We’re in a Golden Age of Off-Road: Doug Bigelow on West Virginia’s Motorized Moment

Doug Bigelow has more miles on his Polaris Crew XP1000 than on his Escalade — which tells you most of what you need to know about where he’s coming from. As executive director of the US OHVA Alliance, he’s spent more than forty years in off-road recreation, from racing to land use advocacy, watching the side-by-side and dirt bike market expand into what he now calls a golden age. West Virginia, he says, is positioned to be at the center of it. The legislation is favorable. The landscape is right. And Appalachian Outlaw Trails, opening a short drive from where he sat at the WV Outdoor Economy Summit, has the potential to become the kind of destination that draws people from three states away — like Moab, like Johnson Valley, but in the mountains of Appalachia.

What Doug cares about most is whether that growth is sustainable. His organization does trail education and stewardship work across the country, because access today only lasts as long as people treat the land well enough to keep it. His message to the motorized community and to every other trail user group is the same: they’re aligned on about 80 percent of what they want. That’s more than enough to go to the legislature with a unified ask. The other 20 percent is not worth the fight.

Learn more about: US OHVA Alliance / Appalachian Outlaw Trails