Lakeland PBS presents Common Ground brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Production funding for Common Ground is made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the community.

Member FDIC.

Closed capturing is made possible by the Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

More information is available at bemidjiairport.org.

[Music] [Music] I'm producer-director Kelsey Jacobson.

In this episode Aaron Hautala takes us down the bike path of the Cuyuna biking world.

My name is Aaron Hautala and I'm the volunteer president of the Cuyuna Lakes Mountain Bike crew and the International Mountain Bicycling Association and my role specifically in the Brainerd Lakes area for cycling is to focus here in Cuyuna and that's on the development and the expansion and the maintenance of the mountain bike trails.

The transformation from Cuyuna in the industrial era, the mining era through what you see today it took a couple things.

It took time and it took people power and time was needed to bring these trees back, you know, these trees were not here.

When mining finished every hill you see was a red hill and it looked a lot like Mars if you're familiar with that planet.

These lakes with all that blue water, they had no water in them.

That water was being pumped out.

So, imagine looking into that lake, no water and anywhere from 3 to 400 ft. deep and you would see roads coming up where the trucks would come out and dump the overburden or put the minerals in a place where they could be processed.

And the other part was people.

It was 35 years ago CREDI Cuyuna Range Economic Development Incorporated and its executive director Barb Grove had this vision of protecting this landscape because you got to remember this landscape for this community represented two victories in two world wars and it represented their heritage and their reason for being.

So, even though it was failed and moved on it was still heart and soul to this area.

So, 35 years ago Barb Grove, Gloria Perpich and a whole band of other women came together and said we're going to protect it because this is our living history of who we were, who we are and who we still will be someday and thank God they did because if it wouldn't have it would have continued going the direction maybe that it would have and it could have been a wasteland.

It could have been a new landfill.

It could have been Freelander Zone but they stopped that from happening.

They made sure that this was going to be a resource and would they have ever seen this in their head?

Maybe not but they certainly saw opportunity.

The vision needed many champions through 35 years, first one being the State of Minnesota, they had to manage it.

They took it on and they said no this is something we'd like to manage and maintain and keep as a state rec area which in the beginning was basically a boat landing and water but through time other champions showed up that being John Shaboc, Jenny Smith, Dan Cruiser where they had a vision of getting people out in this failed industrial wasteland because it was becoming beautiful again and they spearheaded the Cuyuna Lakes Trail which is the paved trail, State trail and they put in 8 miles or so of paved trail with the specific vision to get this population, this community proud in their backyard again, that it's not a failed industrial zone.

It's renewed.

It's a renaissance and it's beautiful and it was purpose-built for outdoor recreation and then moving past the paved trail in came what usually are called Outsiders or 612ers we all know what that means but in this case they were our greatest asset we ever met and Gary Schulquist of QBP, all the volunteer members of the Minnesota Off-Road Cyclist and so many more, Tim Wagner.

They saw this area.

They saw these hills.

They saw the rock.

They saw the soil and they said you know those hills they are perfect for Mountain bicycling.

They are absolutely perfect.

We could purpose-build a ride center here that wasn't just for riding, it could rebuild your economy.

It could reintroduce a new identity and when those individuals showed up they met John Shaubach, they met Jenny Smith and they met Dan Cruiser and together that synergy was born and it started to move forward this program faster and then from that point on it took locals.

There was Teddy Schaefer, Nick Statz, Rori Stumvoll, Joshua Rebanek many others that had to put in a demonstration trail that you can still ride today here in the rec area.

They had to show that it could be done and that it could work to the State before they would move forward with the first build and then it was built 25 miles showed up in one fall and it was a huge gift.

It was a huge gift maybe the biggest gift Minnesota's ever given Minnesota and it was amazing and that's when I showed up after all the trails had been built, I showed up and said holy cow!

These are the best trails I've ever ridden and it felt like I was on my downhill skis on a bicycle but by the way it was out in my backyard and that was the minute I said this can be the heart and soul of our economics in this region.

We can build a 21st century economy on purpose-build outdoor recreation based on first class quality of life and that's in the last 6 years what you've seen happen here, where we went from okay, we're still kind of plotting along to 15 new businesses, from not being recognized anywhere to be a top 25 destination in the world.

We were just ranked as one of the top 25 things to see in the world by Outside magazine.

How did that happen?

It's because vision, people working together and they drew a very, very, very big circle and they didn't limit creativity to what looked doable today.

