A New American Town - Bentonville, Arkansas

Progressive Trail Design goes from Bentonville to the LA Olympics

• Visit Bentonville • Season 9 • Episode 46

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We sit down with Nathan "Woody" Woodruff, the founder of Progressive Trail Design (PTD), to unpack how a Fayetteville landscape hustle evolved into Bentonville's Slaughter Pen trail network and set the course for designing LA28’s Olympic mountain bike venue. Woody shares the early days of being an avid rider, getting tapped to build on Walton family land, and watching those miles become a public park that helped define Bentonville. That spark spread, inspiring crews who learned in Bentonville, launched companies, and refined the playbook. Along the way, PTD built a deep bench of designers and CAD pros, landscape architects, and specialty builders. If you care about trail culture,, this conversation maps the arc—from backyard singletrack to a global showcase.

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Nat Ross:

Welcome to a new American Town. I'm your host, Nat Ross. This is a bike episode with a lot of great information coming your way. We have a special guest that's uh located in California currently on site. So let's sit down today virtually with Woody, who's the president and founder of Progressive Trail Design. Woody, welcome to the podcast.

Nathan "Woody" Woodruff :

Thanks, Nat. Appreciate it, man.

Nat Ross:

Yeah, well, I think a lot of folks uh have seen PTD around progressive trail design, and you are the founder. Um that was uh something that was very near and dear to you years ago. So walk us through um how you started the company, what it was when you started, and where we're at now, because that was a long time ago, and you've done some crazy projects since it.

Nathan "Woody" Woodruff :

Oh, yeah. Yeah, come a long way in almost 20 years now. So started as uh, you know, Woody's Lawn and Landscape. Um I just had a uh small lawn and landscape company based out of Fayetteville, Arkansas, that that put me through college at the U of A and I was actually studying to be a teacher. Um, and then kind of a simple twist of fate came came my way when I was, you know, asked to build some trails in um in Bentonville um back in, gosh, this was 2006, um, which I was a you know very avid mountain biker at the time. I had discovered mountain biking and in high school, you know, in the in the late 90s, um, and just completely fell in love with it and started building trail, you know, all throughout um Fayetteville and Devil's Den and that area, started putting on events and and so I kind of became known as you know one of the guys that that you know built trail in the area. So, you know, a few few select uh people there in in in Bentonville, the Walton family kind of got me to to build some trails there on their property, which eventually became slaughter pen trails, as we all know today. Um, and uh, you know, that that was kind of the that was the beginning. That's when I had the idea that, you know, maybe I can maybe I don't need to do teaching. Maybe I can make a living, yes, you know, you know, following my passion and building trails. And here I am uh, you know, what 18 years later, um, you know, at uh designing the the uh LA 28 Olympics course. So it's uh it's kind of been an amazing journey to say the least.

Nat Ross:

Yeah, we have some catching up to do in between there too, because like you mentioned earlier, you are on site, you're in the city of industry, you're at Industry Hills, kind of Pacific Palms right now, working, building a future course for the Olympics. So let's uh figure out a little bit of what was so special initially, what kept you in the trail building business and how you kind of conceptually started from downtown Bentonville, went into Slaughter Pen, um, and kind of walk us through that first five miles and kind of that beginning of what is now the Mecca.

Nathan "Woody" Woodruff :

Yeah. So really the the pebble in the pond of the the Bentonville mountain biking movement was Slaughter Pen. Um and that was initially like 300 acres, um, you know, that was um owned by owned by the Walton family. And and you know, Tom had just gotten back from uh, you know, uh uh I think it was University of Arizona and had gotten into mountain biking and we connected and and uh kind of quickly hit it off. And so he had me build that initial five miles and then that free ride park. And I actually teamed up with a a guy by the name of Don West, who was kind of a pioneer in in trail building in Northwest Arkansas as well at the time, um, and had a lot of knowledge of single tracking. So we actually teamed up in the early days of PTD and and uh built out you know that very first phase. Um and that was such a hit with the locals um that you know the Walton family actually generously offered to to donate that to the city, and that became kind of the first city park and the first trail system.

Nat Ross:

Okay. Well, I think very special because a lot of what you guys have done has been emulated by other trail building crews. In fact, a lot of crews have uh kind of interned um in Bentonville, uh perhaps even future employees of yours starting their own companies. And kind of the flow from town and that magical formula that you started years ago has kind of put you into an incredible trajectory because you're building trails all over the world. So we definitely want to hit on the LA part because that's gonna be huge, especially with Bentonville's interest. Um, so what do you see for features? Um, like right now, you're scouting, you've been, I know you were at the World Championships earlier this year. Um, you've been working with the UCI, you've got um the handbook down, and you're putting your touch on the Olympic course. So um, without revealing too much, like what do you see for a palette that you're working with now? I know it's just starting of the process, but for you, you got a lot to do.

Nathan "Woody" Woodruff :

So, you know, going into this, uh I mean, this of course, this thing's been years in the works. I mean, I've I've been kind of working this for three years, communicating with LA 28 and the city here and and kind of helping identify the venue and finally landing on, you know, city of industry uh here at Pacific Palms Resort. Um and you know, what once we once we kind of officially uh landed this design, you know, I really started thinking through how can this be the best Olympic mountain bike course ever created? And just one of the best competitive courses in general. And so uh a few things popped out, um, which was one, uh, you know, we're in California. This is arguably the birthplace of mountain biking. Um, you know, I know Crest DeBute and many others would would argue uh maybe against that, but you know, everyone's familiar with with Marin County and uh, you know, Gary Fisher and some of the old school guys that, you know, just took uh, you know, fat bikes, cruiser bikes, and and put big tires on them and started mountain biking in the 70s. And so one of the things that we really want to do here, one of the guiding principles that that we've created is, you know, tell that story, the history of mountain biking. Um, we're here in California, the Olympics are back here. Um, and so we want to tell that through the course. In addition, we want to we're gonna kind of tell the story of trail building. I mean, something that I've been passionate about for, you know, 25 years now. I've been, you know, riding and and building. Um, and so I want to tell the story of mountain biking in this course is really, is really my goal and my personal passion that I want to express here. And so that's, you know, everything from you know, all the different styles of of trail that have developed over the years from the beginning of, you know, old, old fire roads, um, you know, to now this new school flow jump trail and you know, dual solemn type experiences, rock gardens, um, that sort of thing. So trying to integrate as much variety in this course as possible is is one of the things I'm most passionate about and one of the biggest drivers in this design.

