Hermit Park and Homestead Meadows

After the our Winter Park ride and last weekends BMA Sufferfest, I was looking for something a little easier.  Sometimes, that's tough to do in these hills, but today I was destined for Hermit Park.  Hermit Park, is a cheating way to get to Homestead Meadows, the area at the top of Lion Gulch.  Good stuff.  Good cruising and mellow riding.  Kinda sandy this time of year, but still purdy good.  

There's a few singletracks with an arterial doubletrack that runs thru the entire system.  Typically, I access the meadows via Lion Gulch, which is for sure a beast to be tamed.  Being one of the most techy trails on the front range,  ...

Tues Ride Aug 14 Trailwork!

This Tuesday, August 14, will be our last Tuesday trailwork of the season.  We'll be working at the very top of Antelope Trail at Hall.  The goal is to funnify the upper section of crappy road.  Hope some of you can make it out!  We'll be riding Lyons Geto Singletrack afterwards before beers at OB.  Bring your lights!

Pssst, if you need lights, our Niterider preseason just arrived!

Antelope Trail trailwork, Tuesday 7/10 5pm

As part of our summer Tuesday trailwork days, we'll be working on Antelope Trail at Hall Ranch this coming Tuesday 5/10.  We'll start sending people up the road from the bike shop around 5pm.  This is going to be a fun one.  We'll be working on the lowest section of road, immediately adjacent to the trailhead.  We're going to do our darndest to make the road go away and turn it into more singletrack.  Please come out to help :)

Boulder County will have tools, refreshments, etc.  All you need to do is show up.  We'll be working til dark.  If anyone wants to ride afterwords, we'll don lights and ride some Lyons Ghetto Singletrack before moving on to Oskar Blues.

Thanks everyone for all the help!

Thanks to anyone and everyone that's helped with Redstone trailwork or trailwork anywhere.  You might appreciate this email trail from today...

******************************************

Hello Partners,

We would like to invite you to the department’s Land Conservation Awards to be held at the parks and open space building in Longmont on Wednesday, April 18.  We will be celebrating individuals and groups who have contributed to the success of our program.  This year’s Partnership Award goes to our partner, Amgen.  Amgen became an Alpine partner at the inception of the Partnership Program and has performed at least 2 projects each year since 2009, contributing over 575 volunteer hours, averaging over 130 hours of volunteer service each year.   Join us in congratulating Amgen and the other individuals listed below!

Happy Spring,

Boulder County Parks and Open Space 

From: redstonebike@hotmail.com [mailto:redstonebike@hotmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2012 2:48 PM
To: BoCo Open Space
Subject: re: Land Conservation Award Celebration

How many hours does Redstone have?  I want to beat that.  :)

---

From: BoCo Open Space
To: redstonebike@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: Land Conservation Award Celebration
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2012 22:02:44 +0000

It’s good to hear from you.  According to our records Redstone Cyclery has completed over 273 hours of volunteer work since 2008 and maintained over 1300’ of trail including 7 water bars and armoring 30’ of wet trail.  Considering that you are a relatively small independent retail operation versus a large corporation you should feel incredibly proud of this accomplishment.  I have created one or two Executive Partnership Summaries for a few of our partners; these summaries basically outline an organization’s contributions and includes some narrative about the bigger picture.  I would be happy to create one of these for you if you thought it would be helpful for your business.  Just let me know.  We appreciate all of our stewardship teams immensely.  Keep smiling J  

Nah, just curious to see how a small business that actually cares stacks up against a mega Pharma company that does it for publicity ;)

Dave
http://www.redstonecyclery.com
http://www.facebook.com/redstonecyclery
http://twitter.com/redstonecyclery
Lyons, CO

Trail Work on Picture Rock's First Corner

Redstone Cyclery has been the designated trail steward of Heil Ranches Picture Rock trail since it's inception. Any time we'd have a trail work day set aside, County staff would ask us what we wanted to work on, we would figure out a place, and we'd get a crew out there to get 'er done.  About 8 months after the trail opened, it was obvious that the very first uphill right corner (and the very last downhill left hander) was built wrong.  Going up was no big deal, but coming down was a decreasing radius off camber corner.  In short, it was a corner designed to spit people off trail.  After a few years, the corner got more blown out with more braking bumps and just plain got worse.  We kept bugging Boulder County to let us rebuild the corner.  Always, the answer was, "No, that's too big of a project."  We kept plugging away with other trailwork sessions and continued to build our relationship with Boulder County Open Space. Finally, when we sat down to schedule a winter Saturday for trailwork, we once again asked about this corner.  Finally, we had our chance.

