Name a bike trail in Coeur d’Alene, and Joy and Buck Fitzpatrick have probably pedaled it.

The Lake City couple has traced nearly the whole span of the Centennial Trail, they said, the very course their bikes were coasting down on a Friday afternoon near Kathleen Avenue.

Buck’s favorite section is around Higgens Point, where he burns his hamstrings training for the Coeur d’Alene Triathlon.

“It’s a good 20 miles uphill,” the 74-year-old said with a grin.

Bottom line: The city is a good fit for committed bikers, the couple deemed.

“We’ve had friends come down just to bike the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes, and they’re impressed with just our trail system here,” Joy said.

Coeur d’Alene is gaining a reputation for its two-wheel culture.

The city boasts 60 miles of bike lanes on its streets, and the asphalt trails throughout town are peppered with cyclists on sunny days. Come Ironman, herds of bikers sweep down the streets.

But when Askmen.com recently released a list of the top 10 bike-friendly cities, Coeur d’Alene wasn’t on it.

Instead, metropolises including Portland and Seattle were lauded for bike lanes as numerous as roads, and thousands of residents who pedal their daily commute.

There is room for improvement in Coeur d’Alene, acknowledged Monte McCully, city trails coordinator.

“If we want to compete with cities like Portland, we have a long way to go,” McCully said.

Even though Coeur d’Alene was the first Idaho city to achieve a bike-friendly status in 2008 through the League of American Bicyclists, McCully added, it was only a bronze-level status.

Officials recognize the need to do better, he said.

“We have a large biking community, we really do. Incredibly large, for the size of city we are,” McCully said. “And it’s growing. Every year, we see more and more cyclists out there.”

All those cyclists have ideas on how the city can make their daily rides better.

“We have people calling in more and more, wanting more facilities,” McCully said.

Better Bike Lanes

Cycling is one of the preferred modes of travel in town, said Steven Bafus with Coeur d’Alene Cycle and Fitness.

He has sold bikes for toddlers just big enough to straddle, he said, and to athletes still training in their 90s.

But that doesn’t mean cycling here is always easy, he said.

“For the most part, it’s super scary to pedal a bike on the city streets around here,” Bafus said.

There just aren’t enough bike lanes, said Bafus, who bikes to work every day. Pedalers are constantly merging with traffic, and cars are quick to encroach on their space.

“The people in cars don’t give much respect to people on bicycles,” he said.

It doesn’t help, he added, that many cyclists don’t know the rules of the road, like biking with the flow traffic on the side of the lane.

“You’ve got idiots driving cars, and idiots riding bikes,” Bafus said.

Carrie Martin, owner of Bicycle Sales and Service, said bicycle commuting would be easier if the bike lanes connected throughout the city.

“Getting more street friendly bike lanes would be nice, so you don’t have to zigzag through town just to find them,” Martin said.

Some like Mike Gaertner, owner and manager of Vertical Earth, thinks the city has already come a long way in developing a bike lane system.

He applauds the city for mapping bike lanes on its website, he said. He was relieved to see a lane added to 15th Street.

“It was pretty sketchy there before,” he said.

The only hangup, Gaertner said, is most of these lanes are unrideable three or four months of the year.

“Something that could be greatly improved would be sweeping out those lanes,” Gaertner said. “Everyone out riding has to ride in the road with the cars, because there’s nothing but solid gravel and flat tires in the bike lane.”

Gaertner still thinks Coeur d’Alene stands out as a biking community because of its proximity to so many trails, he said, like Centennial Trail weaving through the city and connecting to Spokane, and the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes, which is a short drive away.

“I used to live in places like Missoula where there are maybe three options to go on a longer ride,” Gaertner said. “Whereas here, you’ve got quite a few places you can go.”

He hopes more folks start taking advantage by commuting by bicycle, he added. That’s why his and other local biking businesses have started a program that rewards bike commuters with prizes.

“We’re a good, fairly tight-knit community, whereas you look at Spokane and it’s not as feasible for things like this,” Gaertner said. “There’s potential for being even more bike friendly, and even more outdoor activity focused.”

Don’t Forget BMX

Where Bafus sees the most need: The skate park.

