I mean it's growing. What is it again? Yeah, Skyline Scramble.

But what is how what's the format of the race?

Uh the format is they they pick a route and uh you basically just keep going. And and uh I think he's got distances on it, but it's uh it's one of those where you're gonna be able to do it. So you just see how many loops you can do, basically? Uh yeah, and and the thing is, you know, I I talked to some of the ultra runners because I still don't get it.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, uh so they're going all day, but they're not just running, it's about running and then walking. True if you need to walk, but you just keep going.

Okay. Gotcha. So it's just like as long as you're on the trail, as long as you're on the trail, you keep going.

Gotcha. And breathing. As long as you're on the trail and breathing, you're still breathing, living.

Have you guys heard there's a format of race I'm starting to hear about more? In fact, I think our friend David Vinson is uh we might have to cut this. I don't know if that's public, but there's there's someone locally, I think, uh organizing this. Uh, but there's a format of race that is gaining popularity among runners where you have a certain amount of time to run, say, a two-mile lap. And let's say you have 20 minutes to run a two-mile lap now. If you're a runner, it shouldn't take you 20 minutes to run two miles. So you can stop after the two miles and you have whatever left of 20 minutes to break, to rest. Oh. But then on the 20 mile mark, you have to go again. And it just, it's just whoever lasts the longest. And as soon as you can't start on the next 20 minutes, you're out. And so it's last man standing, and people will go 24 hours, 30 hours, you know, and they'll they'll end up going a hundred miles or whatever because just every 20 minutes on the dot you go until you can't. I've not heard of that, I've not heard of that one. It makes it easier to go along. Distance because you don't need to go to the Grand Canyon or whatever or the Rockies. You can do it around a track, you can do it in a neighborhood, you know, which is just kind of it's an interesting, kind of uh new appealing format of race I've heard about.

Yeah, that sounds super fun for other people. Yeah, exactly. That'd be awesome for them. I'm looking forward to it for that.

Yeah, that's cool though. That's like playing rounds of golf until you drop, right? Exactly.

Well, I think that's awesome, man. Uh

How To Join Runs, Rides, Hikes

well, let's say uh somebody's wanting to get involved in some of the things that you're describing. Yeah. Um, where would they go to find out, you know, how do I become part of some of these social events? How do I find out where the trail running happens? How do I join the club?

Sure. So we we have a Facebook site, everybody has a Facebook site, right? We have a Facebook site. That's probably the most up-to-date is to go on the Facebook site. Um, you know, for the hikes and stuff, Fleet Feet works with us a little bit and then they put that out there. Uh the Sunflower Striders are awesome. They do their thing. Cool. Um but we also have a website. Um the problem is uh that that none of our members are good at the designing websites. So it's sometimes advertising.

They're good at designing trails, but not websites. Yeah, exactly.

So uh if there's anybody out there looking to help out, uh we do need a designer. But uh yeah, the website. Um but you know, every every week we announce, you know, social events, things like that. You know, our we have uh uh uh social coordinator, uh she's awesome, she does great. Uh Hunter Munch, who's awesome with the trail runner, she does great. So just so many people volunteer so much time to make these things happen. It's unbelievable. And I applaud all of them.

Yeah, yeah. How

COVID, Health, And Outdoor Momentum

did did uh how did COVID affect outdoor life? Before and after, is it different?

I think more people got out, yeah, you know, to to try to separate themselves from being inside. Yeah. Um, you know, certain markets like like mountain bikes, um certain markets kind of exploded. You know, everybody wanted to mountain bike.

Yeah.

Which for the mountain bike uh manufacturers that was great at the time, but I think it's kind of hurt them in the long run because you know they had these high numbers of what they produced one year, right? And then the next couple of years they produced and it went down.

Oh, they like made just as many to meet.

Yeah, so now there's more of mountain bikes out there. You know, so if you're into mountain bikes, yeah.

Now's a good time to get a $7,500 carbon fiber mountain bike.

Yeah. So I I think uh to answer your question, yeah, I I think outdoor activity increased and uh you know, COVID changed a lot of things. Not just that, but it changed, you know, how people operate in business and at home and shit. It's just it's crazy.

Yeah. But a lot of people were wanting to get out and be outdoors. Do you feel like has that stayed the case? Or was that a spike in 2020, 2021 that kind of went back to normal? Or has it stayed like more people are active in 2026 than in 2016 because of COVID?

I guess I'm not sure the answer to that. I would hope that more people are active. Right. Yeah, you know. Yeah. I mean, you know, people people need to realize how important it is to be healthy, uh to stay, you know, active. I mean, you know, you you read about all this stuff that we're eating that's not good for you, and you're blah blah blah. But yeah, man, it's so easy to get outside and do something.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It it's interesting. The both are easy. It's easy to slowly get into a lifestyle that kills you. Terrible food, staying inside, no, sedentary lifestyle. But it's not it feels hard. It seems like it's gonna be really hard to build an active lifestyle when you're not doing it, but it really is really easy. It's super available, and it's just like baby step at a time. It is. Man, you slowly to where you know, like I wonder how many of these mountain bike stud racers set out at five years old. I'm gonna be a stud mountain bike racer. I or I wonder if it was more like they just kind of like inched their way into it just one step at a time. I found like, hey, I could do mountain bike racing, you know. And uh it really is it's just as easy. You just gotta intentionally go the other direction. Like, I'm gonna start going outside. I'm gonna go walk the trail today.

