If you like riding your bike in the Folsom Lake and Lake Natoma area and want to help FATRAC make the trails more enjoyable to ride for everyone, the Mountain Bike Community has a significant opportunity to encourage State Parks to do that, but we need your help. 

California State Parks is in the process of creating a Road and Trail Management Plan (RTMP) for the Folsom Lake State Recreation Area (FLSRA) that lays out its trail development plan for the foreseeable future. The draft RTMP was released in May 2022 and recommends that many trails be converted from pedestrian and equestrian only, to multi-use, allowing bikes. While the RTMP makes progress in modernizing trail use trends, it is not progressive. FLSRA is categorized as a state recreation area, where priorities are placed on recreation. This makes FLSRA the perfect area to incorporate purpose built mountain bike trails, like Culvert Trail in Auburn SRA, and bike parks, instead of just allowing bikes to ride on hiking trails. 

FATRAC invites you to join our efforts and support the following recommendations to the FLSRA RTMP:

1) We support changes-in-use on existing trails and new trail construction to provide access around ALL of Folsom Lake and Lake Natomas as a priority.  

2) We support change-in-use to allow mountain bike access to significant residential areas, recognizing the difficulty of precluding access otherwise.  

3) We support only bike-free trails where there are high-quality parallel options for bikes

4) We support growing a Peninsula area trail network (at the end of Darrington).

5) We support incorporating many of the non-system (user built) trails in North Granite Bay and Lake Ridge Oaks areas into multi-use sanctioned trails with advanced technical trail features (may or may not include jumps).

6) We support development of a bike park near Beals Point or another area to be determined to be operated by a concessionaire.  

7) We support incorporating progressive trail features as appropriate into new trail construction and reroutes, recognizing that such features often serve the dual benefit of slowing user speed (i.e. “pinch points”) and reducing erosion (i.e. grade reversals). 

8) FATRAC reiterates our dedication to continuing to help educate users on proper trail etiquette similar to our past campaigns, including participation in the “slow and say hello” program, equestrian/mountain bike “desensitization” events, the bell program, and participation in the Auburn State Recreation Area Trail Patrol.

9) FATRAC suggests expanding partnership programs to address deferred maintenance, evaluate non-system trails and build new trails, especially trails that circumnavigate both lakes.  FATRAC is dedicated to assisting Parks to make these suggestions a reality for the entire community.  

Riding bikes is a great form of exercise and transportation. It can be done by all age groups and socio economic backgrounds. It is a sport that has created tremendous economic benefits for places like Bentonville, Arkansas, Knoxville,Tennessee and Downieville, CA who have all created amazing mountain bike ecosystems. FLSRA has the land, resources and opportunity to do the same and be an example for other CA State Parks.

Please sign this petition to urge those at State Parks to take this opportunity to make mountain biking better in California, starting with FLSRA.

(FATRAC's 7 page response letter to State Parks regarding the 132 page RTMP can be found on fatrac.org/flsra-rtmp)