Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
Long before Northwest Arkansas became known internationally for mountain biking, before Bentonville’s extensive trail network, the Monument Trails program, or major mountain bike events drawing riders from around the country, mountain bikes were beginning to appear on the trails of Devil’s Den State Park.
Arkansas State Parks employee Tim Scott was there.
Scott would go on to help organize one of Arkansas’ earliest mountain bike events, build one of the state’s first official mountain bike trails, and establish the Northwest Arkansas Mountain Bike Championship, an event that has survived for more than three decades.
His story provides a connection between the earliest days of organized mountain biking in Arkansas and the sport’s remarkable growth across the state today.
A Career at Devil’s Den
A Northwest Arkansas native, Scott grew up in Rogers and attended the University of Arkansas before beginning a career with Arkansas State Parks.
Published accounts differ slightly on when that career began, placing it around 1978 to 1980. There is much more agreement about the date that would prove important to Arkansas mountain biking: Scott began working at Devil’s Den State Park in 1984.
He would eventually become assistant superintendent of the park.
By the middle of that decade, something new was showing up at Devil’s Den.
Mountain bikes.
Scott recalled that around 1986, park employees began seeing people riding the new bicycles on trails and old roads around the park.
Mountain biking was still a young sport. Land managers around the country were trying to determine how bicycles fit on public trails, and some were responding by restricting them.
At Devil’s Den, park leadership decided to investigate.
Then-Superintendent Wally Scherrey asked Scott to learn more about mountain biking and whether it might have a place at the park.
That decision would have consequences far beyond Devil’s Den.
A Trip to Crested Butte
In 1988, Scott and Scherrey traveled to Crested Butte, Colorado, to attend Fat Tire Bike Week.
Crested Butte was already developing a reputation as one of the centers of the emerging mountain bike movement. The Arkansas park employees went there to see firsthand how mountain biking and mountain bike events were being managed.
An Arkansas Outside article about the history of the Northwest Arkansas Mountain Bike Championship included information from a memo Scherrey wrote following the trip.
In it, Scherrey thanked Arkansas Parks and Tourism leadership for allowing him and Scott to travel to Colorado and expressed his belief that what they had learned would eventually benefit the state.
It proved to be a remarkably accurate prediction.
Scott returned to Arkansas with ideas for bringing some of what they had seen in Colorado to Devil’s Den.
The Ozark Mountain Bike Festival
In 1989, Devil’s Den hosted the Ozark Mountain Bike Festival.
Scott incorporated activities inspired by the Colorado event, including bike trials and even a log-pulling competition.
But the festival was about more than entertainment.
Arkansas State Parks was looking for ways to attract visitors and generate interest in its parks. Mountain biking offered Devil’s Den an opportunity to reach a new group of outdoor recreation enthusiasts.
The event also included something that would become a Northwest Arkansas tradition: mountain bike racing.
More than 100 riders reportedly participated in the early Northwest Arkansas Mountain Bike Championship. The original cross-country course extended beyond Devil’s Den onto U.S. Forest Service roads in the surrounding Ozark National Forest.
The race became an annual event.
Scott didn’t simply launch it and move on. Decades later, he remained involved in organizing and promoting the Northwest Arkansas Mountain Bike Championship.
A 2012 account of the event identified Scott as its founder and longtime promoter. More than a decade later, Friends of Devil’s Den materials still directed race volunteers to report to Scott for assignments.
As recently as 2024, Scott remained the contact for information about the Northwest Arkansas Mountain Bike Championship.
The event has become one of the longest-running mountain bike traditions in the region.
Building Fossil Flats
Scott’s influence on Arkansas mountain biking wasn’t limited to organizing races.
The success of the early mountain bike events helped demonstrate that bicycles could have a place at Devil’s Den.
The next step was building somewhere specifically for them to ride.
Scott spent months working by hand on what became the Fossil Flats Trail.
The original roughly three-mile loop followed Lee Creek through terrain featuring exposed limestone and fossils. The trail debuted around the time of the 1990 Ozark Mountain Bike Festival.
Today, Fossil Flats is frequently described as Arkansas’ first official or purpose-built mountain bike trail.
The distinction is important.
Scott wasn’t simply organizing a race on existing roads and trails. He was helping demonstrate that mountain biking could be incorporated into the recreation offerings of an Arkansas State Park.
That idea would spread.
Devil’s Den as a Testing Ground
It is difficult to look at Arkansas mountain biking today and imagine a time when park managers were still deciding whether bicycles belonged on trails.
Devil’s Den helped answer that question.
The success of mountain biking there demonstrated that riders represented another group of visitors who could use and support Arkansas State Parks.
Other parks eventually developed trails open to mountain bikes, and cycling became increasingly integrated into the state’s outdoor recreation system.
