PIMENTO, Ind. (AP) - Organizers are mapping out some 16 miles of bike trails through a western Indiana county park for a memorial to a soldier killed during the war in Afghanistan.
A bike park designer from California visited the Fowler Park site a few miles south of Terre Haute on Thursday with Army Sgt. Dale Griffin’s parents and brother to scout out possible mountain bike routes through the park’s 300-acre wilderness area.
Blake Griffin said he often rode bikes through the wooded area with his brother, who grew up in Terre Haute and was 29 when he was among seven soldiers killed during a 2009 roadside bomb attack.
“I know he’d be happy” with the bike park plans, Griffin told the Tribune-Star (https://bit.ly/UFyCc1 ).
The Griffin Bike Park, which volunteers are helping to build, is expected to open in 2016 and cost about $850,000.
Bike trail designer Nat Lopes said the trails will take advantage of the park’s rolling hills through the woods and several ponds.
“The terrain here is some of the most dynamic I’ve ever had a chance to work with,” Lopes said.
The bike park has been designated as an Indiana Bicentennial Legacy Project ahead of the state’s 200th anniversary of statehood in 2016. Plans are to have a 1-mile youth trail open for one day on Oct. 4 to mark National Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day.
“It’s going to be just a taste of what’s to come,” said Dona Griffin, the slain soldier’s mother.
Griffin was a state wrestling runner-up in his weight class from Terre Haute South High School and enlisted in the Army after attending Virginia Military Institute. President Barack Obama saluted Griffin’s flag-draped coffin as it and those of 17 other fallen Americans were taken from a cargo plane at Dover Air Force Base in October 2009.
Organizers of the memorial bike path believe it will attract mountain-biking enthusiasts from all over the country.
The park will feature a perimeter trail and a lake trail that would be suitable for those without mountain bikes or who prefer hiking, Lopes said.
“This is a destination a lot of people will want to check out,” he said.
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Information from: Tribune-Star, https://www.tribstar.com
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