Bike Town USA Vision, Mission, and Plan

Executive Summary

Our plan calls for a unified effort that ties several different private and government entities together so that we have a comprehensive and agreed upon path forward to fulfill our vision and mission. As a result of pulling together each member of this team, we will be able to provide the community a comprehensive plan, similar to what has been accomplished in the adjacent market of skiing in Steamboat, by more fully developing various bicycling capabilities in the community. A key component to our overall plan is the leveraging of existing assets by integrating them into a seamless system of cycling experiences. We believe the ultimate outcome of the successful implementation of this plan will show increased revenues to existing and new businesses, enhanced tax revenues to the City of Steamboat Springs, along with the potential for additional job growth in our market place.

Existing Conditions:

Steamboat Springs has many of the key components to be a more successful bicycling community in place today. For example, key cycling opportunities exist in the City of Steamboat Springs, on Routt County roads, within the Emerald Mountain boundaries, and on both Forest Service and Ski Corp. trails. However, our analysis shows there has been a need to tie these various organizational plans together to develop a single comprehensive plan for the community. In addition, basic needs have been identified such as more connectivity, signage, maps, and safety by our team. By working together as a team we can overcome many of these basic needs in order to provide the best cycling experiences available to our guests and community.

Needs Assessment:

The needs assessment is focused on four key segments for cycling to bring focus to specific areas for improvement as outlined in our plan. That is not to say we would exclude BMX for example. Our methodology is to bring laser like focus to these first four cycling areas to maximize our initial efforts and serve the most amount of cyclists as possible. Those four segments are:

• Community / Recreational Utility

• Road

• Cross Country riding

• Gravity fed / Downhill free ride

Again, our analysis shows there is a need to tie these various organizational plans together into a single comprehensive plan for the community. This would include maps, signage, education, and bicycle parking. In addition, we have identified the need for connectivity of safe bicycle friendly trail systems in the city, county, and for cross- country mountain biking.

Benefit Analysis:

As an adjacent segment to the ski season, cycling has been shown to maximize assets currently in place. Steamboat Springs has a unique set of assets in place including a real town / community, lodging, restaurants, regional airport, health care, existing trails, roads, and a world class ski resort with equipment and capacity to leverage. In addition, our analysis shows that based on projected visitor / cycling tourism increases, additional revenues will be created across a broad spectrum of businesses in the community along with increasing sales tax revenues for the City of Steamboat Springs. Our plan demonstrates that by narrowing the gap between winter season visits and dollars spent to our current summer performance, we can add significant revenues, maximizing assets currently in place. Finally, with this growth, we project an increase in jobs as outlined our Steamboat Springs Bicycling Economic Analysis 2010. Finally, by working together with the U.S. Forest Service and The Ski and Resort Corporation of Steamboat Springs, we can eliminate the unauthorized development of cross country mountain bike trails by formalizing a comprehensive plan to best service our guests and the community while responsibly utilizing our natural resources.

Marketing / Branding:

Ski Town USA has become an internationally know brand. Our marketing plan is built around this brand identifier. We believe the opportunity to leverage a similar brand is unique and will help us accomplish our objectives. Our goal is to brand our cycling efforts around the Bike Town USA moniker. A trademark application has been submitted to build the Bike Town USA brand and use this as the foundation for our marketing and advertising in the future. Ultimately, the brand centers around what we believe all will come to know as a full spectrum of superior cycling experiences in Routt County.

In addition to the brand, we propose to effectively market to each of the cycling segments outlined above. Again, those segments include Community / Recreational Utility. Road, Cross Country Riding, and Gravity Fed / Downhill Free Ride. The common theme with each segment is cycling. However, each segment may require a targeted marketing approach to maximize our efforts in capturing new revenues for Steamboat Springs.

Communications / Public Relations:

In order to promote and maximize our efforts, our plan calls for leveraging the Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort Associations existing contacts and capability. In order to ensure success, we will also leverage other community wide summer marketing efforts to include website development, a media plan, support literature, maps, and public relations to maximize our reach. Our efforts will extend beyond Colorado to attract guests from around North America and the world as our skiing efforts do today.

Funding:

As outlined in our business plan, our intention is to leverage funding opportunities from a variety of sources to include the Federal Government, State Government, Routt County and the City of Steamboat Springs, along with a host of private foundations.

Implementation:

Included with this document is a detailed business plan, which brings together the various components, described in this Executive Summary. This task force will serve as the organizing body to bring the various bicycling efforts within the community together. We will also facilitate the efforts through our Marketing and Communications plan.

Our business plan calls for the funding and hiring of a full time administrator to coordinate and monitor progress across the various organizations involved. To date, these organizations include:

• U.S. Forest Service

• Bureau of Land Management

• Colorado Division of Wildlife

• Routt County

• City of Steamboat Springs

• Routt County Riders

• Ski and Resort Corporation of Steamboat Springs

• Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort Association

• Industry experts

In addition to coordination, our full time administrator will be responsible for creation of and follow up on all of our funding requests. Once funding is secured for particular projects, management of these projects and coordination across the organizations listed above will be critical.

In summary, Steamboat Springs has a unique opportunity to:

• Create and sustain an adjacent market to skiing through expansion of our cycling initiative.

• Create a unique brand to capture the world’s attention.

• Maximize existing assets and with further development, leverage these assets resulting in more customers for a broad variety of businesses in Steamboat Springs.

• Increase sales tax revenues in the City of Steamboat Springs,

• Create new job opportunities.

• Create an environment where the 7 public and private entities listed above under implementation can work together to truly develop something unique that contributes to the economic vitality of the community, promoting a healthy lifestyle, and enhancing the overall value for the community at large in Steamboat Springs.