A Word From BMA

A History of Success and Progress... 

Mountain biking has never been as good in Boulder County as it is today. The Boulder Mountainbike Alliance has made huge progress with every land management agency over the last 10 years and we still have big visions for the future. Think about a regionally integrated recreational trail system that would allow you to ride from your home to city open space to county open space to forest service lands and beyond! A carbon-free recreation experience that starts at your front door - that's a  vision worth fighting for, and it is where BMA is focusing our efforts now that the West TSA is over.

The mountain biking community has proven ourselves the best stewards of the land Boulder County has to offer. We spend more time building and maintaining trail, advocating for the passage of open space taxes, engaging in peer to peer education, partnering with County Open Space (e.g. Hall, Heil) and City Parks and Rec (Valmont Bike Park) to accomplish great things.

We even recently had a constructive relationship with the City's Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) Department - challenging them to get more creative in managing use on their lands and opening up new cycling opportunities in the Marshall Mesa and Doudy Draw area.

... With a Temporary Bump in the Road

Anemone Hill and the rest of the West TSA was in part a disappointment because BMA believes in win-win solutions. We believe that preserving the environment and providing quality recreational experiences are not mutually exclusive goals - in fact they are mutually supportive.

Giants of the environmental movement like Aldo Leopold and John Muir understood that people must experience nature to learn to love and value it. As Edward Abbey once wrote, "it is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it." Mountain biking provides us with a deep connection with nature, an experience our heroes demand we have.

Some environmentalists in Boulder are anti-bike because they believe deep in their bones that man-kind is out of balance with nature. And maybe they are right. Species are in decline, the climate is changing, forests are being eaten by the pine bark beetle and burned by fires.

But the solutions advocated by this narrow group of environmentalists (keep bikes out!) are disproportionate to the challenge they have identified. Mountain bikes are not drilling rigs and trails are not well pads. Our access issues have little to do with the regional and global environmental problems that trouble both of our communities. Mountain bikers are a great partner in conservation efforts, but we fear that bridge has been burned in Boulder - at least temporarily.

From where we sit now, it is reasonable to ask whether it was ever worth engaging with the City of Boulder on bike access in the West TSA. After all, the majority on City Council didn't say no to a trail on Anemone Hill. They said no to bikes. A trail will be built, it will have environmental impacts, it will have parking problems, it will cost money, but it will be open to hikers and equestrians only. The positive value of a near-town riding experience didn't hold water with a majority of city council - they didn't understand that we want to ride to our ride, that our kids need someplace to ride that doesn't involve jockeying with car traffic, that of the over 100 miles of trail in the West TSA, we were only asking for shared access to six.

We came very close to winning reasonable and responsible access, and that closeness is a sign of progress. The Open Space Board of Trustees voted 4 to 1 to give us a 4-5 mile loop on Anemone Hill. Four city council members - just one shy of a majority - voted to give us access to this one small piece of open space. These council members did not just vote yes, they gave passionate testimony on behalf shared access and the recommendations of the Open Space Board of Trustees. We have progressed substantially in educating city officials on the environmental impacts of mountain biking, and several trustees now acknowledge that the impacts from mountain biking are essentially no different than hiking.

We know the unspoken truth - that OSMP staff were split on the issue of allowing bike access. High up on the OSMP totem pole the idea got shot down, but the flesh and blood of the organization has seen that a purely political decision was made. They understand now, better that even before, that this is not about impacts on the resource, this is not about user conflict - this is about maintaining the status quo - no bikes in the West TSA. To city staff that have been open minded, we offer our sincere thanks! We will continue to persuade citizens and government officials that the gap between the conservation and mountain bike communities is narrow.

