A mechanical clicking and whirring filled the air at Horns Hill Bike Park in Newark. The noise was almost drowned out by Sublime’s upbeat Santeria, which blared from surrounding speakers.

People bustled around carrying bikes, books and tools. Walking along the pavement felt almost like being on a city street. Except that most people were covered in dirt and mud; some were bleeding; and all of them were smiling from ear to ear.

The scene is not uncommon for large get-togethers at the Horns Hill Bike Park. The third Sunday in October was the final day of the third annual Trek Retreat, a fundraising event to support Newark’s top-of-the-line mountain bike park. The event typically brings in about $10,000 in donations for the upkeep of Horns Hill, which is on the northeast side of the city.

Trek, a nearly 50-year-old national mountain bike brand, chose to sponsor Horns Hill in 2021 with a donation of $25,000 and the annual Trek Retreat. The event features contests, rides on demo bikes, free mechanical work, coffee, donuts and snacks.

The mountain-biking masses love it. People of all ages crowded the hill for the event. Teens scraped crumpled bills out of their pockets to purchase the last few of this year’s Trek Retreat t-shirts.

Cars filled the parking lots and roads. People had tents strapped to their vehicles. Campervans and barbecues spewed smoke. Just taking in the scene was an adventure, as bikes whizzed by on the left and right.

Chad Westlake, the 37-year-old regional manager for Trek Bicycles, comes from Columbus to work the event. This year, he worked on bikes for free and rode the trails between repair shifts.

“My favorite part of it all is the people, just the community here,” Westlake said. “I think Licking County does such a great job with the parks department and bringing people out, and … seeing everybody out here having fun is what it’s all about.”

Stephen “Leroy” Smith, a 29-year-old from Columbus, was also working on bikes as part of the Trek crew, but it’s not his first time at Horns Hill. As part of the crew that helped develop the trail, it has been gratifying for him to see what has become of Horns Hill. Having spent the last two years in Juneau, Alaska – this is Smith’s first time at the Trek Retreat.

“My favorite bit is, you know, around 8 or 9 o’clock, when the sun starts to set, you see the whole hill light up, and you can hear everyone having a good time,” Smith said. “To have been a part of this from the time when it was five of us to now it’s hundreds. To have that experience is – is really special to me, personally.”

Those who came just to ride and enjoy the spirit of the event were thrilled.

Logan Brewer and his friend Gavin Roy, both 20 years old and from Cincinnati, came to camp and ride for the weekend.

“You make new friends every weekend you come,” Brewer said. “You get some good rides in. You know, shuttles all day. It’s amazing. We love coming up here, and we’re going to continue to.”

Roy chimed in, “It’s a great time. Ride bikes, party around the fire, great food and great people.”

Their love for the event was shared by Max Wilde, 29, who traveled from his home in Detroit. 

“My favorite part was the high jump or the whip contest last night,” Wilde said. “I just recommend that anybody comes. It’s a good time, plenty of rentals. Don’t be afraid to come if you don’t have a bike.”

It took a village

Horns Hill has not always been the bustling bicycle mecca it is now. 

“It was known as a place that you don’t really want to go take your kids to,” said Chase Cherubini, 27, a Newark native who helps maintain the park.

The park even closed temporarily from 2006 to 2007, and then again in 2008, after years of illegal trash dumping, destruction of a restroom and concerns about behavior in the park, according to the Licking County Library

The City of Newark was supportive of it being developed into a biking destination. In recent years, it has taken a village and a lot of elbow grease to create what now hosts up to 500 visitors for the Trek Retreat, Horns Hill’s largest event of the year.

Roger Morgan, Bob “Big Drop” Bevard, Chase and Blake Cherubini, Stephen “Leroy” Smith, and many of their friends all have played a role in transforming Horns Hill.

Bevard, a Newark resident, began developing trails in Horns Hill 18 years ago. He is known as the godfather of mountain biking in Licking County and is also one of the most enthusiastic riders on the hill. The 73-year-old has competed in and won three national championships for mountain biking, all of them in the 50+ age group.

Bob “Big Drop” Bevard, a 73-year-old mountain biker, began developing Horns Hill nearly 20 years ago. Credit: Andrew Theophilus

Bevard stood in the Horns Hill parking lot smiling and shouting friendly greetings into passing cars. Later, still smiling, he was seen cruising down the road on his Onewheel skateboard in a full bike kit. 

Bevard ran the Newark Ski Club for 17 years. He long had dreams of creating a slope somewhere in Licking County. 

“I literally had dreams about it,” Bevard said. “I would wake up, and I never got it done.”

That changed when he discovered mountain biking while snowshoeing in West Virginia. Bevard came across what is known as a flow trail, a specific type of trail that bends and rolls with large banking turns. It’s a trail meant for pure enjoyment on a bike.

