Windsor-Essex is not exactly known for big climbs, loamers and lift laps. That is part of why the Windsor Essex Bike Club’s rise has surprised even the people who built it.
“One of the big things to note is just sort of the unexpectedness of this or how unlikely the rise of WEBC is just because of where we’re located,” says club president James Braakman. “We had almost essentially no mountain bike community at all before we started.”
Braakman says WEBC began in 2022 when a small group of riders started meeting on local trails and talking about what the region lacked.
“We started in 2022 and it was a few of us who got together who had really been impacted by mountain biking in their own ways,” he says. “For me specifically, mountain biking essentially changed my life, especially with mental health.”
The early idea was simple: use bikes to connect people in a place where riders were scattered in pockets.
“Not until we got together did things really take off,” he says.
Big group rides after COVID
The first sign it could work came through casual group rides, timed perfectly for a community looking for reasons to get outside and meet people again.
“We just started with a few group rides that had massive turnouts,” Braakman says. “It was right after COVID and people wanted to meet other people who rode mountain bikes and we just didn’t have that connection or community.”
Those rides turned into a trail club, incorporated in 2022, with a big goal: find land, get permission and build something sanctioned.
A council vote and a rare partnership
WEBC found its opportunity behind the Libro Centre in Amherstburg.
“We don’t have a lot of hills or elevation in Windsor, Essex at all,” Braakman says. “Any place that has just even a fraction of elevation, we kind of really targeted.”
The club brought a proposal to town council at an ideal moment.
“They’d just been sworn in so we kind of caught them at the perfect time,” he says.
The first phase of the Libro Centre trails project was unanimously approved along with a land stewardship agreement.
“The town would receive the recreation venue at no taxpayer dollars,” Braakman says, adding that while the model is common in established trail towns, it was new in the region. “We were the first ever to do that.”
Three phases, three winters of fundraising
What followed was a rapid-fire buildout driven by donations, volunteer labour and a growing…
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