What Comes Next?

But what do we do now? Do we stick it to the man and start poaching trails? Does BMA give up on the city entirely and focus elsewhere where we have more constructive relationships with the county and forest service? NO! Every single inch of access that BMA has achieved has been done because we have proven time and time again that we are responsible citizens and that we are not going away. We have decided to make Boulder our home. We love it here. We are not leaving.

We were on the cusp of victory in the West TSA - as modest as that victory may have been. We will continue to show up; we will continue to make a difference; we will continue to build and maintain trail; we will continue to demand fair access; we will continue to lead a two-wheeled lifestyle; we will continue to prove that nobody is a better steward of our public lands than the mountain biking community - even when they slam the door in our face.

I and the rest of BMA want to offer our personal and heartfelt thanks to the many, many members of our community that have made a difference. We want to assure you that though we have lost this battle, our vision will win the future. If you are one of the numerous people disillusioned by this entire process, know that we understand. A small piece of our dream has been shattered. But we take heart in the community that we have formed together. It is that community that ensures our ultimate success. It is our willingness to continue taking the high road - even in the face of utterly inexplicable injustice - that has gotten us to where we are at today. And it is that same can-do attitude that will carry us into the future. So chill out, relax, and recover from this madness. Continue to ride. The job is not over yet.

Jason Vogel, President of BMA

president@bouldermountainbike.org

My Take on MTB Access on City of Boulder OS

I give up on mountain bike access from downtown Boulder.  Why?  Because it is too ingrained in Boulder's culture, staff, and elected officials to think that mountain bikes are the enemy.

Recently, Boulder City Council rejected a proposal that would've created a loop trail on Anemone Hill - basically Settlers Park on Mapleton.  Tons of bike supporters called, wrote letters, and showed up for public comment at the city council meeting.  Didn't even make a dent.  What use is public comment at a meeting when city council people had prepared speeches and notes ready. Were they even prepared to hear what folks had to say?  No.  Like BMAs president Jason Vogel said, 99% of the people in that room had minds made up before they even got there.  It's time to move on and give up on access west of Boulder.  The time may come, but not until elected officials are voted out of office and city staffers move on.  This cultural shift won't happen  anytime soon.

In a recent Boulder Daily Camera Article read, "She [Boulder Mayor Susan Osborne] went on to say that she's "certainly sorry about the rancor" that the issue has caused, but she doesn't think the correct response is for the cycling community to leave the table. "We make tough decisions all the time, and it's really rare that the person or group on the losing side does a, 'I'm going to take my marbles home and I'm not going to play anymore,'" she said. "We have another vote on a mountain biking trail that at least to some people seems like another pretty good option. I don't get the strategy where you basically take no prisoners."

Really?  What does she want us to do, come back for another pounding after receiving continual poundings since being banned on city Open Space since 1984?  It think 27 years of being shot down warrants either not playing their game anymore, or a DRASTIC shift in how we, mountain bikers, policiticize.  


The more we beat our heads against the wall where policy makers obviously don't want us, the more we're going to hurt our chances when it comes to a place where they might actually give us some leeway, like Beech and N Boulder Valley Ranch.

I think it's time to take a step back take a look at what's actually been accomplished. the High Plains and Springbrook area TSAs had great outcomes, but the West TSA was set up for failure from the get go. City Council and OS Staff reconfigured the public process to achieve a desired outcome. Was anyone surprised when the bike ban in the west was upheld? In the ashes of West TSA, council threw it back to staff and said "explore Anenome Hill" in an attempt to immediately appease bike peeps. It wasn't to appease us long term with real access. This last meeting wasn't entirely about access on Anemone, it was about a specific loop trail on Anenome - something BMA asked for but OS staff was against.

Open Space Board of Trustees will convene on 11/2 to discuss a connector over Anenome to 4 mile. Even if Council approves that, once again, they are setting mountain bikers up for a predetermined outcome. An out and back trail in an already crowded area will do nothing but further anti mtb sentiment. Head on traffic, user conflict and too many users on one trail will be the result.