Nat Ross:

Man, I love it. So um the energy around the LA Olympics, especially cycling with the history and the way that you're gonna integrate some of these pieces. Um, I was fortunate enough to be involved with the Atlanta project with Dave Weens and John Bailey, um, not necessarily to the depth that you're doing the scope. Um, we got to kind of come in and uh walk the grounds and kind of do what you're doing in these initial stages. So very exciting. But talk about the future and what you see kind of talent um arising in North America and how why you want to get it back, tell the story of getting it back, and then kind of the um elements of that course that are striking you right now as like things that are motivating.

Nathan "Woody" Woodruff :

I like that phrase, getting it back. I mean, because that's that's one of the things here is like we want to get back uh to the roots of mountain biking. And like, yes, we want to have some really new school fun, flowy stuff with jumps and you know, something that that caters to the new school rider, especially like cross-country riders now are like basically all around badasses, you know, they're basically downhill racer mixed with, you know, an extreme and endurance athlete. Um, and so they can do it all now, um, which is cool, and is really giving us more creative freedom um to do stuff that's that's more advanced and and really will be amazing for spectators um and TV alike, which is, you know, also a huge driver in this. Um and so yeah, we want to just try to like we want to bring back, we want to tell the story of mountain biking and also bring in like some really raw, um, you know, old school mountain biking experiences as well. So, like one of the things we were just designing um on this hillside, like right next to me here, uh up in up in this valley, uh is this like old school dual solemn experience going through this valley and you know, going more like fall line style um and more kind of hand cut style in places. Um, so that's just like one example of you know a type of section or feature that will be in this, what will be a 4K uh course.

Nat Ross:

Sure. And then I think for you, um, the team relay will be a component of it. You've got all the juniors racing and uh the elite are is kind of like the main highlight. But cross-country mountain biking um has kind of really come a long way, like you've mentioned. So I think the folks back home from Bentonville, um, they've seen what you've been building over the years and all over the place now. You've got a following um from a lot of different countries and a lot of different states and quite the team. So um describe what it's like with uh the equipment that you're using these days and kind of the team that you will bring in to do this build out.

Nathan "Woody" Woodruff :

Yeah. Um, well, it starts with a design team, and we got, you know, approximately, I guess we got like about 10 designers now. Um uh graphic from graphics designers to landscape architects, um, CAD specialists, GIS specialists, that sort of thing. So that's the phase that we're in now is design, um, which we'll go into um which we'll go into next year, um, probably around February, March is when we hope to finalize the design. And then we'll get into the build, um, which will be in the spring of 26. And so for the for the build team, I mean, that's obviously going to be um determined by the design that we do. And we want to bring in, I mean, that that's kind of the specialty or the magic of progressive trail design is that we hand select not only builders that we have in-house, but also um other trail builders um that we bring in as subcontractors to work on specific uh trails and trail styles that that they're best at. So, you know, we got some guys that are just like amazing at, you know, stonework and some guys that are just amazing at dual slalom, uh kind of BMX style. Um, and so we we bring those select builders in to work on these select sections. So I mean, I think we'll have, you know, possibly uh 20 plus uh, you know, trail builders out here going um at the same time in a pretty tight little area. So it should be should be cool.

Nat Ross:

Yeah, I mean it's gonna be a global showcase, and it's actually beautiful that the little uh panoramic uh action that you just did behind you. Um wow, that's exciting. So we're gonna send folks to PTD. Where can they hit your Instagram page and where can they kind of learn more about this?

Nathan "Woody" Woodruff :

Yeah. I mean, progressive traildesign.com is our um, you know, our website, and then um our handle is just the same, progressive trail design. Um, so they can get on uh Instagram and kind of see some highlights and and follow the progress. And we're also we got a videographer out here now, and we're actually shooting um kind of the whole process. So at the end of this, we can kind of create a documentary and tell the story of the whole process.

Nat Ross:

Love it. You've got the vision. Well, Woody, with PTD, you've taken it a long way, and this is kind of the pinnacle. This will be a great way to uh hang a feather in the cap, and then uh hopefully you get to watch the Olympics from the um grandstands and everything be a part of it as well. Um, I know you're really busy, so like to thank your staff, your team, your crew, and um Woody, appreciate you taking the time out of your day, especially working in California, to link up with Visit Bittenville and walk through the new American Town podcast with us.

Nathan "Woody" Woodruff :

Thanks, Nat. You're the man, appreciate it.

Nat Ross:

Yeah, we can't wait to follow the progress, Woody. Thanks for everything you're doing for the sport.

Nathan "Woody" Woodruff :

I appreciate you, man. Have a good one.

Nat Ross:

See you, Woody. And we are signing off, your host, Nat Ross. Remember, Visit Bentonville is here to help you find things to do. That's where to eat, where to stay, where to ride, and everything going on in our awesome little town. Follow us on social, sign up for our newsletter, and check out our website, visitbittenville.com. Thanks for listening.