Bentonville - More Than a Mountain Bike Mecca

 “Let’s do that again!” I exclaimed. 

Eric’s eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up. Corrine wanted to do a downhill trail a second time?!

Usually, I’m a total wimp on downhill trails, but I rocked this one and even got a tiny bit of air on the whoop-de-doos! The Family Flow Trail was just my speed. Bentonville, Arkansas, was living up to its name as a Mecca for mountain biking, with something for all levels. But we were also finding out there was more to Bentonville than mountain biking. 

Post-Race Not So Blues

After my early DNF in the Arkansas High Country bikepacking race, we still had a two-week vacation left. What to do? When I was on the race, Eric had planned to spend most of his time exploring the mountain biking in the area. He had heard a lot about Bentonville and had a three-night stay already reserved at an Airbnb just a few blocks from downtown. So, we headed there, with a brief side trip to hike to Hawksbill Crag, the most photographed spot in in Arkansas. It was about halfway between Russellville (where the race had started) and Bentonville. The short hike to the crag was a great way to break up the drive through the rolling Ozark Mountains.

I wasn’t all that disappointed with having to drop out of the race due to a mechanical, but if I had been, Bentonville would have been a great place to lift my spirits. It has miles and miles of easily accessible mountain bike trails for all levels, but it has much more. Miles of paved trails through greenways, bike-friendly infrastructure for getting around town, whimsical art installations on the trails, free art museums, great places to eat, and even a building that you can bike to the top of. If you haven’t been there and you like biking, you should consider going.

All of this is thanks to Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, his wife Helen and their heirs. Sam was the driving force behind Walmart, Helen insisted the headquarters stay in Bentonville, and the Walton family heirs have showered the area with good works from their inheritance. 

Mountain Biking Vision

Tom and Steuart Walton, grandsons of Sam, had the vision for mountain biking in the area. Through their efforts the Walton Family Foundation has poured more than $70 million dollars into cycling infrastructure for the region. That investment has resulted in a ton of biking tourism for Bentonville and the entire northwestern Arkansas region. 

Bentonville must be one of the most bike friendly cities I have visited. Bike paths and protected lanes everywhere. We saw all kinds of bikes from road bikes to e-bikes to mountain and gravel bikes. I have never seen so many people on bikes except for the week of RAGBRAI in Iowa. And a lot of people were on foot too, walking or running. We never used our minivan during our entire stay in Bentonville.

More Than Biking – But a Lot of Biking!

Besides all the biking infrastructure, Bentonville has a surprising amount of art. The free-admission Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is a huge, world class art museum built by another Walton heir. The museum includes an outdoor art installation that you can walk or bike through. The area also has a Frank Lloyd Wright House, the Museum of Native American Art and, of course, the Walmart Museum, which covers the history of Walmart in America. All free to the public! And there are whimsical art installations everywhere you go, including on mountain bike paths.

And, of course, Bentonville has lots of bike shops. Our first stop in town was at Phat Tire Bike Shop, where we managed to get my bike fixed. They didn’t have the right part, but we tried replacing my 10-speed wheel pulleys with slightly thinner 11-speed pulleys and they worked just fine. Whew! I would have been really disappointed to not be able to ride my bike in Bentonville. 

After getting my bike fixed, we biked from our Airbnb, heading north on the Razorback Parkway bike path, just to check things out. A storm, including a tornado, had hit Bentonville back in May, so some of the trails were still damaged from that, but the community had done an amazing job of cleaning up. At the north end of the greenway path, we figured out how to do a little lollipop loop instead of heading straight back, but we ran into a damaged bridge. Fortunately, we found a place where we could rock-hop across the waterway. On the way back to our Airbnb we did some diversions on a few of the many mountain bike trails through the greenway, one of several in the area.

Trail maintenance after the storms earlier in the year

Eric rock-hops across the river

The morning of our second day, we biked into town for breakfast, but first we biked to the top of the Ledger building, “first-ever bikeable building.”  Six floors of switchbacks on the outside of the building! How fun is that? Great views from the top, including a close-up look of an art installation on another building: two huge fish that shimmer as the wind and temperature move metal panels that make up the sculpture. 

See the switchbacks on the outside of Ledger Building?

I ride up the switchbacks!

After breakfast, we biked over to the Coler Mountain Bike Preserve greenway. We started at the south end, making our way north riding over a “singing” bridge and then by a coffee shop that is only accessible by trails. We stopped there for a snack, but only after biking the entire greenway paved path (across another “singing” bridge) and then coming back on mountain bike trails, including that fun Family Flow Trail. 

We stopped to do the 11-story hill climb right on the trail, too.

Coffee shop only accessible by bike or foot

After our snack break, we took more paved and dirt paths toward home, including on a short, completely paved downhill trail Eric had seen on a video. (It had a scary last downhill that I almost didn’t do. But I did it!) We biked through the grounds of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, taking in several amazing pieces of outdoor art, including one that was made up of a whole bunch of old aluminum boats and canoes. We stopped at the museum and wandered through, almost overwhelmed by all the art. There was more to see, but we were getting hungry, so we biked back to our Airbnb, then walked to dinner. 

Finishing up the paved downhill mountain bike trail

Not Just Mountain Biking – But, Yes, Mountain Biking

On our last day in Bentonville, I wanted to get in at least one big ride since I had to bail from doing my planned 1,000-mile race. The 100-mile Big Sugar Gravel race starts in Bentonville on October 19. It is the last race of the Lifetime Fitness Gravel series. The night before, I found the route online and downloaded it. I started early the next day, just as the sun was coming up. I toured the course, stopping often to take photos along the way. It was a great way to spend the day and see the country around Bentonville. And now when I watch the race recap, I will know what the announcers will be talking about.

Meanwhile, Eric wanted to do more mountain biking. While I did my gravel route, he biked to the other side of town to the Hand Cut Hollow riding area. He found some challenging trails and had a blast, eventually working back to the Razorback Greenway, where he played a bit more on mountain bike trails.

On to Other Things

We could easily have spent more time in Bentonville and northeast Arkansas. There were many other trails and riding areas we hadn’t seen. But our son Riley suggested that we could come visit him and his wife Sam in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the International Balloon Fiesta was taking place. The event is the largest hot air balloon festival in the world. We realized it was only a 12-hour drive, so we said we would come. Riley and Sam had been in Albuquerque for a year, and we hadn’t yet visited them.

Hiking in the Sandia Mountains out of Albuquerque with Sam and Riley.

While a 12-hour drive isn’t that far to an Alaskan, it’s still a ways to go (especially when driving busy interstate highways – ugh!), so we did some searching and found the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma. Mountains in Oklahoma? Who knew? The refuge is about halfway to Albuquerque and only a little out of the way, so we broke the drive into two days, spending an afternoon hiking in the Wichita Mountains.  

Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge

Sunset from Mount Scott in the Wichita Mountains

We also found plenty of places to play in New Mexico, and visited a spectacular canyon in Texas on our way back but that's a story for another blog post.