by There should be more places for visitors to use the Yonah Preserve’s well-liked walking and bike paths, which are located north of Cleveland.
During their meeting on Monday night, the White County Board of Commissioners received an update from Clark Neal, the Trail Project Coordinator for the original trails with the Northeast Georgia Southern Off-Road Bicycle Association (SORBA).
Neal discussed the group’s goals for increasing the site’s recreational offerings. According to Neal, they are excited to look into future funding options that would allow them to build two more paths to the property. There are currently eleven miles of trails there, and this would add nine more.
Since the trail system opened in 2018, this will be its first significant project.
After the meeting, Neal stated, “People aren’t necessarily coming to spend the night because they can ride the 11 miles of trail we currently have in a single day.” They continue to visit the brewery and our eateries. After that, time was spent. However, 20 miles of trails is often a multi-day bike destination, so visitors will stay overnight and spend much more money on tourism.
The other issue is that our kids have grown up and we have a resource for them for the mountain bike team, he added. We’ve saw children graduate, and now the second or third generation of children are out there making use of the resource we gave the county.
The commission board unanimously agreed to let the group proceed with the new initiative and look for funding.