Despite its name, the asphalt skate park behind Memorial Field is dominated by kids on BMX bikes, Bafus said, the squat bikes used for stunts and trick riding.

“Now more than ever, there are way more BMXers than skateboarders,” Bafus said. “If it’s a nice day, guaranteed. Even if it’s not a nice day, as long as it’s dry.”

The maintenance and design of the skate park here doesn’t measure up to most around the country, said Bafus, who has competed in many BMX competitions in skate parks out of state.

“All they do to maintain it is spray over the graffiti,” he said.

But he is optimistic. Staff at Coeur d’Alene Cycle are involved with discussions for the McEuen Field redesign, which includes the possibility of a top-of-the-line skate park.

That would be a magnet for BMX riders even far out of the area, Bafus predicted.

“It’s a release for a lot of kids,” Bafus said. “It’s a good way to get out of the house.”

Nicholas Makuch, 19, was among a handful on a Friday afternoon jumping his BMX bike off the half and quarter pipes in the skate park.

“Build a new skate park,” was his advice to city officials.

Makuch pointed to cracks in the ramps, and explained that new skate parks use different material that is smoother and more protective for falls.

“This was good for its time, but technology has improved,” the Coeur d’Alene teen said.

What he would love to see, he added, is some city property designated for dirt jumping.

That’s where kids shovel dirt into piles several feet high to jump their bikes off of, he said. They do this on property they don’t own, he added, until they’re kicked out.

“If there was a good section of dirt for that, it would be greatly appreciated,” Makuch said.

That same afternoon, 13-year-old Tyler Wiedebush and his friends took turns jumping their BMX bikes off of self-made dirt piles on a patch of wilderness by Woodland Middle School.

“You get to compete with your friends, see who can get the most air,” Wiedebush said.

A wider, open space to practice on would attract a lot of kids, he said.

“It would be cool to have a spot next to our school,” he said.

The Future: A cyclist’s paradise

The city has a plan to make everyone’s hopes for biking facilities come true, McCully said.

It will just take time.

“It all comes down to planning and money,” he said.

Coeur d’Alene has recently completed a trails and bikeways master plan, outlining the city’s 10-year vision for cycling infrastructure.

That includes another 72 miles of bike lanes, he added.

But it might not happen quickly. The most cost-effective process for bike lane installation is to add the lanes when a street is getting a new overlay installed, McCully said.

“Every year I review what streets they (the Streets Department) will be doing, and go to them and ask that they add in lanes,” McCully said. “So slowly, every year, we’ll add more bike lanes to the city.”

Under the city’s new streets policy, he added, a bike lane will be considered for every new road built.

New trails are planned, including one winding from Prairie Avenue to the Kootenai County landfill, and another stretching from the east side of I-90 by Fernan Lake to 15th Street.

How to pay for these projects is still uncertain.

“That’s all spelled out, where those trails and bike lanes are going to go,” McCully said. “We just need to find the funding to go out and do it.”

Any clutter in current bike lanes, he added, is likely due to the limited street sweeping the budget can allow right now.

As for a new skate park, that is up to the city council when it deliberates on the proposed redesign for McEuen Field, McCully said.

It depends on funding.

“We’re going to form a skate committee that will kind of be in charge of that, raising money and getting grants,” he said. “Basically we will give them the land to build it, and it will be up to them to raise the money.”

The city is looking for open space for a freestyle mountain bike course, McCully added, where he believes dirt jumping would be welcome.

“We don’t have anything currently,” he said. “We’re looking to future annexations that may bring in more natural open space.”

Mayor Sandi Bloem said she has a lot of faith in the city’s Ped/Bike Committee to extend bike trails and lanes through town.

She thinks Coeur d’Alene has an advantage to being a superior cycling area, she added, because of its setting of forest and lakes to pedal past.

“We live in a place where you can be on a bike and see scenery from a bike’s perspective,” she said. “I think it’s hard to beat in this area.”

The city will be applying again for the bike friendly status this year, McCully added.

This time, he hopes for a silver rating.

“I believe we are definitely bike friendly,” he said. “But we have a long ways to go to be really bike friendly.”