Focusing on mtb access out of Boulder is great, but I think it's unrealistic to see access out of downtown anytime soon, especially given current leadership. Let's focus more on southern and northern access on city property. There is a LOT of potential in Boulder County OS. Walker, Hall, and Rabbit Mt management plans will be up for discussion soon. Let's start refocusing on attainable goals.

Want more and better access from downtown? Call for Mike Patton's resignation and vote those idiots on Boulder city council out of office.

Rant off.  It's time to ride.  Somewhere that's not governed by Boulder City.

Need people on the 24th and 25th to help area cycling!

Boulder County, Colo. – The Boulder County Transportation Department is seeking volunteers to take bicycle counts at locations around the county.

Volunteers will be rewarded with a one-year Boulder B-cycle membership and a custom thermos.

When: Saturday and/or Sunday, Sept. 24 and 25, 9-11 a.m.

Where: Throughout Boulder County. A map will be provided with assigned location.

The deadline to volunteer is Sept. 22. Contact Brandon Smith at 720-564-2667 or bcsmith@bouldercounty.org to register and for more information.

A location map and a simple spreadsheet will be provided to volunteers to hand-write the counts as they happen.

The bicycle counts will provide the Boulder County with useful information in five areas of study:

1. Conditions and trend analysis – documents the number of people currently bicycling, how this number is changing over time, and characteristics of the cyclists.
2. Network planning – helps prioritize improvements and find locations needing attention.
3. Demand forecasting – allows for improvements to be ready before they are needed.
4. Safety – pinpoints areas of concern between cyclists, motorists and pedestrians
5. Usage – identifies shifts in seasonality or times-of-day

Heil Ranch Trailwork

Last Tuesday, we supplanted our normal Tuesday Nite Ride with trailwork on Picture Rock. We took out a couple things, added a couple things, and generally managed the flow of the trail to keep people on the line. We worked on a section directly above the old quarry where the line was getting blown out and folks were riding off trail around trees.


I revisited the area this morning and it seems to be shaping up nicely.



We are planning another workday for this fall, probably a Saturday affair so we can get more people and work a little bit more. We are definitely open for feedback on what Picture Rock could use and could not use as far as trailwork and maintenance goes. We would definitely love some feedback!

Multimodal in Denver with Bcycle

I've been hearing a lot about the Bcycle program that's in Denver and Boulder. Enough that I wanted to try it out but since I try to avoid Denver and Boulder I figured it might be a while. I got my opportunity on Saturday night, though. The goal? U2 in Denver with as little of a driving headache as possible. And believe me, I've been a mountain man long enough that I despise driving in downtown Denver and super heavy I25 traffic. Mostly because I don't know where the hell I'm going so I tend to just blunder around.

I cruised to D town in the Jeep and got off I25 not far from downtown, pretty much exited the interstate as soon as traffic got too heavy. Within minutes, I had parked at the Pepsi Center and was ready to roll. I know, I know, Pepsi Center is a close walk to Mile High, but I had to go to LoDo first. Perfect for Bcycle. The Bcycle program works perfectly. It's $6 to buy in for a 24 hour bike share. Put your credit card in and you're charged $6 to take the bike. The $6 will get you as many 30 minute or less trips around town that you can fit in a day. Take the bike for more than 30 minutes and you pay extra. That's not sharing, Bcycle says. Bcycle has several stations located all over though, that you can ride from Point A to Point B, ditch the bike at another station, run errands by foot, then pick up another Bcycle at another station. Pretty slick.


Here's a shot of my pimpin' ride for the next 29 minutes. Trek makes the bikes for Bcycle. They are overbuilt and stout, and they have plastic or metal covering up all of the barrel adjusters and other things. Fortunately, riders cannot make adjustments to the bike.







They all come equipped with 3 speed drum brake Shimano hubs. Drum brake fronts as well. I guess you could really bang up a wheel then, eh?

