Allen Beauchamp has always been drawn toward hills, mountains and trails. Even growing up in Oxnard, California with the Pacific Ocean at his feet, he would often ride his bike into the backcountry discovering new trails and hidden spots. Now settled in Colorado Springs after both his military career and Intel Corporation brought him to the area, he enjoys shepherding and protecting the urban corridor trails and lobbying for better possibilities. He has done this both as the Adaptive Cycling Specialist for the City of Colorado Springs and more recently as head of community engagement at Trails & Open Space Coalition.
“I think I’ve always been community-minded. I grew up in a family of seven and was pretty involved in our local community.” Beauchamp had a sister with Down’s Syndrome who was the closest sibling in age to himself. His parents were involved in her schooling, her outdoor activities and a little bit with the Special Olympics. “So, I think I always derived a sense of warmth and connection to that broader community.”
Exploring the Boundaries of a City on a Bike with Allen Beauchamp
Beauchamp says some of the most memorable moments in his youth were on his bicycle exploring the boundaries and limits of his city. When he later joined the military, he took his bicycle everywhere he traveled. “I rode in all sorts of foreign countries and just had some wonderful experiences.”
Beauchamp says it always harkens back to: “Why do you love to ride your bike?” Every time he rides, he feels like he is 5 again. “I remember pedaling down the alleyway, which led to the creek, which led to the beach, and it just allowed me to explore.”
Beauchamp raced a bit during his military service. “It was fun. It was exciting. It was exhilarating. But it really didn’t meet my needs in that sense.” When he was in the military, Beauchamp worked on radar and weapons systems for the F-18 and F-14 platforms, which led him into the research and development field working on cutting-edge technology in avionics. He was eventually recruited to Intel for semiconductor manufacturing since there were a lot of parallels between his two backgrounds in microwave and RF wave propagation.
In the mid-‘90s, Intel opened a facility in Colorado Springs and Beauchamp jumped at the opportunity to move to the area. “I volunteered to go before we even really knew what we were going to do here. I said, ‘I don’t care what I do there. You all are going to move me there and there is going to be a job for me as an Intel employee.’” Colorado is where everybody goes for vacation, Beauchamp thought. “And I’ll get to live there. The job is just a benefit.”
Originally Beauchamp had an idea of living in Woodland Park. Once he and his wife settled in Colorado Springs though, they found it easy to put down roots. “We found a community that was open and accepting with lots of things to see and do in experiencing the outdoors.” They live on the west side of town just north of Garden of the Gods below Mountain Shadows, literally right behind Ute Valley Park. “We were like, ‘Wow, this place is amazing for outdoor pursuits.’”
Discovering Colorado Springs on a Bike via Urban Trails
The Beauchamps started riding around the Springs using their favorite: a tandem bike and joined the Colorado Springs Cycling Club in 2002. At that point, they were still acclimating to the altitude. The cycling group stopped at the top of the hill and invited them to join them on their rides. This interaction happened several times Beauchamp explains.
They would join with 15 to 25 other cyclists of all sizes, shapes and focuses, and follow the leader. “We didn’t even need to know where we were going. We just explored the nooks and crannies of the city, many times using urban trail connections. There were rides on the streets, but it was all the urban trails that really fascinated me with these beautiful corridors.”
Beauchamp became the President of the COS Cycling Club in 2004 for nearly four years. A couple of years later, Intel decided to pull up roots. Instead of moving with them to another city, Beauchamp and his wife decided to stay in the Springs. “We feel like this is home. And here’s the funny part… we have a long list of things of why we have stayed here. That list changes a little bit but the last part is “There’s no bugs.” We love that we have all four seasons in just the right amounts but also no bugs for the most part. That’s a big thing.”
Understanding Infrastructure Regarding Open Space in a Growing City
Before becoming the head of community engagement at TOSC, Beauchamp was the Adaptive Cycling Specialist for the city, which was born out of the love of community he first experienced when he moved to the Springs. “Colorado Springs has a high quality of life and enjoyment of every day in one form or another.”
Beauchamp says his wife jokes that Colorado Springs is a big community, but it still has a kind of small-town mindset. But her takeaway with the Springs is, “If you want to get involved here, you can. It’s easy enough to find entry points. And if you want to make a difference, you can. You can roll up your sleeves and actually become someone who can affect change.”
This is undeniably important in the infrastructure and texture of the urban trails that Beauchamp champions. He is aware (as are most citizens) of the growth. “We’re all struggling with that right now.” A number of years ago, he was involved in a workshop put on by the city planning department. “We were talking about limits to growth over the next 20-plus years … including the expansion on the edges of town and kind of how we’re filling in the spaces that we have.”
Colorado Springs, Beauchamp continues, is one of the 10 largest cities in America landmass-wise at nearly 200 square miles. The head of planning at that specific meeting said something that caught everyone’s attention: “I want you all to understand that 90% of the Colorado Springs that has been built was constructed since the year 1950.” Beauchamp relays that, in a sense, the Springs was a sleepy little spot until post-war.
Facing Challenges
In that way, he says, the Springs has a host of challenges facing it … infrastructure being one of the most prominent. “As we sprawl, basically, how are we going to connect our city?” Beauchamp says the Springs is playing catch-up with the last 20 to 30 years of unchecked growth. “And how do we as a community deal with that moving forward?”
From a bicycling standpoint, the overall idea for most people is that there needs to be more bike lanes and bike trails. However, Beauchamp says, that is only if a distinct portion of the population is riding their bikes to work, which is not the case.
“I mean, I’m a die-hard bicyclist. I would love everybody to be able to ride a bike every day, but they should have the ability to be able to choose the bicycle as a form of transportation versus just for recreation. And they need to be able to do that safely. You can’t run a whole city kind of on that kind of network. So even just for roadways, it’s been challenging.”
Beyond that point of connectivity, the urban trail experience, especially with the creek watershed, comes back to a big concern: water usage. “Every community along the Front Range is having to deal with that right now.” Beauchamp likens it to a local term he coined: “complete creeks.”
“There’s a term very commonly used called ‘complete streets,” which he says is a parallel approach. Complete streets are a way of looking at a street in a public corridor and saying how it needs to be constructed to meet the travel needs of the public in that area no matter what mode. Complete streets, in this definition, would be safe driving lanes, safe parking, and usually protected, separate bicycling facilities as well as a pedestrian component. The same should be applied, he says, to the creek ways.
The Trails & Open Space Coalition, of which he is an officer, is active in this way. “I work for the Trails & Open Space Coalition, so I eat, sleep, live, and breathe this. And I realize that not everybody has that same lens.”
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[…] he continues, there was a group of bicycle advocates headed by the Trails and Open Space Coalition. Allen Beauchamp, and some other folks related to trail and bicycle advocacy in Colorado Springs, came together to […]