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Bike Trails
The wheel before the network: cycling on this ground before there were trails
item 1 — the pre-trail era, at county boundary size, with the town result printed at its strength
The bicycle reached this county as a French import before it reached it as a sport: in January 1869 the St. Joseph Valley Register reported a velocipede — an 80-pound iron-framed machine with wooden carriage wheels and pedals on…
Who keeps the Bendix Woods bike trails: NIMBA and the county, in succession
item 5 — organizational succession for the Bendix Woods mountain-bike system, dated as far as the published record dates it
The Bendix Woods mountain-bike system has two holders, and the record names both plainly: the ground is St. Joseph County Parks ground, and the trails on it are, in the county's own park literature, "specially designed mountain…
The Bendix Woods bike mileage, figure by figure: a dated ledger
item 6 — the county plans and park publications read for the mountain-bike mileage series
The banked set carried a standing flag — the bike system's mileage nowhere stated — and the plans settle it: the St. Joseph County Parks Master Plan 2014–2018 , on its Bendix Woods page, states the fact and its date in one…
How a railroad becomes a trail — and why none did here
item 10 — the mechanism article: railbanking and the Indiana trails programs, applied to this ground
A rail-trail is a legal act before it is a path: when a railroad moves to abandon a corridor, the corridor's easements would ordinarily dissolve back into the adjoining landowners' parcels, and the line would be lost as a line…
Floods, closures and the money at Bendix Woods
item 11 — the maintenance and funding record for the Bendix Woods trails, at the strength reached
The Bendix Woods trails are kept the way the county keeps everything — on a thin public budget and a thick volunteer one: the Five Year Master Plan 2019–2023's own progress accounting says the quiet part in print, that upgrading…