The Cuyuna would have never happened with mountain biking and they went out there and flagged a trail, got approval from the State of Minnesota and started working on it with picks and shovels and hard work and those volunteers put in a lot of time, they built a trail and they were able to ride it and able to show the State of Minnesota Parks and Trails that this is doable and this is a demonstration of what the greater system could be and that was necessary, that had to happen, there was no go pass go on that one and then when that was done the State of Minnesota then had to find the funds to build this and late Congressman Oberstar was life and death to that happening.

He was able to allocate funds out of the Transportation of the federal government and if that wouldn't have happened Cuyuna for Mountain Bicycling would have never showed up either.

So, we owe a great deal of respect and thanks to the Oberstars and then from there the State also had to put in dollars to make it happen and so did other organizations that had to put dollars into design and had to put, there was it was a community working for a community again even though it was the State and private organizations making it happen but when that all got done, the money was there, the bids went out, the bids were awarded and the magic started to be created and that's where IMBA our parent organization - International Mountain Bicycling Association Hans E. Johnson at the time was our regional manager and he worked hand in hand with the construction, making sure that the trails that got built reflected the stewardship of IMBA and that they were sustainable and that they were experience-based because these trails aren't just from point to A to B.

They're not a way to get somewhere.

You go somewhere but it's more about the experience you have along the way that makes them great and I got involved because I wanted to assist with the sustainability of the maintenance for the trails first from an organizational operational point of view, doesn't sound exciting but if you can't maintain the trails, the trails close and we had to maintain the 25 miles we had.

When I got involved I was able to see the opportunity to expand the trails and even in the first year we were starting to see so many new customers to our area that had never come here before.

It was like this is a real opportunity to give this area an economy it never had before and we've successfully done that.

From an expansion point of view we've been able to work with the State of Minnesota Parks and Trails on developing the Master Vision for trails which at the end of this fall will have 30 miles of trail.

The Master Vision calls for approximately about 75 miles of trail.

The goal is to give three days of riding to an average rider without repeating a trail.

So, that you have to stay at least two nights.

It's called Cyclenomics.

We made up that word too.

It just makes sense.

When we released that Master Vision, we were immediately hit with the praise of you'll never do it.

It's impossible.

It costs way too much money and my favorite - what were you thinking because when someone says what were you thinking, that's when you know you're on the right path.

You keep driving hard because you're close to success and it was hard.

How do you raise $6 million but in working with legislature and working with organizations and working with our customers, our community in the past 6 years we've approached raising $6 million, to put the dollars in place to expand our trails to that 75 miles of trail and it'll take many years to build it from here.

I've learned that getting the money is hard but then actually investing the money is also hard.

It takes time.

It has to be methodical.

It has to be planned and if it's in Cuyuna it has to be right.

It came out of a, I think I just said it out loud maybe someone said it before if you did I apologize but it came out of the this belief of traditional economics looking at cycling as dessert.

It's nice but you can't live on dessert and our thing was no it's not dessert, cyclenomics or creating world-class destination of outdoor recreation is how you recruit the 21st century to come to your area to like it and then how to recruit them to start their own business or to work for an existing business and if you're worried about having the best doctors, the best engineers, the best teachers you're going to have to worry about that in outstate Minnesota or outstate anywhere town and we knew through quality of life with world class outdoors we had the best chance and I think we're proving it because we have 15 new businesses on the ground.

These trails help our hospital recruit the best surgeons they can and they're getting surgeons that normally wouldn't come to an outstate location but they want it because of the quality of life.

So, when we have the best doctors, the best surgeons, the best K -12 education and the best quality of life you can live anywhere in the state of Minnesota but you're going to pick Cuyuna because it has that no one else does and that was the vision of why we had to expand.

In order to prove cyclenomics wasn't just a buzzword, we needed to do a cyclist survey.

So, this is probably the most important thing we ever did.

We partnered with Andrew Hook who is a retired economist who happens to live right through the woods in Riverton.

He built economies for third world countries.

The guy's portfolio is huge.

He happened to retire here.

We worked together with Andrew on creating a cyclist survey to understand: A. what they wanted here from an experience point of view but to number two put a dollar amount to what they were spending and with 25,000 visitors a year which this was based off of which we had at that time , they were putting $2 million into the economy every year and then in our Master Vision of expanding it to 75 miles of trail and increasing the ridership to 40,000-45,000 Andrew Hook estimated conservatively he says, conservatively it would be a $21 million impact every year renewable, sustainable, continual not just use it for 3 years and it's gone.

This could be a sustainable economy continuing forward and that's just, you know, you think of a $21 million impact off of one sport.

