ND's Blog

Well, in Bris Vegas tonight. Not to party. I am here to ride! tomorrow that is......

Queensland Water and Infrastructure have been building a big dam out near Boonah and Beau Desert. It's dam big and it will become a major supply of drinking water for the SE of Queensland. The best bit is that as part of the project, the Queensland Govt has developed a world class trail network from scratch! This band new trail network near Boonah is clearly the most visionary and spectacular trail network project currently under development in Australia. The scale of the project alone is awe inspiring yet on my first visit I was particularly impressed at the attention to detail during the implementation of the project.

World Trail produced the concept design for the trail network and under the watchful eye of Glen Jacobs the work crews and machine operators have been punching out a competition level double black diamond DH. Two Wheel Promotions have been doing a fair bit of the trail construction too. So now there is also a 35 km shared use trail that will follow the edge of the "lake" when the dam is completed. This very nice shared use trail is the biggest section of purpose built "rolling contour trail" I have ever seen. On top of that there will be about 20 km of prime "flow trail" to keep the punters well and truly stoked. By the time this place opens in April 2011, it will have 4X, DJs and all the trimings to make a great day out, including BBQs and picnic areas! Does it get any better?

Last time I came up for a look it was all business, and I didn't get to ride the trails. The trails looked wild and I was pretty keen to get back here with my bike. Tomorrow it's all about to pay off, because I get to ride on these great trails, with a bunch of great people who are here for the same reason. Tomorrow is the "Mt Joyce Invitation" and our hosts, the SE Queensland MTB Club are going to be shuttling us up the hill all day so that we can ride everything that has been built so far! I feel very priviledged to part of this event and to help establish a long term partnership between IMBA Australia, the local club and the land managers to ensure these trails are maintained to their current standards i.e totally rad.

You can be sure that MT Joyce is about to become the next major MTB destination on everyone's to do list. I will know more about that tomorrow. Until then....

cheers!

Colorado Road Trip – May 2010

Fruita

Hiring a car in Boulder and driving on the other side of the road was a little intimidating, only made a little better by the GPS unit that was going to guide us for the 10 to 12 days on the road. A Hyundai, and as we left the relatively chic hippy town of Boulder, it became quite obvious that we were in one of the smallest vehicles on the road, particularly once we got to the Western Side of the Rockies. Nonetheless, it was quite comfortable and driving through snow and sleet was quite fun as we passed Vail and then Aspen on the quest for warm dry weather and prime dirt. The pass through the Eisenhower Tunnels (is) 3401 m above sea level, oh yeah, the air is thin.

Well it was great to get back to Fruita. Great trails and good mates. While my partner Kelly and I were still trying to catch up on the left over invoicing for the recent Trail Sustainability Workshops, we were certainly pretty keen to spend some time on the single track that this place is renowned for. To introduce Kelly to Fruita single track, we hit up Rustlers Trail first. A very cool trail that has been developed in partnership between local riders, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and IMBA, it is a green trail with interpretative stations that tell you how to ride the obstacles and the ethics involved with “Keeping the Single Track Single”. As you can imagine, in the open desert country it is very important for riders to stick to the track, otherwise all the single tracks would blow out to 3 metre wide highways. These ethics are well needed in Oz too – KISS is the principle – keep it single stupid.

Troy lent us some Rocky Mountain rigs and they were just fine for the trails.

Anyway, Rustlers is a great way to get ready for trails like More Fun, Joes Ridge, Kestle Run and Troy Built. Truly inspiring stuff; with rock obstacles and technical features to test all and sundry.
While in Fruita you have to try the margaritas to help wash down you Mexican food. Troy Rarick knows how to make a good margarita and it was great to spend time with the one of Fruita’s instigators. Trail ethics is one of his passions, but Troy’s philosphy can almost be summed up with a few words about striving for “Good Living”.

Moab

Dreams can come true. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would get to ride Slick Rock, but the folks in Fruita insisted that we had to factor it into the road trip somehow. So after a short drive we were there. With only 24 hours in Moab, we had to make the most of our time. After catching u on emails and work we hired some Specialized rigs from the Rim Cyclery. Kelly was starting to get attached to the women’s specific Sapphire and well hey; I wanted another go on a 2010 Enduro. Awesome. So onto the shuttle bus and up to Slick Rock. The shuttle bus was way cool, a pink kombi complete with roof racks for bikes..... as we drive up the hill you can see the profiles of some awesome solid rock ridges that are now world famous and this view was further enhanced by the back drop of snow capped mountains. Yep I was in heaven. Well so we suit up, head cam in order (almost) and off we go. It made sense to hit the “practice loop” first. While it was short, it introduces pretty much everything you are going to find on the main loop. Steep ups and downs while following the dashed while line. White line fever perhaps? Unusually for us in Oz, this trail is shared with motos, but it all works well and the motor bike riders help to maintain the painted navigational white dash lines. Well right from the outset, it was clear that Kelly might struggle a little. It’s pretty freaky stuff to ride on, but once we got into the rhythm of it, it was really fun. It’s mostly psycho logical, because bike tyres grip to this stuff like nothing else and you can ride any camber or gradient your legs can handle. It almost feels like you are riding on vert in places.

