Monday, April 25, 2016
CANFIELD
A partnership between Mill Creek MetroParks and a local business soon will allow park visitors to rent bicycles at the MetroParks Bikeway’s Kirk Road Trailhead.
Trailside Bicycle Co. recently entered into a lease agreement with the MetroParks that will expand its service to a facility at the trailhead. Trailside will offer equipment rentals and accompanying safety gear, snacks and beverages, and emergency repair services for cyclists, among other things.
Rental fees begin at $9 per hour. The MetroParks will keep 10 percent of what Trailside makes on rental and retail sales.
Trailside co-owner Bryan Ashman expressed excitement about the partnership.
“It opens up an interesting opportunity with us being on the bikeway. It will allow user groups to even do one-way rentals if they choose to,” he said, noting that cyclists can rent and return equipment both at the trailhead and at Trailside’s 410 W. Main St. headquarters.
He hopes the Kirk Road Trailhead facility will be useful not only to cyclists, but to anyone who visits the bikeway.
“Being right on the trailhead is a great way for us to offer a watering hole or a little trail-side facility to make use of the trail a little more appealing,” Ashman said.
MetroParks planners Steve Avery and Justin Rogers expressed a similar vision for the facility. Rogers is especially enthusiastic about the new service, he said, because development of the Kirk Road Trailhead is something he’s been working on since he started his career at the MetroParks 14 years ago.
The trailhead features two structures – a lower and an upper area – that were built in the 1930s. Using grant funding, the MetroParks completed award-winning rehabilitation work and dedicated the facility in 2003.
“Our vision was to use that upper area for programming and vendor space, and finally we have that opportunity,” said Rogers. “The thought is it will bring in people who traditionally did not use the bikeway or people who want to use the bikeway in a different fashion.”
The rental opportunity is ideal for casual cyclists who don’t own their own bike, or for out-of-town visitors, he said.
“It’ll be a prominent feature along the bikeway. We’re excited,” he said.
Hourly bike rentals will be available beginning Sunday (which also marks Trailside’s one-year anniversary, and the start of National Bike Month and the National Bike Challenge. Trailside will offer a special 38-mile ride beginning at 9 a.m. and a child-friendly ride at 10 a.m. Both events begin at the West Main Street location and will take cyclists to the trailhead.
The Kirk Road Trailhead rental location, 6685 Kirk Road, will be open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.