White Oak considering mountain bike trail upgrades to bring more bikers to city

WHITE OAK, Texas (KLTV) - There are a few cities around that have bike trails. Kilgore and Longview both do, but White Oak has one, too. And city officials are working towards making theirs a more exciting ride.

Longview’s Flugler’s Bike Shop owner Dereck Yagle talks with White Oak City Coordinator Jimmy Purcell about what can be done with White Oak’s bike trail.

“And there are nice wall rides. Again, it’s just that element that adds to it,” Yagle told Purcell.

“I know there’s a lot of people around here that use this trail. They love how long it is, as far as about five miles of the trail. It goes through the woods so I think it’s a big hit in White Oak,” Purcell said.

“This trail is probably one that has a decent amount of miles but lacks some features and things. And that’s what we’re trying to help out now, is just try to add some depth to it to make it one of the trails that is searched for,” Yagle said.

Yagle says a group of riders came in from Tyler over the weekend and liked the trail but said:

“Man, it’d be kind of cool to add some little bit of features to make them drive for 45 minutes. So, we really want to aim for people to come towards White Oak,” Yagle said.

Yagle grew up down the street from the bike path, and he used to ride in the woods before there were trails.

“Volunteers and the city have put in multiple hours to get it to where it is today,” Yagle said.

“Maybe come up with a time and day for the community to come out and go through the trail. Just walk it, clean it up or build some jumps,” Purcell said.

Purcell says he’ll be talking with Kilgore to see how they improved their bike trail with little or no cost to the city and will do the same. They want to:

“Just bring more people in to our community,” Purcell said.

Purcell and Yagle also would like to see some kind of coordinated promotion that would let riders know that the Longview, Kilgore and White Oak bike trails could all easily be ridden in a day since they’re about fifteen minutes apart.

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