That's one activity.

By the way, Cuyuna is not one activity deep.

When you look around here, spend some time you're going to see mountain biking.

You're going to see road cycling.

You're going to see gravel grinding.

You're going to see BMX.

You're going to see pump track and then you're going to see the paddle sports.

You're going to see kayaking, paddle boarding, scuba, hiking.

These are all our products here.

We're not one deep and you have to be that diverse because if something ever changes and it's not as hot you want the other one to rise and in Cuyuna we have the Mall of America of outdoor recreation.

[Music] The new business growth that's always the million-dollar question.

Who was it?

How did it happen and it started really with the existing businesses first.

You think of Chris and Nadine Albrech.

They own the Dairy Queen.

When they saw this opportunity continue to grow they purchased another building.

It's a Spaulding.

It's a place to get a beer.

It's a pub right but then they also remodeled the rooms upstairs so there could be more lodging and then there's Jonna Johnson of Mixed Company.

The first coffee shop we got in town.

She was the former director of the Cuyuna Lakes Chamber and she took the early adopter pledge, risked it all and open the coffee shop she's always wanted.

She wanted to spend a lot of time growing relationships because when you come out with a Master Vision it's easy for you and the land manager to like it but it has to get funded and the number one thing I had to do is just build relationships even locally first with all our Chambers of Commerce, all our Economic Development authorities, all our major employers and then once we had that alliance of understanding this vision for Cuyuna and how it would impact not just Cuyuna but all the way up to Bemidji from an economics point of view we then went to St. Paul and we did a lot of chatting with our representatives and our senators and I thanked them all because they could have very easily been bored with my story, very easy on but Representatives Heintzeman and Lueck, John Poston, Senator Ruud, Senator Gazelka, they gave us the time and they listened to us.

They understood it maybe not right away but eventually and it took probably 20-25 trips I don't even know how many over the past six years to continually put that message out there that this is worth investing too.

This isn't just investing in outdoor recreation.

This is investing in outdoor recreation, health, mobility and economics and then in the last session I was in Oklahoma, the state okay and I got a text at about 3:00 in the morning that said the bill is passed.

Cuyuna has the, it was $3.6 million to keep moving forward on the further expansion and development of the rec area itself and the trail specifically and that marked a five year and x-month campaign of building relationships and partnerships and understandings and alliance and if there's anything to take from that story it's you can't do it alone.

You will fail and you might barely do it together but if you don't try you guarantee it won't work and it's amazing what a whole region can do when the whole region works together.

We didn't have a "it's their project we don't care".

We had five different communities all come together and say this is important.

We had Brainard, Nisswa, Mille Lacs, Aitken and Cuyuna all saying this is our number one priority for funding.

That's how you move it forward.

If it was just Cuyuna's story it wouldn't have got very far but we got to work together and you think of our whole, the Lakeland Public TV coverage area.

Imagine us all working together for those initiatives.

The power of that.

The opportunity we all have as a community.

Then there's this guy called Dan Cruiser around here in Cuyuna who's kind of our icon.

If there was a bronze buttress in the park it'd probably be Dan Cruiser but he was super important in the beginning with the State of Minnesota because he was the fella that helped get mountain bicycling as part of the Cuyuna Country State Rec area management plan and if mountain biking wouldn't have been included in that management plan that was created years and years ago when the group from the Twin Cities came up saying mountain biking it would have been a no deal because you couldn't rewrite the management plan.

So, thank you Dan Cruiser right but bigger than that Dan has a very big big picture, big circle of what cycling could be and he always saw it much larger than just point A to B and when I came into leadership with the crew I sat down with Dan a lot because I really had no clue.

I'll admit that I admitted it then I hope but it's was like tell me about what this thing really is because here's my vision of it and the two of us worked a lot together on developing Cuyuna as a bigger destination than just 25 miles of trail and how it's the feeling of when you go to Cuyuna you're going somewhere and that really bled into the vision that you see in the Master Vision for trails and he was a very big part helping me actually understand that and Dan's like the original adventure cyclist because when he was riding originally there were no single track trails he would just ride whatever and he knows trails all over the place that all of us youngins are trying to learn from him because he's got wisdom behind his years but now there's rides called like the Wood Tick 70.

It's a new event.

It's a gravel grinder event.

The only reason that event is around is because of Dan Cruiser.

