JBar Cycling

The River Trail is a great asset to our community, as I've professed repeatedly in this space. Local government has tried to make it user-friendly and accessible to visitors and, as a result, there are a couple of versions of maps floating around. One nifty little number from MetroPlan folds up card-sized and includes rides all over the Central Arkansas area. Unfortunately, none of these well-intentioned efforts really contain information that an out-of-towner could use to interpret directions from a local.


I can hear it now:

OOT calling local friend to meet him on the trail: "Ok, I'm at North Shore Landing. Where are you?"


LOCAL: "What? You're where? oh, oh, you're at the sub. I'm at Junior Deputy. Meet me at the Roundabout."

OOT: "What?"

Local: "Just head upstream. After you leave the downtown park, you'll hit the street and go past the Crack House, the Skate Park and the FOP. Then just stick to the Trail past the Quarry, the Wooden Bridge and the golf course.... "




You get it. Confusion reigns. Rendezvous go wrong. Friendships falter.

In an attempt to remedy this possibly tragic situation, I've added some frequently used landmarks to the trail map above, along with the localspeak names for them. You may know of others but these are the ones that came to me.

Here are most of the points:


The Sand Man: East end of the trail in NLR

The Sub: We're in Arkansas and we have a submarine. How could it NOT be a landmark.


Crack House: Ok, OK! I know that it is not politically correct to refer the Rehabilitation Center as "The Crack House", but I didn't start it. I'm sure they do the good work there, but riders call it the Crack House. I'm just communicating that fact.


Fort Roots: Can refer to the climb, the facility or the turn off of River Road. The turn is on Paul Duke Drive, but I've never heard it called that.

Skate Park: NLR got the taxpayers' moneys worth here. This place is always in use. Black T-shirts are de rigueur.


FOP: Fraternal Order of Police. Glad to have those guys around, even when they're just hanging out.

Quarry: The Big Rock of Little Rock

The Woods: you're entering Burns Park

Wooden Bridge: will rattle your teeth if you're on a stiff bike

Switchbacks: the Emerald Park trail


Dirt Jump Park: the free ride crowd worked with the city to build this little playground at the the gravel quarry west of the Burns Park Golf Course.


Ski Lake: officially Victory Lake. It was cleaned up and maintained by a water ski club before being incorporated into the park, as I recall, so they retain some access privileges. They hold several pretty big competitive events each year.


Dog Park: Our dogs were bored here, but they have high expectations when it comes to outdoor recreation.


Soccer Fields: Yep, they sure are.


Deer Field (formerly the RC Field): go any morning or evening and the name will be self-explanatory.


S-Turn Bridge (at Barton Bypass, but that's a different story.): banked turns give it that NASCAR feel.


The Pavilion: you know which one.


The Exit Ramp: a thoughtful feature to ease the exit and entry to the bridge from the NLR side of the BDB


BDB: Big Dam Bridge, of course.


The Roundabout (RAB in text): On the Little Rock side, west of the BDB, and a frequent meeting place. It marks the end of closed trail and the beginning of road open to auto traffic.


Verizon ( formerly Alltel):


Junior Deputy: watch for for wandering kids and parents


Old Competitive Cyclist: commercial building east of Junior Deputy Park. This reference will fade with time since CC moved across the river to the Promised Land