About
Coler Mountain Bike Preserve
The Coler Mountain Bike Preserve is geared for all ages and all skill levels. This property boasts over 20 miles of beautiful mountain biking trails that wind through this 300-acre preserve. In addition to world class mountain bike trails, the site offers on site camping, a café featuring Airship, and a variety of activities all in a space that helps one connect with nature. Coler Mountain Bike Preserve was recently named the Arkansas Tourism Attraction of the Year at the 51st Annual Henry Awards, highlighting the preserve’s commitment to providing an unparalleled experience for mountain biking, families, and nature lovers visiting Arkansas.
Our Purpose
Coler’s primary goal is to serve as the premiere recreation destination for all things mountain biking. We strive to highlight our natural assets that promote active recreation and connect visitors of all skill levels and awareness to nature. In addition to world class trails, we offer mountain bike educational programming for enhancing skills, while emphasizing safety and enjoyment. We desire all visitors to experience the full scale of the preserve while staying in our campgrounds, walking the paved Applegate Trail, or adventuring on to the soft surface trails.
The acreage that became Coler Mountain Bike Preserve had been the former farm of the Coler family. This forested property was used informally by mountain bikers prior to being donated to Peel Compton Foundation in 2020 with the goal of preserving 300 acres of natural Arkansas landscape in Bentonville as a premiere recreation destination. The site officially opened as Coler Mountain Bike Preserve and supports the region’s growing reputation as one of the best places in the country for mountain biking, offering a 20-mile multi-use trail system, paved greenway, and campground.
Completed in 2020, this bike park and trail system offers over 20 miles of progressive built trail for every skill level. Created in honor of the area’s first settlers and located in the heart of the beautiful Ozarks of Northwest Arkansas (and just a five-minute bike ride from downtown Bentonville), this premiere recreation destination pushes the limits of mountain biking and typical mountain biking trails. Connected to over 250 miles of natural-surface trails in Northwest Arkansas, this unique getaway is the perfect place to connect with family, friends, and nature—whether you choose two wheels or two feet. The area is gaining a name for itself in the cycling world as a rich natural oasis and urban escape for mountain bikers and trail lovers alike.
Native Americans in NWA
This valley has been enjoyed by people for thousands of years. Archeologists tell us that people entered the Ozarks more than 10,000 years ago. Valleys like this—with flat land, near a stream, and surrounded by wild plants and game— were favored to set up a temporary camp where families lived, played, learned new skills, and enjoyed life, just as we do here today. The Osage were the dominant Native Americans in northwest Arkansas and across Kansas. On the plains, they often lived in portable tipi’s and followed buffalo. In the forested Ozarks, they lived in rounded houses often called wig-wams, made of bent saplings covered with large cuts of the outer layer of tree bark or woven grass mats. They hunted, gathered wild foods, planted corn, squash, and beans.
Oscar & Esther
The acreage that became Coler Mountain Bike Preserve had been the former farm of Oscar & Esther Torell. Oscar cut the trees, hewed the boards, designed and built the original Homestead barn. Esther gardened but also learned secrets of the forest and added wild foods like watercress, poke salad, blackberries, persimmons, and pawpaws to their diet. Their home is no longer standing, but once stood where Airship Coffee is today.
Oscar and Esther Torell raised their daughter, Rachel here at their homeplace. Rachel married MC Coler, and of their two children, Nancy and Johnny, the latter lived on the property until 1999. Both the creek and the preserve it runs through bear the Coler family name.
Coler Timeline
2020
Coler Mountain Bike Preserve was completed and opened to the public.
2022
Coler Mountain Bike Preserve received an Architecture MasterPrize award, selected as “Best of the Best” in the recreational category for Modus Studio's work on Airship at Coler.
2022
Coler Mountain Bike Preserve received the Arkansas Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in recognition of Modus Studio's work at Coler.
2025
Coler Mountain Bike Preserve was named the Arkansas Tourism Attraction of the Year at the 51st Annual Henry Awards, highlighting the preserve's commitment to providing an unparalleled experience for mountain biking, families, and nature lovers visiting Arkansas.
2025
Coler Mountain Bike Preserve was awarded the Tripadvisor Travelers' Choice award, given to accomodations, attractions and restaurants that consistently earn great reviews from travelers and are ranked within the top 10% of properties on Tripadvisor.