I trolled around for 20 minutes or so enjoying the ride. I successfully checked into my next stop. Check in was easy, just park the bike in the stand til it clicks and give you a blinky green light. You are good to go.

After walking to LoDo from the bike stop, we walked to the light rail station where we took the train to Mile High stadium. Walking from the train was the most congested and difficult time of my multimodal experience. Way too many people and not enough room.

The payoff was good, though.

After all that, back on the trail, back to the car, and back on I25. All in all a big success. I avoided my phobia of heavily trafficked downtown streets, got to ride a bike, AND got to ride the train. Good stuff and highly recommended!

Couple of Trailwork Opportunities this Weekend

First off, BMA has been partnering with Boulder County Open Space to do some touch ups on the Wapiti Trail at Heil Ranch. It's coming along nicely - busting ruts, armoring historically problematic wet areas, etc. They're looking for more help this coming Sat, 4/16. Start off around 8 or so, ending time is a few hours past that. More info here if you're interested.

In other exciting, news, the gracious hosts at Glacier View Ranch, outside of Ward, are working on building 7+ miles of singletrack that circumnavigates their land. They are looking for help and it will be open to the public. Now here's the really cool part. You want all day long mega epic rides? This area ties in directly to Raymond, Miller Rock, Cerain St Vrain, and all of those parts just east of the Peak to Peak. More info is here. The Maintenance Ranger, Austen, is organizing trail days this Sunday at 8ish as well as the following Sunday. We're trying to get a crew rallied to go up there this Sunday. Interested? Let me know!

News is news

Longmont bike night is this week, with movies both on Thursday and Friday!

http://longmontbikenight.blogspot.com/

They'll be showing Ride the Divide at the Dickens Opera House on Thurs. Bicycle Dreams will be shown Friday at the Vance Brand auditorium. Dickens Opera house is a pub and Vance Brand is a school, so you can, uh, guess what that means. Help these boys out, proceeds go to Bicycle Longmont goodness.

How's this sound like for a fun race, Crusher in the Tushar. Damn that looks fun. And hard. Could be good preperations for Gravel Worlds 2011, if you're into that kind of gravel grinding pain.

Tuesday ride is coming up. How about a little of this?

Bike shop at 5:30 and we'll drive from there. Bring lights, it's going to get dark.

Heil Ranch Wapiti Trail Work Day Coming Up!

(pic courtesy of Daily Camera)

BMA is partnering with Boulder County Parks and Open Space to maintain the Wapiti Trail at Heil Valley Ranch this spring. First workday is next Saturday, March 12 (March 19th if there's snow). They need 15 volunteers to work from 8:30 AM till 12:30pm with an option to stay longer. Contact John Bevans for more info: mtbcolorado[at]yahoo[dot]com

Join th Army! The BMA Guerilla Army!

BMA needs you to make our access campaign in OSMP's West TSA successful.

The mission of the BMA Guerrilla Army is to get mountain bikers off their asses and to public meetings. We'll have some guerrilla actions at strategic moments to bring out the crowds.



We have a lot of work to do to get 500 people to the OSBT meeting this Wednesday 2/9 at 6pm City Council Chambers 1777 Broadway (intersection w/ Canyon). We have a volunteer general for the Army who has some cool ideas for how to get people to the meeting, such as flyering cars with bike racks on them over the next few days. But our general needs help to make this happen. If you'd like to lend some elbow grease to the cause, please click on the "Join the BMA Guerrilla Army" button at the link below. Forward this message on to trusted friends that you think might be interested. More info to come on all the other ways you can help if this ain't your shtick.

http://bouldermountainbike.org/takeaction

What are you talking about?

On Tuesday, February 1st at 9:26 pm, Boulder's Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) Department recommended the continuation of a total ban on mountain bikes in the West Trail Study Area (the open space between Mount Sanitas and Eldorado Springs Dr). To justify this decision they cited "irreconcilable visitor conflict" and said new shared-use trails were "not a reasonable option from either an environmental or a cost perspective." BMA stands ready to engage with staff to resolve the problems that BMA's modest proposal could cause. Learn more about BMA's position at the link above.