I think most of them probably inched their way into it. I mean, you know, like the trail runners, probably a lot of them did cross country or track or whatever, and and they wanted to build on that, you know.

I ran into these guys, I was telling you off air, uh, at the is there a name for the paved hill at Governor's Mansion that goes down to the river. Uh well, I'm sure they have a name for it. I'm not sure what it is. So the it's in my in my understanding, it's the steepest, tallest hill in Topeka that you can just go up and down and up and down. And it's the the governor's mansion. I ran into these guys who uh are about your age and they're training for a 200-mile ultra-marathon race. And so I'm asking them like, how the heck did you get yourself into a position where you're doing a 200-mile race? Like, I was like, I just did my first ever marathon. You're running 200 miles. And they said, Well, we just like didn't stop. You know, we ran a marathon, we're like, well, what else could we do? And so they didn't set out like we we're gonna train our whole lives to run 200 miles. They just thought, like, well, what's next? Well, we could do a 30-mile race. And then we did then someone was like, Hey man, do you know you could do this 50 mile race? And then we just like didn't stop. They just like slowly inched their way into it. And I was like, man, that's really interesting. That's like one way that you could build kind of an active lifestyle, is just don't stop, just like slowly, you know, inch your way in that direction.

You know, I think for a lot of them it's about a personal challenge. You know, they challenge themselves, they want to get better. Yeah, yeah, you know, and in that that same heel, I've I've actually seen folks with you've seen the football sleds that you pull. Yeah, I've seen people pulling those up.

Up the hill? Are you serious? Yeah, that's crazy. That's next level. Yeah, I'm not ready to do anything. Nope. Hard pass. That's crazy. Well, man, this has been such a pleasure. Uh, should we do some rapid fire? Hit them with some rapid fire. We like to hit every guest with a few minutes of uh rapid fire. These are more Topeka uh living in Topeka questions rather than you know specifically about your niche. Okay. Um, so favorite things in Topeka. You ready? Sure. All right. Do you have a favorite local restaurant in Topeka?

Favorite local restaurant? Um, I would say probably the um Iron Rail downtown. Solid answer. They've done a nice, nice job with uh some of the restaurants downtown and and trying to uh to get downtown to grow a little bit. I mean, that's what we need, right? Yeah, yeah. So it's great.

Uh you have a local coffee shop you like you go to? Oh, yeah.

I do. I like all coffees. Yep. I like all coffees, and I try to go to all of them, but it has to be circle. Yeah, okay. It is circle. I mean, hey, it's a good one. I like the vibe, and uh the coffee's great. Yeah. That's awesome, man. Yeah, we sat we sat outside with our doodles. Oh, yeah. A nice little outside area. Yeah, yeah.

Uh, I feel like I'm gonna know the answer to this question, but uh, do you have like a go-to date night? Like Friday night, you got the evening open. What are you guys doing?

Wow, a go-to date night. You know, when you get older, you don't have as many go-to date nights. Um, but uh I I think just getting out and hiking and with with wife and uh the and the dogs. I mean, we we have two golden doodles and and that's kind of our date night, you know, hike a little bit and uh go out and eat somewhere and and uh yeah, that's about it. That's great, yeah.

I love it. Okay, you're doing a home project, home depot project menards or Lowe's. Where are you going?

Well, um, you know, I I I I don't mind all three, they all have different things, but I go to Menards for the for most of my stuff. I'd love to rebate.

Yeah, because it's a great answer. I love the rebate, it's a it's a great place. You can pick up cereal, you can pick up your windows too.

Yeah.

Flea meds for your golden doodles. Yeah, dog toys. Dog toys. Yeah uh I'm quickly losing momentum in this in this fight.

Does he does he have his preference?

He's a Menards guy and I'm a Home Depot guy. Okay, all right. More so now only because of this feud. Yeah, for sure. I just gotta dig my heels in now at this point. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay.

Uh how many potholes did you hit on the way over here?

Potholes. I'm not sure I I counted, but there were some. There was a couple. Yeah, there were there were some potholes. But, you know, it seems like everywhere we go, um, there's a road that's closed, and I'm not sure what's going on, but hopefully they're repairing potholes.

We I will say they just opened Burling game up. Finally, Burlingame in 21st was closed forever, and it was driving me insane. It finally opened up like three days ago.

We had one of the uh the city guys on our show who is kind of in charge of that communication of potholes and all the the community stuff. He said they fill, what was it, 600 a week? Yeah. 600 potholes a week.

600 potholes a week in Topeka.

Yeah.

Incredible. And there, there's like an app you can report like a pothole to like bring it to their attention. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, a lot of that's obviously about our freeze and thought situation.

That's what he said too. Yeah, he's like, you know, it gets hot, hot, cold, cold. You can put salt down. What do you expect?