So we are out there playing around on the obstacles and wondering if those dark clouds were going to hit us. The locals were pretty insistent that we needed to be ready for anything so we had food and jackets, sunscreen etc, because at this altitude, the weather can change pretty quickly. However, as the lightning rolled in, cracking all around us, even hitting the ground in our area, we were keen to get off the high ridges. As this was all happening is started to hail and that was just rad, and may I say surreal for us Aussies. The pitter patter of hail on the solid rock was trippy but lucky for us the main line of the trail was still grippy. But wow, 3 hours of MTB bliss in all kinds of weather conditions that the locals don’t get to experience. This reminded me of the back packers I have talked to in Oz and how they were lucky enough to see the Rock, Uluru when it was raining; a rare and stunning to experience rain in the desert.

Hire bikes back, warm clothes on and go! Next stop Cortez!

Cortez - Mesa Verde

To make sure we absorb some culture and indulge in some pure site seeing, we paid a visit to the Cliff Dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park. Very cool and well worth a visit. Those folks who lived there over 700 years ago must have been pretty adept at rock climbing, or rather free climbing. The petro glyphs reminded me of some of the aboriginal art works in Australia. One aspect of this place that I loved was that no one really knows how or why the Pueblo Indians flourished and then moved out of their cliff homes. Lots of theories, but no one can really know for sure so it is one of those fantastic mysteries that will keep the human race guessing.

No riding in Cortez unfortunately, but apparently Tomac lives there now and there are plenty of Fruita inspired purpose built MTB trails.

Durango

This place is mad. It’s got all the usual Colorado outdoor pursuits, rock climbing, white water rafting and kayaking, horse riding, and more MTB trails that you can visualise, plus a real life steam train and some very impressive restaurants. Mountain backdrops surround this town, like most places in Colorado. Wow!
Thanks to our IMBA contacts, they lined us up to meet key people in Durango. On arrival we went straight to the Waterfall Ranch, home of Ed Zink. Ed took us on a nice little horse ride. We were asked to stay for dinner and they put us up for the night. This was a real honour; to break bread with MTB royalty. Ed helped kick off the inaugural MTB World Championships in Durango in 1990. As part of this process, he and the Canadian rep wrote the original UCI rule book on MTB and the rest is history. His bike store down town still has all the memorabilia and one of his most famous bike mechanics was Ned Overend. ...... well that’s enough of the name dropping. One of Ed’s most significant legacies is the role he played in setting up Trails 2000; a multi user coalition that worked very hard to establish the trails around Durango. The original vision was for 2000 miles by the year 2000, I think they have about 600 now and it’s still expanding, but it has been a great success story, Thanks Ed for your time and sharing your wisdom.

As part of the visit we wanted to catch up with Mary Munroe. Besides being married to Travis Browne, she also runs Trails 2000 to plan new trails, as well as trail management and maintenance. Trails 2000 is actually funded by rate payers who voted to contribute a percentage of their rates to trail management. Yep, that’s right, you heard me, the citizens of Durango all contribute to trail maintenance through this process and the really keen ones build and maintain the trails as well.

Needless to say the trails are frigging superb and your can ride single track until there is nothing left in your lungs and legs. Unfortunately for us, the really high trails were still under snow, but there was more than enough to keep me smiling for days!

Silverton – Ouray

Oh well, back on the road, but we had to check out the sites and pass over the mountains to Ouray via Silverton. Simply marvellous. Siverton is like stepping into a cowboy movie while Ouray is described as the Switzerland of American and with good reason. Gorgeous from all angles.

Back to Boulder

Again we had the chance to catch up with the staff and get out for a ride on the local trails. It was really positive to meet up with my commrades: it really helps to put it all in perspective and it is nice to know I have the support of these guys. It was a really good way to finish the trip. Thanks everyone for making the time.

IMBA HQ – Boulder Colorado

Boulder is way cool; a lovely town at the foot of some large mountains, with many cafes, restaurants, bike shops, galleries and trails. The main purpose of my visit was to spend some time with the IMBA staff to help outline the development of IMBA Australia and the support that they can provide to make it a success. I can say it has been inspiring and rewarding and Aussie riders will see the benefits of these discussions over the next 12 months.