Decades later, Arkansas State Parks would take another major step with the development of Monument Trails, professionally designed trail systems intended to showcase both Arkansas landscapes and modern trail construction.
One of those Monument Trail systems would be built at Devil’s Den.
For Scott, that meant watching mountain biking at the park progress from a few riders appearing on existing trails, to a hand-built trail and grassroots race, and eventually to a professionally designed destination trail system.
Recognition From a New Generation
By the late 2010s, Northwest Arkansas mountain biking looked very different from the scene Scott encountered in the 1980s.
Bentonville, Bella Vista, Fayetteville and surrounding communities had developed extensive trail networks. Major investments were being made in trail construction, and mountain biking had become an important component of the region’s tourism economy.
In 2018, organizers of the inaugural Oz Trails Off-Road in Bentonville made a point of recognizing where some of that history began.
The event was dedicated to Tim Scott.
Epic Rides President Todd Sadow credited Scott’s willingness as a land manager to embrace mountain biking with helping change the direction of the sport in Arkansas.
Scott has subsequently been described in cycling media as the “Godfather of Arkansas Mountain Biking.”
The nickname reflects an important distinction in Arkansas mountain bike history.
Scott’s work predates the modern Northwest Arkansas mountain bike boom by decades.
When he and Scherrey traveled to Crested Butte in 1988, there was no Slaughter Pen trail system, no Monument Trails program and no massive network of trails connecting Northwest Arkansas communities.
There was an emerging recreational activity and a couple of Arkansas State Parks employees interested enough to find out what it might become.
More Than Mountain Bikes
Mountain biking represents only one part of Scott’s long career at Devil’s Den.
His decades at the park have also made him a resource for researchers studying its history.
The University of Arkansas has worked with Scott while documenting the park’s Civilian Conservation Corps structures, landscapes and infrastructure. Much of the character of Devil’s Den comes from work completed by the CCC during the 1930s, and Scott’s institutional knowledge has helped researchers document that history.
That creates another interesting connection.
Scott spent much of his career caring for a park created largely through hand-built CCC infrastructure while also helping introduce a new form of outdoor recreation that would eventually become part of the park’s identity.
A Direct Link to Arkansas Mountain Bike History
Mountain biking in Arkansas has changed dramatically since those first bicycles began appearing at Devil’s Den.
Today, riders can choose from hundreds of miles of trails across the state. Northwest Arkansas hosts major cycling events and attracts riders from around the world. Communities throughout Arkansas increasingly view trails as recreation infrastructure, tourism assets and quality-of-life investments.
But much of that history can be traced back to a relatively small state park in the Boston Mountains.
Scott and Scherrey chose to learn about mountain biking rather than simply dismiss a new use of park trails. They traveled to Colorado to see what others were doing. Scott helped bring those ideas back to Arkansas, organized events, promoted racing and put tools in the dirt to build a trail.
The Northwest Arkansas Mountain Bike Championship may be one of the clearest reminders of that legacy.
What began as an experiment at Devil’s Den became an annual tradition lasting more than three decades, with Scott remaining involved through much of its history.
The trails are different now. The bikes are dramatically different. And the scale of mountain biking in Northwest Arkansas would probably have been difficult to imagine during that 1988 trip to Crested Butte.
But the connection between those early days and today’s Arkansas mountain bike scene remains.
And Tim Scott has been there for almost the entire ride.
Celebrating the Godfather
Arkansas’ mountain biking community will have an opportunity to recognize Scott and his contributions this fall.
A special event, “Celebrating The Godfather Tim Scott,” is scheduled for Sunday, October 18, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Devil’s Den State Park. The event listing keeps the description appropriately simple: “Celebrating The Godfather Tim Scott, IYKYK.” The Ozark Off-Road Cyclists invite you to the celebration but ask that you register here.
For Arkansas mountain bikers who have been around the sport for a while, the nickname needs little explanation.
The celebration also comes just a month after the 2026 Northwest Arkansas Mountain Bike Championships, held September 19 at Devil’s Den. Scott helped establish the race more than three decades ago, creating a direct connection between the earliest days of organized mountain bike racing in Arkansas and the extensive trail and racing community that exists today.
For a man who helped introduce mountain biking to Arkansas State Parks, organized some of the state’s earliest mountain bike events, and put a shovel in the ground to build one of its first mountain bike trails, a gathering of the riding community at Devil’s Den is a fitting way to recognize a career that helped shape mountain biking in Arkansas.
This article was originally published on ArkansasOutside.com, your trusted source for outdoor news and updates in The Natural State. Unless otherwise credited, all photos included in this piece are the property of Arkansas Outside, LLC. We take pride in sharing the beauty and adventures of Arkansas through our lens, thank you for supporting our work!