New Club Advocates For Motorized Trail Access

Avery Hightower is new to Farmington, but he hopes to make a big impact in the off-road motorcycle community. Last fall, he founded the Glad Runners Motorcycle Club to organize and advocate for recreational and competitive off-road motorcycle opportunities in the area. You’re watching the Local News Network brought to you by Big Idea Makerspace in Northern Edge Casino. I’m your host, Ryan Simonovich.
The idea is to advocate right for motorcycle trails, right to secure motorized single track in the area and open up more of the opportunities. There’s, there’s a ton of stuff out here, but not a lot of it’s designated at this point. You know, there’s a lot of it that exists. It’s been out there for a long time, but it’s not protected as designated Trail.
Hightower said he couldn’t find any clubs in the area that fit with what he wanted to do. The club, which takes its name from Farmington’s Glad Run Recreation Area, has performed maintenance on existing trails and hopes to work with the Bureau of Land Management to officially sanction unofficial trails.
I submitted inventory of trails that exist out there and have existed out there, but aren’t on the map as designated trail in the limited use area to try to get those added in to where motorized single track, there’s a single loop, but there’s a lot of stuff out there that could turn it into a stacked loop system, which is what the BLM wants to see. So working on that.
Hightower and his club are also working with the New Mexico Race Collective to organize the choke Cherry Scramble event in Farmington in July. Hightower would like to organize more events and boost the club’s membership numbers.
What I would like to see is continued racing happening up here year over year. Have an annual event up here, but not be doing it on the same course every year. Right. Have three, maybe even four race courses approved for use, right where it’s easy permit process, all the studies have already been done, and that way we’re not overusing everything to being in a position where we can have other events benefit banquets, right? That’ll benefit the fire department or the police department, or any number of organizations that are working out here that we can kind of give back to the community in a different way than just my interests. Right?
Learn more at g Glad runners mc.com. For more local news stories, visit Farmington Local News. Thank you for watching this edition of The Local News Network. I’m Ryan Simonovich.