On a personal note, it was great to have some snow as it was the coldest couple of May days on record! But that meant that we had to stay off the trails to ensure sustainability. Despite the weather the locals were out in their hordes, jogging and riding on the surfaced trails. This place is full of very fit people and living at about 2000m really helps! The air is clean and the water tastes great!

Next stop = Fruita

2010 IMBA World Summit – Day 1

http://www.imba.com/summit/2010_World_Summit.html

Not only is Augusta, Georgia (USA) the birthplace of the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, it is also the location for the 2010 IMBA World Summit. It has been one hell of a trip to get here and I am still not fully adjusted to the time zone, but IMBA Australia is here to gather as much info as possible to bring it back home. It also means I have been on the road for over a month now. So if you think I am really bad at returning emails and phone calls, maybe now you can understand why; apologies nonetheless.

Yes, I am a lucky duck, but hey there has got to be some kick backs for being the National Director for IMBA Australia. It is certainly important to meet with my peers, re-energise my passion for trail advocacy and keep my finger on the pulse of the latest and greatest in MTB trail development.

Day 1 has been pretty cool with some great presentations, particularly that of Mike Mecuri from SRAM. It is very inspiring that the bicycle industry can commit so many dollars to IMBA and trail advocacy here in the States – more trails = more sales – which is definitely something we need to work on in the land of Oz.

In the afternoon we were invited to ride some great bikes from Specialised, Trek and Giant at the Forks Area Trail System (FATS). Something like 40 miles of purpose built MTB single track and oh yeah it is sweet as (hope to post some head cam visions later). I took out a Specialised (carbon) Enduro (once we swapped the brakes over to moto – Aussie Aussie Aussie). As some of you know the Enduro with the gravity dropper is one very cool bike. I wonder if I can get it into my back pack.

check this out:
http://www.imba.com/news/news_releases/05_10/05_6_world_summit_day_1.html

Coming up next on Day 2 (a couple of hours from now) Hans Rey is going to be speaking about “flow trails” indeed “Flow Country”, the next big thing in MTB. The kinds of trails that make everyone feel like a hero. More later....

The big question is, what shall I ride today?

A Blog, thought that was a good idea and it still is, just didn't realise how busy this was going to get. i.e. Being National Director for a brand new national trail advocacy organisation - IMBA Australia. So here I am, 4 months in and it is easily the most challenging endeavour I have ever embraced. There's no finish line, no drinks station, just obstacles and paperwork extending on into infinity. But hey, that's what life is all about, pushing yourself to new limits to see what you can do. The main reward, as always, is to see smiling people out there, in the bush, enjoying the trails.

No, its not all work and no riding. Since I have started I have been lucky enough to have ridden some of Australia's best trails. Wanna know where they are...... well I am going to tell you. Soon :)

But for now, here is some news from Townsville

MEDIA RELEASE TO MTBA

TOWNSVILLE ROCKWHEELERS INVEST IN TRAILS

One of the Townsville Rockwheelers Mountain Bike Clubs long term plans has been to reinvest profits back into Townsville mtb. The most obvious way to do that is to secure access and build a quality sustainable single track network.

Rockwheelers have just completed a $20,000 trail building program funded by profits accumulated over the last few years from the clubs 2 major annual events, the Paluma Push and the HotRock8.

Expert mtb trail builder Adrian Marriner who has a wealth of experience building quality XC trails at Forrest and Stromlo was contracted by the Rockwheelers to carve out approx 4km of new XC IMBA standard single track at Lake Ross and at the recently formed Douglas Mountain Bike Reserve.

Rockwheelers Trail Committee co-ordinator Lee Williams said that
“Stumbling across the rough ground with Adrian, marking out the general route of the new trail with a clinometer. Then returning a few days later to ride the newly formed, beautifully crafted, sweet, flowing single track is simply a great process.
The days of busting a gut for many months and hand digging single track are behind us now. What Adrian can do with his mini excavator is simply incredible. We have been able to traverse across very rough terrain, with the result being single track that rides and feels as good as it looks. Features have been built in to the trail that would never have been considered possible if we were building by hand.”

The Townsville area is generally rough, rocky, steep side sloped terrain and is not an easy location for building single track. The costs per metre using the machine varies from between $5.00 to $8.00. Paying for a contractor and machine compared to 1 man hour per metre to build by hand, and considering the excellent result , is a much better deal by far.

The frustrations of running events and the time commitment pale into insignificance when you see the result that the profits can achieve. Club members who give up riding time to volunteer at events are effectively building new single track without getting dirty.

Each year Rockwheelers plan to build new single track and continually develop Townsvilles mtb network at the 3 main locations Douglas, Lake Ross and MT Stuart.

So there you have it, that's just one example of how things can work in the land down under....

bye for now

Nick