This park near Hialeah has mountain biking trails that are maintained by volunteers
The mountain bike trail in the middle of an Australian pine forest in Amelia Earhart Park, just north of Hialeah, is perhaps Miami-Dade’s best kept secret.
The 8.5 miles of trails in this majestic 515-acre green lung of South Florida are perfect for cyclists of different levels of experience — from beginner to intermediate and advanced.
“There is nothing like this in the county. We have concrete all over the place and suddenly there’s Amelia Earhart Park and this amazing forest where the mountain biking trail is located. Coming to ride a bike in this park is a way to escape from the city, without really leaving,” explained Tony Suárez, who volunteers managing the land where the trail is located.
Although the park is managed by Miami-Dade County, as it is located in an unincorporated area, the section where the trail is located is maintained by 15 volunteers, who clear the brush, design routes, and create projects and fundraising campaigns to keep the facilities active. Amelia Trail Builders Club, Inc is the nonprofit organization that raises funds for ongoing repairs and improvements on the Amelia Earhart Mountain Bike Trails. The money raised is used to purchase building materials, maintenance equipment, and consumables such as fuel, cutting blades, cutting line, and tools.
These volunteers work on the trails every day, depending on their time availability. They love extreme sports and want to improve the condition of the area.
The first sections of the bike path were made in 1992 with machetes and saws. For more than 30 years, the team of volunteers has logged more than 30,000 hours of planning, building, maintenance and repair time at Amelia Earhart Mountain Bike Trails.
But it was not until 2014 when volunteering legitimately began, with the purpose to create an area within the forest that would allow mountain bikers to have routes to train and enjoy nature while exercising.
Every day after 4 p.m. between 500 and 600 cyclists ride one of the 12 trails designed in Amelia Earhart Park, which vary according to the climbs, ramps or steep curves (cambers) to make the route more dynamic and attractive for bikers.
Admission to Amelia Earhart Park is free Monday through Friday, and weekends are $7 per vehicle. These two days bikes and helmets can be rented from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
“The cyclists love this route. It’s not very technical, it’s smooth, but it makes you go fast. Every six months, the route changes direction, inverting the intensity of the trails,” explained Suárez, who began collecting garbage from the routes, then cutting down fallen trees until voluntarily administering the land.
Alfred León, 33, has been visiting the mountain trail at Amelia Earhart for about a month. He is a rookie cyclist who rides the sections that have been prepared for his category.
“It is a very beautiful route, with the lake on one side, it is very accessible. I live in Miami Gardens, and I come two or three days a week,” said León, who recently returned to Miami-Dade from California, where he was mountain biking in the national parks.
Suárez said that the route offered by Amelia Earhart Park is less challenging than the Markham Bike Park Trail in Sunrise or Oleta River State Park Mountain Biking, located along Biscayne Bay in North Miami. These parks have more advanced bike trails because of their ability to raise funds, he explained.
According to the manager of Amelia Earhart Mountain Bike Trails, about $10,000 is required each year to cover the needs of the trail, including cutting brush, creating new routes, signage, changing bridge planks or the routes’ elevations, and buying diesel for the vehicles (bulldozers) used to remove soil and to carry weeding tools.
Although the county recognizes the Amelia Earhart Mountain Bike Trails as one of the best bike trails in South Florida and the site of professional series BMX racing events, it has not maintained its surrounding area since 2014.
That year the county completed a bike wash station and a 15x15-foot canvas canopy that serves as a resting place with shade. It also got gardens, wooden fences, access gates, and a 20-space parking lot with eight parking spaces for people with disabilities. According to Miami-Dade government, the project cost approximately $627,000.
However, the mountain bike area lacks public toilets. It only has two portable toilets without toilet paper, and they are not cleaned in a timely manner, Suárez points out.
In addition to the mountain trail, Amelia Earhart Park offers five lakes, picnic facilities, a playground for children, an 18-hole disc golf course, a five-acre fenced-in dog park, and Bill Graham Farm Village, a working farm with an area to interact with animals and pony rides. It also has the Miami Wakeboarding Complex and the soccer field complex.
Amelia Earhart Park
Where: 401 E 65th St, Hialeah
Info: 305-685-8389
