As two-wheeled tourism picks up across Montana, four state parks are adding overnight accommodations for cyclists.
The Montana State Parks announced this week it is moving forward with building and enhancing bicycle campsites at Whitefish Lake, Wayfarers near Bigfork, Placid Lake and Salmon Lake, both near Seeley Lake.
“We’re really excited about this,” Dave Landstrom, regional manager for State Parks in Kalispell, said.
Two existing sites at Whitefish Lake and Wayfarers will gain improvements and additions while new shared group sites will be built at Placid Lake and Salmon Lake. The sites will accommodate up to 10 tent spaces and be equipped with a bicycle rack, fire ring, bear resistant food lockers, potable water, bicycle maintenance stand, electrical outlets and covered shelter with picnic tables.
The state parks agency is working with a design firm and plans to break ground on the sites this spring. The sites will be available this summer, Landstrom said.
The new features will address the increasing demand to accommodate touring bicyclists and help support bicycle tourism in Montana, the agency stated.
Cycling tourism is a major market, according to a December 2013 research report from the Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research at the University of Montana.
The study showed that cyclists spend an average of $75 per person, per day, and stay an average of eight days for their trips. Of the more than 700 cyclists in the survey, 92 percent of them were planning future multi-day cycling trips.
Forty-one percent of those surveyed visited Glacier National Park, with many of them saying riding Going-to-the-Sun Road was one of the highlights of their cycling experiences.
The Whitefish Convention and Visitors Bureau has identified cyclists as one of its target demographics, according to executive director Dylan Boyle said. Cyclists tend to visit the Flathead Valley for all of the road and mountain biking opportunities and end up discovering other aspects of the valley, Boyle said.
The Flathead Valley is part of two major cycling trails: the Great Divide and the Northern Tier. Some riders, instead of starting the Great Divide trail in Canada, are now flying specifically to the Flathead to start their trip, which will eventually take them to Mexico, according to survey results.
Mountain biking is also gathering crowds, with the valley offering top-rated trails at Kalispell’s Lone Pine State Park, Herron Park, the Whitefish Trail and on Big Mountain through Whitefish Mountain Resort.
The Whitefish Bike Retreat opened along the Whitefish Trail near Beaver Lake in 2013 to accommodate the growing crowd of cyclists touring the valley.