Blue Ridge Parkway Guide News

April 1, 2006

(Almond, NC) -- In 1992, many folks had never even heard of riding bicycles on a trail through the woods. That was the year Jim Parham published Off The Beaten Track, A Guide to Mountain Biking in Western North Carolina, a book that would change the way trail guidebooks were written, and strongly impact the recreation industry in the Southeast.

Mountain biking, which had just arrived in the Southeast a few years before, was exploding. In western North Carolina, where the Appalachian Trail, the Nantahala National Forest, and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park converge, fledgling mountain bikers arrived in droves. Public land agencies hadn't worked out guidelines for this brand new group of users, and were scrambling to handle the influx. "Most folks back then didn't care where they rode; they just wanted to ride," says Parham.

At the time, he was a 28-year-old whitewater river guide and kayak instructor for the Nantahala Outdoor Center in Bryson City, NC who'd fallen in love with off-road cycling, and he noticed the outfitter store staff spending precious sales time drawing crude maps on scraps of paper for customers asking where to ride. In October of 1991 he decided to take action and publish the first mountain bike trail guide for the Southeast. The concept was simple: concise directions, basic, ultra-clear maps, and everything a rider needed to have the best experience possible. The book itself would be slender, but packed with information--no philosophical musings, no text padding, just a few terse comments from the author to help the reader find the right ride.

No Shocks, No Camelbak, No GPS–Trail Research In The Stone Age

"It was back before shocks and hydration systems," said Parham. "Clipless pedals hadn't been invented, and there was no such thing as disk brakes or titanium frames." The wiry, 135-lb., 5' 11" cyclist did the bulk of the trail research during the winter months, sleeping in the back of his pick-up truck and filling up on high-carb oatmeal and spaghetti cooked on his camp stove. He did it without a cell phone, a laptop, or a GPS unit. "Jim would disappear into the woods by himself for a week at a time and come back covered with mud, with one of those little 3x5 spiral notebooks in his fanny pack, full of his chicken scratch trail directions and map drawings ready to transfer into book form," says his wife Mary Ellen Hammond. "I really only had the vaguest idea of where he was. At the time, I wasn't concerned. I knew he was fully able to take care of himself in just about any situation. But today, those stories of his early research make my hair stand on end."

Indeed, Parham tells tales of cannibalizing his own bike to make emergency repairs 10 miles out from a trailhead. "One time a screw on my seat sheared off and I had to take a much shorter one from my bar end to replace it. It did the job, but just barely. I needed to get the trail info, so I ended up pedaling 20 more miles of singletrack and climbing a 6,000-ft. ridge through torrential rain with my seat at a crazy angle. I was shaking with cold up on the ridge, and if I'd crashed it wouldn't have been pretty, but I made it."

Back at home, Parham drew computer generated maps for the guidebook on a then state of the art Macintosh LC with a 40K hard drive. "Those were the days when, if you were drawing a map and let go of the mouse, you lost everything and had to start all over. But when I got ready to send it to the printer, the entire book fit on one floppy. Bike technology, computer technology–it was a different world in the early '90s."

Within a few weeks of his first book's release, mountain bike shops further east and south were clamoring for guides that covered their areas.

Pushing the Envelope with Land Management Agencies

Not everyone was so pleased, however. After the original book came out, the US Forest Service in North Carolina, unprepared for a guidebook that included trails on Forest Service land when their own rules for trail use by bikes were still largely undeveloped, accused Parham of being a "renegade biker." But Parham had done his homework. After one meeting to "iron things out," he and Forest Service officials collaborated closely on the guide for Pisgah National Forest, near Asheville (Vol. II in the in the series), published six months later. By 1996, the original Off The Beaten Track mountain bike guide had become a six-volume series covering major mountain biking destinations throughout the Southeast.

Changing the Face of Guidebooks–and Mountain Biking

In the years since the publication of his original book, tens of thousands of mountain bikers have visited the trails at the renowned Tsali Recreation Area, featured in Parham's first guide. The U.S. Forest Service has created a special facility for mountain bikers, including a paved parking lot, toilets, and a bike wash station. "I'd say Jim had a huge amount to do with amenities for cyclists in western North Carolina, says Kent Cranford, a regional sales rep for Specialized Bicycles who managed the Nantahala Outdoor Center bike shop in the 1990s. "He showed people where to ride, and that spread out the use, so wear and tear on the most popular trails was minimalized. It's hard to imagine what mountain biking would have looked like in the Southeast without Jim's books." Cranford also credits Parham with introducing bike shops to the benefits of selling guidebooks. "Off The Beaten Track guides are still the mountain bike trail guide of choice, 15 years after the original was published," he says. "In the early days, bike shops created entire book corners simply because the OTBT series was selling so well. And the books made bike shop staff local experts, because they'd go out and ride the trails nearby that they otherwise might not have known about. Look on the shelves today and you'll see most trail guides by other publishers–not just mountain bike guides–have followed his style and format." Other bike industry aficionados concur; BIKE magazine has called the Off The Beaten Track series "so sensible, well-designed and clear they should be a model for guidebooks everywhere."

Parham prides himself on keeping his books up to date, and this year, he'll release the latest incarnation of his first book. The 4th revised edition of Off The Beaten Track, Vol. I, Western NC–The Smokies features not only revised and updated information (trails at Hanging Dog Recreation Area near Murphy and in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park have been added), but a new cover and interior design as well.

The 4th Revised Edition: A Continuing Evolution of What Works

Parham maintains the brevity of the content, along with the layout, have always been largely responsible for the popularity of his books, and those two characteristics have not changed. "The design is new and we've included photos, but the information is just as easy to access," he says. "I think mountain bikers will appreciate the updated look and the new trails. Mountain biking has come a long way since 1992, and the books are keeping up with the sport." Cranford concurs. "Jim has managed to make the revision of his books a continuing evolution of what works. Every time they're updated, they just get that much better."

Jim Parham's Off The Beaten Track, Vol. I, Western NC–The Smokies will be released April 1, 2006, with a retail price of $14.95. It will be available at selected bike shops, outfitter stores, and booksellers, as well as directly from the publisher at www.milestonepress.com. For more information about the Off The Beaten Track Mountain Bike Guide Series, contact Milestone Press at 828-488-6601. Sample chapters and cover art for all the guidebooks in the series and two road cycling guides by Parham, can be viewed at the online store at www.milestonepress.com.

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