Boulder County Access Politics at their Finest (I)

Let me set the background in this first post. I'll get to my real point in post II, which I'll put up when I feel like typing more. City of Boulder is in the middle of a very long term project that involves revisiting the management plans of all of their Parks and Open Space land. They are breaking these areas into chunks called TSAs or Trail Study Areas. Each TSA is visited seperately to make it easier for city management to make it thru all of their properties.

City of Boulder has already made it thru 2 TSAs already. Those TSAs were manged in the typical way that local land managers use for public input. The process is basically simple:
-initial public info meeting and comment period
-some sort of interim status and comment period
-suggestions A, B, C, D are presented and there's a comment period
-Staff final recommendation based on previous comments and feedback and comment period
-City of Boulder puts the plan into effect

The first involved the Marshal Mesa area South of Boulder and East of 93 and it stayed pretty low key. Key bike related takeaways from that TSA were a new trailhead for Marshal Mesa right on Broadway and new trails like Cowdrey Draw, High Plains, Coal Seam and Marshall Valley. The plan also laid out the initial framework for the "Dirty Bismark," a ride that has been dreamed of by Boulder Residents for years. Things turned out well and the whole project, although it was still very much "on the radar," didn't bring out a ton of press or comments from the public at large. Thanks largely to Boulder Mountainbike Alliance (BMA) for being on the scene and having the job well handled.

Next TSA was the Doudy Draw area, which included all of the park land south of Eldorado Canyon Drive and West of 93. Now we were getting into some touchy territory, as bikes had been banned in about 95% of this area. Until this TSA, bike access was limited to the Community Ditch, and the very bottom part of Doudy Draw so you could ride off of the ditch and down the draw to the parking lot. Basically pretty lame already and we didn't have much to lose. This was a much bigger deal for Boulder area peeps, both mountain bikers and non mountain bikers. Boulder hikers and haters wanted to keep the bikes out. They got banned for a reason after all, right? But bike supporters came out in throngs to the public meetings and made a lot of good, logical, fact based suggestions. Remember how the process works? City management tries to reach a decision, based largely on public input. Because bike support had been vocal, well thought out, logical and based on facts, OSMP staff recommended opening up Doudy Draw in it's entirety (complete with a reroute to make the trail more sustainable). OSMP staff also called for the creation of what is now Springbrook Loops and Flatirons Vista Loop, both of which would be bike accessible. Again bike peeps were happy and non bike peeps were not.

Now, enter the introduction of the West TSA. The "crown jewel" of Boulder OSMP as it's referred to by staff and some Boulder area residents. This is also a TSA where there are ABSOLUTELY ZERO bike allowed trails in the region.

There's the background. Now do some reading, catch up, and form your own opinion of how it all came down. I'll tell you mine shortly.

For a refresher, go here for the official word from the city and here to learn a little about the politics as they have already played out.

BMA Banquet is this coming weekend!

This Friday, February 4 is the 6th Annual BMA Banquet. Put on your fancy duds, head to downtown Boulder and be prepared for a fun, bike peeps party and auction. All proceeds go to BMA. It typically sells out, but there are still tickets available. Check here if you're a FB person, otherwise, find it at BMA's new website!

Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday!

Boulder Mountainbike Alliance is a great organzation. We like BMA and think you should, too.

BMA is our regions mountain bike trail advocacy effort. BMA offers a united voice of mountain bikers for municipalities and land managers to hear, their trail work efforts have dedicated hundreds upon hundreds of community service, and they promote social rides for riders of all abilities. The management of BMA comes from a group of extremely dedicated mountainbikers and some of them have been at it for 20+ years.

Redstone would like to offer our thanks to BMA as well as our full support. In light of that, we will be supplanting our normally scheduled Tuesday Ride next week (1/11) with BMA's party to launch their new logo, new website, and membership drive.

Details for the party are here.

Hopefully we'll see some of next Tuesday at Avery's Brewery in Boulder!

Boulder County Advocacy Alert/Opportunity!

Great news if we make it! I just returned from a Friday AM pre work ride on Picture Rock. I popped out of the trail at the trailhead on Red Gulch Rd. A volunteer was at the trailhead handing out user surveys and did I want one? Heck yes!