I know. It's hard. It's like it's easy to complain about. It's like, well, what do you really do?

You know, I'm gonna start a pothole nonprofit where we go out and maintain potholes. Oh, there you go. Hey!

Top City Pothole Alliance. Top City Pothole Alliance. Might be slightly harder to recruit volunteers to fill potholes than to maintain cool trailers.

Earn your asphalt. Earn your asphalt. Earn your asphalt. That's good. I like it.

Oh, dude, that's hilarious. Uh, what else we got? Oh man. That's great. Uh,

Connectivity Vision For Topeka Trails

is there anything in Topeka that is missing you would like to see in Topeka that's not currently here?

Well, you probably know my answer to this, but uh more trails. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, when we talk about Bentonville, you know, we talked about the Greenway, we talked about connectivity. Connectivity with active other activities, yeah. Like mountain biking, like trail running, like coffee houses, like breweries, like whatever. You know, we we we've got a situation uh where the governor's mansion is, where uh Cah River State Park, Washburn, if you go on to the west, there's the Kansas Museum. There's, you know, the villages have hundreds of acres in there, but connecting all of that into a really good trail system would be awesome, not only for tourism, but more importantly, in my sense, I know others will say tourism's huge, but for my sense, for our community. Right. And getting our people out there to enjoy what we have.

It seems like the Shunga is the closest that we have to like a greenway. Yes, where it kind of cuts through a part of the middle section of the city. Do you think is there any potential for the Shunga to like connect more of the city in the future? Like go up to Governor's Mansion or like, for instance, like it would be cool if uh if if you could hop on the Shunga and go play pickleball at the you know, the uh the courts at 21st and Yurish, like if they're if they connect it out there, instead of just getting on a sidewalk, you know, on uh 21st or something. Uh or you know, take it out, you like you said, to a coffee shop. Like, do is there any potential for Shunga to kind of keep connecting things?

I I think there is. I think that's a question for the county and the city, but there is a master plan that they had some public comment on over the last couple months. And uh there's a consultant basically putting together all of those comments that Topeka had to hopefully develop something like you're talking about.

Or like to the zoo. Like your whole family could ride their bikes. Yeah. So like we currently we live half a mile from one of the sections of the Shunga. So we ride the Shunga all the time. And we'll do like we're right in the middle of the city, so we're like, hey, do you want to go right or left? You know, do we want to go over here or over here? It'd be sweet. I have little kids and they can all ride bikes now. If we could ride that to the zoo, it would be that would be an amazing Saturday.

It would be. And it's not, you know, connectivity is not just about activities that you can do through the trail system. Right. But, you know, there's a lot of people that could commute to work. Right. They wouldn't have to deal with the potholes in the traffic to get on the trail and go to work.

Yeah, I will say like most of the trails that I ever get on, which is the Kaw Valley, Governor's Mansion trails, the Shunga, they are they seem very actively used. Anytime I'm on a trail, I'm always seeing tons of other people. So, you know, whether I'm running the Shunga or hiking or whatever, I don't think there's rarely a time where I don't see a ton of other people also using so it it is cool. We have a pretty active community in Topeka.

It is. And it if we could just tie it all together, and I think that's what our community leaders need to start doing, and hopefully this master plan will be the start to that. Cool.

That would be pretty sweet. I've never thought thought about it quite like that. Like if this was the connection to all these other places, that would be really sweet. It would be cool. It would be Rick. Thank you so much.

One more two more questions for you.

Okay.

This one has to do with your mountain biking. Sure. Yeah. AirPods, are you an uh podcast music, or do you raw dog it?

You know, I love music, all sorts of all sorts of different types of music. Okay, so you're a music guy? On a trail, I do not. And that's because of safety. Oh, so nothing. No, I mean if somebody's coming up from behind me, I want to hear them. Yeah. You know, and and the scary thing is for the for the hiker or whatever, where you're, you know, especially when you're out in the middle of nowhere and you've got earbuds in, you can't hear what's coming or or going or whatever. But I mean, um, so to get away from the the earbuds, I have seen folks with the little, it's like a little Bluetooth speaker that they put on their body. Now, I might do that to where you can hear it. It's not the covering your ears.

You can still hear and hear everything around. That's smart. Yeah, cool. You're just blasting an audiobook through a Bluetooth story.

Through a little Led Zeppelin story to heaven. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trail Safety And Final Invite

Love it. Rick, thanks for being here. Uh, you've kind of already mentioned if people want to get involved, Facebook's the best place to find you and get connected.

Right. I I've enjoyed it, guys, and and I appreciate what you guys do uh for the community. You know, getting the word out about organizations like ours. And I guess for for the for the listening audience, man, come out and and you know, if you don't want to be a member, that's fine. Come out and enjoy the trail system with us on our social nights. Yeah. You know, let's go hike, let's go do some running or biking or whatever you want to do. Uh, bring your dogs. They got to be on a leash, but bring your dogs and uh yeah, let's go do it. I love it.

Do your children have to be on a leash? Uh no. Well, thank you so much, Miss.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.