That is Dan Cruiser DNA and I know when he sees that, you'll have to come to the event and just watch him and all he'll be doing is smiling and his smile starts like right about here and just goes like this because imagine working your whole life for cycling to be the thing and I bet for 30 some years he was the only one that believed it and all a sudden in one period of 5 years it tipped his way but my hope for the future - number one is it's maintained.

Okay, if we have 30 miles today and 75 miles in four years it has to be maintained first and you look at all the maintenance along with the State who has paid employees to help is done by volunteers and that family needs to grow consistently and if there's people who love cycling in Cuyuna we need them to join the family once in a while and come help maintain it too.

So, that's definitely part of the vision but when you look out past that the future and you look at where could Cuyuna be in five years I think you could have a thriving authentic small gritty experience that you can't find anywhere else in the country.

Today's culture everybody is throwing their back into being the one.

You have different destinations throwing millions and millions of dollars into being the destination for cycling because it's relevant and we're going to do it as a state and as a volunteer base from the grassroots and we've pulled off miracles where other destinations that go "how do you do this"?

We were just given the award from People for Bikes for the bike tourism destination award and there's the biggest names in the industry in the same room but Cuyuna brings it home - population of less than 4,000 people and it's that authenticity that really can pave the way to real success.

The Teravail Armageddon, that's our big, big, big Fall Mountain Bike Race.

It's a unique opportunity in that we were able to work with the State of Minnesota Parks and Trails to actually have the entire single track footprint for one race.

A lot of single track race courses are 8 mile loops but for the Armageddon we wanted the whole thing because we wanted to give the racers a unique experience they could only get in this one event and it's worked wonderfully.

Where you have a a 12 mile which is half a lap for someone who doesn't want to do anymore or you have a 25 mile which is one full lap or you have the 50 mile which is two laps and the majority of it which is amazing for this year if construction goes according to plan hoping, the majority of it will be single track which again is a major major attribute for a cycling event to be able to offer that because it's very hard to do and the Armageddon just like the 45 North Whiteout in the winter it brings people from about a 10 state area, you know and that's what took a while for our area to understand is that our events aren't just recruiting people from Nisswa and Bemidji and Grand Rapids and maybe a couple from Hibbing no no no no.

Iowa loves Cuyuna.

I can't get over what Iowa loves.

The Dakotas, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Colorado, Maine really?

One time even from Germany.

It's a draw.

It's a magnet and when people come here sometimes they come here for the very first time for an event and when they fall in love with Cuyuna at the Armageddon or the Whiteout guess what they do later on in the year.

They come back and they bring their family and then sometimes they start getting really crazy and they say I want to live here because I'm sick of visiting.

I don't want to leave and we've seen it happen.

That's again why Red Raven's here.

it's why Cuyuna Brewings here.

They didn't want to go home.

Their home was Cuyuna.

In the summer on dirt wait till you get on snow because they're just as much fun and remain fit in the winter.

What I've always said about winter is if anybody can do it right it's Minnesota and if anybody can own winter cycling it's Minnesota and it changed though, it changed along the way, that's what was kind of fun because when it started and when Barb Grove was 35 years ago going to her board part of the IRRRB to say we want to preserve this however big area for recreation their answer was no.

It's too big and she says after that meeting she said well it sounds like we're getting along the way like I said before no doesn't mean no it just means not yet but her vision again was to protect at number one to respect the miners that gave their lives in many cases to make this happen and that vision did protect it but the first things to show up then in the protection were the traditional things called fishing, scuba absolutely nothing wrong with those but it evolved.

The Cuyuna Lakes Trail was not part of maybe that original vision.

It came through those next tier of people that saw the same opportunity but in their context the mountain biking same thing.

There wasn't a scripted progression but there was these stakeholders that saw the resource, saw the opportunity and brought their vision to the table and now we're seeing like okay there's mountain biking but now we're seeing people recreating in ways we never thought possible.

Okay, you like snorkeling, you do that.

I mean okay we're just sitting on tubes, okay we just I mean there's new sports being developed out here because they have the canvas to allow it and when you walk down the street and all you see is bikes on cars, paddle boards on top of trucks and people smiling having the time of their life in the town that you moved to 6 years ago that had no one walking in it you can say that hurt like heck but I think it [Music] matters.

Thanks for watching Common Ground.

If you have an idea for a Lakeland PBS production in north central Minnesota email us at legacy@lptv.org [Music] or call 1-800-292-0922.

To watch app.

Production funding for Common Ground is made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji continuing their second century of service to the community.

Member FDIC.

Closed capturing is made possible by the Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

More information is available at bemidjiairport.org.

Common Ground is brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people November 4th, 2008.