Here's the deal - she said they have about 30 volunteers that will be handing out surveys at various Boulder County trailheads thru Tuesday.

What you can do - if you visit a Boulder County Open Space Park between now and Tuesday, please go out of your way to look for someone handing out surveys to fill one out. I'm not telling you what to say, but the more feedback Boulder County gets, the more effectively they can manage our parks.

I did notice one funky question on there, though. It asked if I had experienced any conflict yes or no. The next question had me put a checkmark next to the type of conflict I experienced. I know that it makes it easier to survey that way, but it should've been an open ended question. Out of 10 of the conflict types, 4 of them were bike specific. One was poop specific and the others were pretty general. Cyclists were the only user group that was singled out in the survey. Other than that, I found the survey to be pretty fair.

Anyway, if you visit BCPOS between now and Tuesday, please look for a surveyor and complete a user survey. The more folks fill this out the more Boulder County will be able to use fact based decision making.

thanks for the help!

Please take a minute to help with Boulder bike access

City of Boulder hasn't historically been the most friendly to bikes. In fact, seems like some of the extremists in Boulder don't like bikes at all. At the end of the day, it comes down to the fact that, even though these folks are grown ups, they haven't learned how to share. Please read the following public service announcement from BMA, the Boulder Mountainbike Alliance...
********************************************************************************

It's been almost a year of discussing the future management of the Boulder mountain backdrop - including the possibility of a bike trail from Baseline Road to Doudy Draw and Marshall Mesa. Community Collaborative Group (CCG) members have spent the last 12 months in meetings, all the while pushing off the really big issues till later.

'Later' comes this Monday, Sept 13

Over the last twelve months, BMA has taken a low profile approach to the West TSA, minimizing our public rhetoric so the CCG can meet and collaborate as intended; with minimal noise from the court of public opinion.

Well, the same can't be said of the anti bike crowd who are dead set against even modest bike access in the West TSA. Click here and here to look at the anti bike propaganda being distributed at trailheads in the West TSA. The goal of this flyer is to inspire fear and get users to overwhelm the CCG mountain bike meeting this Monday. They think they can load the room up using fear tactics and outright distortions and win the day.

That's unlikely to happen. The CCG has heard all the arguments before, and the rules of the meeting severely constrains public input to 30 minutes. There simply isn't going to be an opportunity for the public to engage the CCG and OSMP in this meeting.

We here at BMA have worked hard to take the high road and not engage these scurrilous debates, and we are continuing that tactic. While there is a lot to said for showing up in numbers, we don't believe this type of reaction is productive to the process that OSMP and the CCG have struggled with for a year now.

It's for this reason that we encourage you to stay away from this meeting. But you can still voice your support of modest access for mountain bikes in the Boulder mountain backdrop and your disappointment in the fear tactics and outright distortions of the anti-bike crowd.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

It's not time to show up,
it's time to speak up.

Sign the petition here. Add whatever personal comments you would like and send. We will present the petition and signatures to the CCG

We at BMA care deeply about the outcome of this meeting and hope that the CCG will have the courage and determination to make the hard decisions the Boulder community requires.

Trail Work Tuesday Niter 8/24!!!

Next week, 8/24, will be our second trailwork nite of the year. We'll be working on Hall Ranch this time around. You all know the "new" dangerous section near the bottom of Bitterbrush trail right by the bathrooms. We'll be reworking that. Bottom line is that it's a poorly designed, north facing, section of trail. We will be doing some berm and drainage work to hopefully get rid of the loosey off camber stuff.

I went over that section of trail today, in person, with the caretaker of Hall as well as the trailwork coordinator for Boulder County. Long term wise, we're going to try to reroute that entire section, and move it to the other side of the hill so the trail will be southfacing, less steep, and more sustainable. That's long term, though, because that requires more people to sign off than a day of trailwork.

Bottom line is that whatever we do next week will still probably be suboptimal, but we ARE working on a long term, 4 season fix for this small section of trail.