Motion Makers Bicycles in Cherokee is starting 2020 with a new location and a new roommate, but the same optimism about the future of outdoor sports on the Qualla Boundary. 

The bike shop’s Cherokee location first opened 2018, sharing a two-story yellow building on Big Cove Road with Franklin-based outfitter Outdoor 76. The concept was solid, but the logistics proved problematic. Four months after opening in Cherokee, Outdoor 76 launched a third location in Clayton, Georgia. Travel between the three locations was time-consuming, and the two-story layout was a challenge. 

In its mission to engage children with the outdoors, the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation’s Kids in Parks program is marking a powerful milestone; kids and families have completed one million adventures through the program’s TRACK Trails. This figure represents more than one million miles hiked, biked or paddled, and more than 500,000 hours spent outside.

When John Mudge opened RollsRite Bicycles in 2002, his grandson Zack Moss was only 9 years old. Moss grew up on the other side of the country in Washington, and he didn’t really know his grandfather, or the bike shop. The first time he visited RollsRite was in 2018, after Mudge’s unexpected death on Nov. 6. Mudge was 71 years old. 

If a partnership between Jackson County and the Nantahala Area Southern Off Road Bicycle Association comes to fruition, kids in Cullowhee could soon have access to a new mountain biking track made specifically for them. 

“The county reached out to us saying that they had been hoping to build a bike park on that area in the greenway,” said J.P. Gannon, president of Nantahala SORBA and assistant professor of geology at Western Carolina University. “When we heard that we jumped on it and said, ‘We can make that happen if they want to have it happen.’”

In 2013, Western Carolina University cut the ribbon on 7-mile trail system zig-zagging an otherwise unbuildable piece of university property. 

Over the five years since, the trails have become an indispensible resource for mountain bikers — as well as trail runners and hikers — in the Cullowhee area, and last fall a trio of WCU employees set out to back up those observations with hard numbers. 

Trails are good and we could have more here.

— The board of the Nantahala Area Southern Off-Road Bicycling Association

Our primary thesis is this: trails are good for communities and their economies, and if the political will existed, we could have more in Western North Carolina. We have public lands owned by local town and county governments, amazing terrain, and the potential funding opportunities exist. As a chapter of a regional mountain biking advocacy organization (the Southern Off-Road Bicycle Association (SORBA)), we hear about the amazing things trails have done for towns across the Southeast. We realize this is not common knowledge, nor is there any reason for it to be common knowledge, so we wanted to talk about some of the things we hear about in our advocacy world in a more public forum.

In 2013, Western Carolina University cut the ribbon on 7-mile trail system zig-zagging an otherwise unbuildable piece of university property. Over the five years since, the trails have become an indispensible resource for mountain bikers — as well as trail runners and hikers — in the Cullowhee area, and last fall a trio of WCU employees set out to back up those observations with hard numbers. 

Republicans in the House and Senate supported a tax bill that was opposed by the majority of Americans. They insisted on passing a flawed, hastily-tacked-together bill with no discussion beyond the Republican caucus in both houses. Why?

Those few of us who will see our federal taxes go down should know that we’re benefitting because the Republicans in the House and Senate have no problem with killing and taking food from the mouths of impoverished children, sick children of the working poor and struggling middle class, and adults with intellectual or physical disabilities. Republicans have admitted that they will sooner or later choose to cut Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security to repay big donors and buy upper-middle and upper class votes. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office told us that 13 million people will lose their present health insurance. What many Americans worry about most is prescription medicine costs, yet the White House has already said they can’t keep their promise to bring your medicine bills down.

Are the majority of Americans actually going to benefit from the tax bill? First, let’s define which North Carolina voters we’re talking about because what’s middle class in every state differs in housing and food costs, local and state taxes, and so on.

According to the US Census Bureau, in North Carolina you’re middle class if you make between $33,890 to $101,170 a year. Every non-partisan expert group (for example, Pew Research/Business Insider and Kaiser Family Foundation) said that the lower middle class ($33,800 to about $56,227 per year household income) won’t see much difference. Half of North Carolinians make less than $50,584 a year. In other words, most Trump supporters will get a few crumbs of crow pie for their loyalty.

The Tax Policy Center explained that only the richest families, the top 1 to nearly 5 percent in the U.S. will see much change. Worse still, by 2027 53 percent of Americans will be paying more tax under the new tax bill. So for over half of Americans, the new Republican tax law is going to make you poorer in the long run.

If you are in that lower middle to mid-range in household income — $33,800 to about $68,795 — your tax savings will likely be wiped out by other costs rising, especially higher medical costs, including insurance. Experts predict that health insurance under the Trump administration policies will increase by at least 10 percent. To make matters worse for the middle class, you’ll gradually lose your standard deductions.

So why on earth did Republicans and Trump do this to most of the people who voted them into office? Because the tiny, rich minority of their supporters who gave them huge donations didn’t mind robbing the middle class to make themselves richer. Apparently they believe that their puppets in Congress really can fool all of the people all of the time. Only time will tell whether enough middle class voters are that gullible.

Mary Jane Curry

Haywood County

When people praise the Smokies, it’s often the area’s status as a four-season bonanza of beauty that spurs the discussion. From snow-blanketed winters to vibrant-leafed autumns, these mountains dress to impress year-round.

Darby Harris is going on a bike ride Saturday, Oct. 7, but how far he’ll pedal will be a mystery until he wakes up that morning.

Harris’ ride will be fueled by donations to the Western Carolina University Biology Club, with each $10 gift buying 1 mile. And, with the planned route to the top of Mount Mitchell totaling 11,000 feet of climbing, each mile will be a hard-won victory. It’s 110 miles from WCU’s Stillwell Building to the top of the highest mountain east of the Mississippi River, meaning that the Biology Club will have to raise $1,100 to get him all the way there.