PROGRESS: Mountain bike trails are nearly completed at Cone, Sertoma parks

The Sioux City parks and recreation director said out-of-towners have already traveled to Sioux City to scout out the new mountain bike park.

"Everybody that we hear from -- the contractors, the stakeholders -- they told us we don't quite realize what a gem that we're going to have right here in Sioux City. We're excited about that," Salvatore said. "There's a lot of momentum; and we're eager to get this opened up to the public."

The Sioux City Parks and Recreation Department formally broke ground on the nearly $3 million project at the all-seasons park, 3800 Line Drive, in late August. In celebration of Chesterman Co.'s 150th anniversary, the Chesterman Foundation donated $1 million to the project. Chesterman Company is an independently-owned and operated Sioux City-based Coca-Cola bottling company.

In early 2021, the Parks and Recreation Department began working with Jay Chesterman and members of the mountain bike community to develop a plan for trails between Cone and Sertoma parks. The Chesterman Foundation funded a study, and the group worked with the International Mountain Bicycling Association to develop a master plan for mountain bike trails and other bicycle-friendly amenities.

The trails will be located adjacent to the Cone Park Lodge and provide trailhead access to new, sustainably constructed single-track shared use and bike-only trails, including an intermediate skills trail with prefabricated and natural skill features. There will be pump and tot tracks, as well as a progressive jump line.

The natural surface trails are 91% complete at Cone Park, according to Salvatore. He said the project's contractor, Rock Solid Trail Contracting, LLC, will be back at the beginning of April to finish it up. At that time, the pump track will also be completed.

"Basically everything's done but the asphalt itself," Salvatore said of the pump track. "We have a bunch of signage to get installed, and we added a jump line. We're hoping for a dedication late summer or early fall for the mountain bike park."

The addition of the mountain bike trails will cement Cone Park as a summer destination. 

Winter tubing on a 700-foot main hill first opened at the park in December 2017. Two years later, Cone Park was awarded the "outstanding attraction" honor from the Iowa Tourism Bureau and the Travel Federation of Iowa.

During the winter, the park also offers Blue Bunny Hill, a shorter hill designed for people of all ages and 5,400-square-foot refrigerated ice skating rink.

Summer tubing made its debut at the park in June 2022. Two lanes of plastic-type track on the main hill, which act like snow, are installed on the hill at the beginning of the summer season and removed before snowmaking begins.