by staff writer, Dennis Gaub
Mark Sevier, owner of Dovetail Designs, has been a serious recreational bike rider in Billings as long as just about anybody — since the late 1970s. And he’s just as serious in his support of Billings TrailNet, the city’s network of non-motorized trails.
“I like riding the trails,” Sevier said. He started his business in 1979, and is a corporate sponsor of Billings TrailNet.
Sevier agreed that the old saying of putting your money where your mouth is, applies to him.
“I use the trails a lot. The trails are valuable for Billings,” he said.
Thanks to his long involvement in Billings and Montana cycling, Sevier has built an extensive network of like-minded people, which he continues to cultivate.
On a recent weekend, he was in Butte, riding trails with Paul and John Nelson, who grew up in Billings and Bozeman and who now live in Seattle. They’ve been getting together for to ride a different spots for six years. Last year, they planned to combine riding in Butte with attending the Montana Folk Festival, but the pandemic nixed their plans.
“Butte’s got some absolutely fabulous rails to trails through the middle of town,” Sevier said.
He met the Nelsons through Jeff Moog, another former Billings cyclist known to many Magic City riders in the 1970s and 1980s. Moog later moved to Seattle and died there earlier this summer.
Fast forwarding to the 1990s as he described the evolution of his cycling involvement, Sevier said, “Billings TrailNet came along and it’s worth supporting.”
His vision for Billings TrailNet is to first complete the Skyline Trail atop the Rims, and then to get the Stagecoach Trail engineered and built. Finally, he hopes a cooperative effort will talk owners of the Billings KOA, located along the Yellowstone River and the place where the franchise began in 1962, into completing the bike trail across KOA property between Mystic and Riverfront parks.
Sevier, who has 11 employees, gave a straightforward reason for his business’ support of Billings TrailNet.
“It benefits Dovetail because it benefits Billings. What’s good for Dovetail is good for Billings,”he said.
Sevier wants more connections between trail segments and, while bike lanes on city streets allow considerable mobility, he wants the trails to become more commuter-friendly.
“These trails are set, nobody’s going to steal ’em. We need to keep working and producing trails.
“I’ve been riding bikes in this city for 44 years and it’s only getting better,” he said.