“It was the first one anywhere out here in the Midwest that I had ever seen,” he said. “I went home, and I rented an excavator and went up into my woods and started trying to build one.” 

At the park, occupants of passing cars shouted greetings at Bevard. He called at least five people by name.

“Great to see you! We should ride soon,” Bevard hollered back.

Bevard’s dreams of a ski slope morphed into a mountain bike park when someone from the Newark parks department mentioned at local bike shops that the city was interested in developing a mountain bike park. The bike shops pointed the parks department to Bevard.

“I came up here and just started digging by hand,” said Bevard, but he quickly realized it was going to be a larger project. Friends connected him with Dave Huff, who had experience building motocross jumps. 

“I rented a machine out of my pocket. I put him up in my house. I took him out to dinner. We would come up here and work all weekend long, you know, just work Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And he would go back to Kentucky,” Bevard said. 

Bevard and Huff were permitted to build only four trails before they were shut down. But Bevard did not let his dream die, and years later – after many meetings with city leadership – he got back to work. 

The city “realized I was for real, that I was serious about it. … I smiled as I was walking out the door,” Bevard said.

This conversation led to the project of Bevard’s dreams. In 2016, Bevard invited Roger Morgan to come and ride with him. Morgan, 49, a former teacher and wrestling coach at Heath High School, now lives in St. Louisville and works as a general contractor.

“I showed up here while on my questionable bike, and, yeah, I think I had a rock-climbing helmet and a pair of gloves. And these guys are in, like, full gear. ‘What is happening?’” said Morgan. “I was hooked.”

Morgan sat with Blake and Chase Cherubini on a wooden bench at the top of Horns Hill during the Trek Retreat. 

The Cherubini brothers were both drawn into the sport by a friend from a Crossfit gym, Kaleb Walker. Walker didn’t have anyone else his age to ride with and invited the Cherubini brothers to ride at Horns.

“He also didn’t really have anyone his age. So yeah, us three started going, and that’s when we started to meet Roger and some other local guys, and then it just pretty much snowballed from there,” said Blake Cherubini, 24, a Newark native.

The trail-building work that Bevard had started earlier resumed. Morgan and the Cherubini brothers described it as the stars aligning: the pandemic was drawing people outdoors; donations were flowing in; the city contributed $25,000 of funding; and they found a builder to help with the trails. 

“It’d be really hard to redo it because we didn’t have a plan,” Morgan said. “And so we would literally, you know, for the first … three, four years, we would take a trip to some place nationally recognized, ride it, bring it back here and build it, or build a version of it.”

Trek has sponsored an annual retreat at Horns Hill since 2021, and has donated significant dollar amounts to keep the park operating. Image courtesy of Blake Cherubini

What started out as a hill with four trails built by Bevard was quickly transformed. Its metamorphosis was fueled by the initial $25,000 from the city, $25,000 in private donations, and another $25,000 from Trek. And the generosity did not stop there.

“We did a couple fundraisers, and we raised probably another $25,000. The city gave us another $25k but then upped it to $35k. We started a GoFundMe, and it brought in about $10,000. Then we started running the shuttle for donation, and it kind of started to fund itself,” Morgan said. 

When you put it all together, Morgan and the Cherubini’s estimate that it was, “…easily, $250,000 to $300,000 in cash. But when you consider the donation hours and donations – we’re over a million dollars.”

Thanks to the generosity of the community and the city of Newark, Horns Hill now boasts 18 trails.

And that has kept the crowds returning. Thanks to the media production by the Cherubini brothers, interest in Horns Hill has blown up. Every weekend, at least 100 people bike and hang out on the hill.

The three are especially proud of the community they have built. 

“Everybody’s first thing they say when they come and they’ve never been here before is ‘Wow. You guys have such a good community vibe,’” said Chase Cherubini.

“The vibes are real chill,” Morgan interjected. “There’s people that will come here on a Saturday with their bike and not even ride. Sometimes, they’ll take one or two laps. They’ll just hang out and cheer people on and encourage them. … Everywhere else you go, people, it’s like they’re there to do a job. ‘I’m gonna get my ride in, and I gotta get out.’ People will come here, set up their hammock or tent and spend the entire day riding and chilling.”

Blake Cherubini (left), Roger Morgan (center) and Chase Cherubini helped grow Horns Hill Bike Park from four bike trails to today’s 18. Credit: Andrew Theophilus

The community feeling radiates from the hill. People walk around, chatting, high-fiving and enthusiastically discussing the trails.

Morgan and the Cherubini brothers are excited about some new developments in the works. They are keeping most of them under wraps. However, they are working with the city of Newark to build housing to bring on a new employee: Someone who would live on the hill and maintain the park and trails.

For now, the park will run as usual, attracting hundreds of smiling faces, all on two wheels.

Andrew Theophilus writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.