Increasing up in the late 1980s, Mike Repyak would established out on his bicycle from his dwelling in Cambridge, ripping by means of fields, down gravel streets and deer trails via the woods.

“To me, that was freedom and journey,” Repyak explained.

Now Repyak wants young children — and grownups — in Madison to working experience the same exhilaration that he bought from the filth beneath his tires.

A landscape architect for the Intercontinental Mountain Bicycling Affiliation (IMBA), Repyak is functioning with the Madison Parks Department to acquire a community of off-street trails all through a city that is known for cycling nevertheless lacks alternatives for off-street journey.

Regardless of its around 60 miles of paved bike paths, Madison has only a single location for mountain biking in the metropolis restrictions: A cluster of trails packed into Quarry Park, a 17-acre patch of woods near the corner of College Avenue and Midvale Boulevard.

“We’ve bought it for tough surface area trails, but not for organic floor trails,” Repyak said. “We have Quarry. That’s it.”

There are trails in nearby communities, together with Fitchburg, Middleton and Cambridge, but acquiring there involves driving or a long ride on pavement from most elements of town, in particular the East and North sides.

A new Parks Department initiative is trying to get to improve that by building a procedure of city mountain bicycle trails created to advertise well being, economic action and obtain to the outdoor, specially in traditionally missed communities.