Cuyuna confusion on the web

DNR Cuyuna header

There are two web-based problems with the mountain bike trail system in the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area that have become apparent the more I’ve blogged about it.

Problem #1: The variety of names for it.

Online and offline among the mountain bike crowd, the shorthand ‘Cuyuna’ is widely used, eg. "Hey, when are you heading to Cuyuna again? I didn’t get to ride Yawkey last time I was up there."  I see no problem with this in casual conversation, comment threads, forum posts, tweets, Facebook Wall posts, etc.

But when it comes to web sites, there’s a wide variety of phrases in use:

DNR

Chamber/City

MORC/IMBA

  • MORC refers to it in the forums as simply the Cuyuna Trail with the tag line "Discussions relating to the new Cuyuna trail system." Same with the MORC Wiki listing for Cuyuna Trail.
  • IMBA uses Cuyuna Lakes Ride Center
  • IMBA’s Midwest Regional Director Hansi Johnson also uses Cuyuna Lakes Ride Center in his blog posts here and here but sometimes drops ‘lakes’ from the phrase or refers to it as the Cuyuna Mountain Bike Trail system.

Other

My preference: Cuyuna Lakes Mountain Bike Trails (CLMBT).  Including the word ‘lakes’ is preferable because lakes are part of the area’s identity.  ‘Country’ is a lesser used word that’s more marketing oriented. ‘Trails’ is better than ‘trail’ because there are many trails, not just one. ‘Trails’ also implies ‘system’ which is more of technical/engineering term and not really needed.

Problem #2: The lack of a website dedicated to it.

The variety of names and phrases for the trail system wouldn’t be a problem if there was one major website dedicated to it that everyone linked to and that the search engines (primarily Google and Bing) would list first in a search. 

But right now, there’s no such site and therefore, it’s difficult for the average person to easily get information about the trail system that’s complete and up-to-date. Some important web pages are out-of-date (Chamber here) or incomplete (MORC’s trail guide and Wiki).

If someone asked you, "Where do I go on the web to get all the info about Cuyuna?," what would you say?

3 Comments

  1. Joe said:

    I’d say go to the MN DNR website. Click on Recreation then Biking, once that page is up then look for the link in the middle of the page to the Cuyuna Mtn Bike trails which takes you here:

    http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_trails/cuyuna_lakes/mtnbiking.html

    Which is the page with the maps.

    If they want more info, I’d tell them to go to the MORCS site.

    August 16, 2011
  2. Griff Wigley said:

    Joe, I agree, the DNR page for Cuyuna is probably the best right now.

    But it doesn’t have any event info, nor does it link to the Facebook page where event info is most often showing up.

    It also doesn’t link to the MORC forums where Cuyuna trail conditions are updated.

    August 16, 2011
  3. Griff Wigley said:

    I’m glad to see that the new club up in Cuyuna has named itself:

    Cuyuna Lakes Mountain Bike Crew (CLMTBC)

    and that they’re using the phrase:

    Cuyuna Lakes Mountain Bike Trails (CLMTBT) An IMBA Ride Center

    I got this from the footer of the Cuyuna Lakes Whiteout blogsite.

    I’m hoping that they construct a one-stop blog site for both.

    March 8, 2012

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