It was a thrilling morning on Wednesday (March 23) for the Portage Junkyard Dogs as they were presented with a Central Manitoba Tourism Award.

The award was won in the category for innovation and was actually supposed to be handed out last year but was delayed due to COVID-19.

Blair Geisel, President of the Portage Junkyard Dogs cycling club, says that his club was quite surprised by the honour.

"It's only recently that the community has started to view us as an asset to tourism, and this really does acknowledge our contribution. We have a lot of people from outside the city in the municipality that come to use these trails and obviously view this as a tourist destination."

Geisel notes a considerable expansion is coming down the pipe as far as what's coming up for the club.

"We're going to be building a bike park activity park on the old dump hill, and we're hoping to get that done this year. And this is just going to expand the experience that people can have on our trails. The bike park is going to offer. Sort of new riding opportunities, so remember from really young kids with push bikes right to expert riders here."


The Manitoba Tourism Award presented to the Junkyard Dogs