PLEASE VISIT OUR NEW WEBSITE

comba2009.blogspot.com served us well in the interim, but now our website is back up & running: www.COMBA.org

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

please join us in creating a sustainable designed-for-mountain-bike trail with advanced features in Buffalo Creek

Calling all crew leaders and volunteers: please join us in creating a sustainable designed-for-mountain-bike trail with advanced features in Buffalo Creek...

The quick and dirty:

      
  • We are going to purpose build a "black diamond" level mountain bike trail in the Buffalo Creek area of the Pike National Forest.
  •   
  • The project is sponsored by the Colorado Mountain Bike Association (COMBA) and will be built in partnership with the US Forest Service, Front Range Mountain Bike Patrol (FRMBP), International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) and  Subaru/IMBA Trail Care Crew, and local bike retailers and manufacturers.
  •   
  • The trail will have advanced features like drops, steep rollers, wall rides and other technical problems which utlize the unique local terrain found in Buffalo Creek. Alternate lines will be built around the advanced features to make the trail accessible to a wide audience of experienced mountain bikers.
  •   
  • There are three build weekends scheduled for 2009: May 30th and 31st, July 18th and 19th, and August 15th and 16th.
  •   
  • Volunteers will have an opportunity to build a great mountain bike trail while learning advanced mountain bike trail building skills, including the opportunity to participate in the free  Subaru/IMBA TCC Trailbuilding School to be offered in August.
  •   
  • To become involved please RSVP for our May 30th-31st trail building weekend at: http://go.imba.com/site/Calendar/1648131972?view=Detail&id=104541
  • The full story:

    As background, Scott Dollus and the South Platte Ranger District of the US Forest Service have been great friends to the mountain biking community. This friendship is a result of the outstanding shared-use trail system the Forest Service has created in Buffalo Creek with the help of volunteer labor provided by mountain bike groups such as IMBA, COMBA, Team Evergreen and the Front Range Mountain Bike Patrol. The FRMBP, led by Keith Clarke and Stu Miller, and local mountain bike author Tom "Barn" Barnhart deserve
    special praise for the success of this partnership, having developed and maintained the relationship with the South Platte Ranger District for 12 years and having donated 4,668 hours of volunteer labor in the process.

    One product of this community partnership is the desire and willingness on the part of the Forest Service to expand the total mileage of trail in Buffalo Creek, including building black diamond level trails to round out the already outstanding trails in Buffalo Creek. There are plenty of trails in the Front Range which are technical due to poor construction, decades of erosion, and rough natural terrain, but sustainable public purpose-built gravity trails are missing from the Front Range.


    In Buffalo creek the Forest Service has given us a granite boulder strewn ridgeline to purpose-build expert trails. It is unfortunately not shuttleable terrain, but the climb is manageable and the terrain technical, making it a good black diamond trail candidate. What is a "black diamond" trail? When I think "black diamond", I think of the opportunites and lines that open up on trails like Amasa Back and Rock Stacker in Moab, UT when riding a stouter trail bike with 5 or 6 inches of travel. 

    The trail can be ridden on a short-travel cross county mountain bike -- even a rigid bike -- but aboard a bike from the evolving class of good pedaling long-travel bikes, the trail becomes a whole different beast.


    Our new trail in Buffalo Creek will cater to this type of riding with drops, steep granite rollers, and wall rides all built in a sustainable manner and blending with the character of the unique local geography. The top of the ridge offers some of the best views in the Buffalo Creek area. From those views the trail's descent follows long expanses of granite slickrock giving sweet line options weaving around, over and between boulders from the size of cars to small homes. Alternate lines will offer routes around the bigger moves keeping the trail accessible to a wide audience of experienced mountain bikers. If you have ever looked up at the granite domes and boulder fields along the ridges in Buffalo Creek and wondered what it would be like to ride a line up high -- this is our opportunity to build that line.


    In the Fall 2008, a group of local riders led by Keith and Stu flagged a trail corridor climbing to the top of the ridge and descending back into the valley. The corridor has received the approval of the  Forest Service and we are ready to put shovel to dirt beginning the weekend of May 30th-31st. These trail building weekends will be friendly, back-to-the-basics camping weekends held at the Miller Gulch Trailhead with easy access to vehicles and facilities. We welcome volunteers on either day, but we encourage everyone to spend the weekend and join us around the campfire. You bring food, water and a tent, and we will bring the beer.


    In addition to a great new trail in Buffalo Creek, we hope this project will build a new community of IMBA educated trail builders in the Front Range. Many of you participated in COMBA's  Forest Service led crew leader training  last summer. This is an opportunity to take those skills and expand them into building sustainable designed-for-mountain-bike trails. The Subaru/IMBA Trail Care crew will be joining us on the weekend of August 15th and 16th offering our vounteers the opportunity to particpate, without cost, in the TCC Trailbuilding School.


    This is an incredible opportunity to build a new advanced trail on public land, but the project will not succeed without your help.  Please join us a volunteer or volunteer crew leader by RSVP'ing to our May 30th-31st trail building weekend at:



    Jason Bertolacci

    Colorado Mountain Bike Association
    303-956-9099


    No comments:

    Post a Comment