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so you think the reroute "fossil ridge" is just a dirt path? You do know that the trail along the loop road is still there for you to climb and descent at free will, right?! So you are saying that you prefer 300 feet of tech next to a road compared to the opportunity to build a mile long addition at Greensfelder?

 

A berm on that turn would be great and it could even accommodate the rocks with a slight alteration. We can berm the heck out of everything BUT it's a multi-use horse park and we haven't even had a wet enough winter to see what an 'average' winter + equestrians hoof damage would do to the berms. I like berms too but it's easy to get caught up building them and forget about maintaining them.

 

I keep saying / begging -- if there's enough people that want a flow trail WHY doesn't a group of solid, hard-working, visionary-types get together and form a facebook group, WRITE a solid proposal and then PRESENT it to a land agency.

 

It's easier to bag on the club that builds trails than to try and form a coalition with a singular vision of flow-oriented trails. I'd argue that STL could have another mtb club form to tackle the FLOW EQUATION. And trying to make "dedicated" flow trail work at Greensfelder seems nuts. It's the MOST HORSE PARK of open-to-horses parks. As soon as some hiking/biking land is available I say we SHOULD go FlowNuclear and build it out.

 

I think there's about 80 acres up by the airport that might be open for trail ideas but NO ONE WANTS TO DRIVE ANYWHERE (but they'll drive 4-6 hours to ride in Arkansas). And that's land that might be primed to build on given the right opportunity or pitch. Maybe Babler will allow something, I don't know.

 

"smooth paths" start smooth and will age with time. Look at Dogwood (that most people don't seem to ride anymore), it used to be chill dirt but now it's getting to be a rocky, root, slightly eroded trail.

 

Trails take time. Hell, Beulah is still considered BRAND NEW in trail years. Because it is. Same with Fossil Ridge. It's like, what, 2 years old or something?

 

Many people forget how trail building works so let's review:

1. The land manager suggests or asks for trail additions or changes

2. GORC gets to work

 

 

GORC was asked to get involved with Rock Hollow as a multi-use designed trail.

GORC was asked to reroute existing trails at Greensfelder that were highly eroded and unsustainable. I think we're doing a pretty good job based on the amount of cars jamming the parking lots.

GORC was asked by MDC to reroute a portion of Lost Valley where the gravel road was losing to the creek and also some of the existing singletrack. Not to mention MDC was closing the wooden bridge due to its deterioration and the trail on either side of the bridge. At first, they weren't sure about the reroute just below the bridge with the rocks and steep hillsides but it turned out ok and is pretty techy now.

GORC was asked to close two trails at SIUE due to the trails being outside of our initial lease agreement (a legal issue within SIUE's framework).

 

The club doesn't randomly go out and start changing up the trail. There's always a plan and the land agency is aware of the work. Modifying trails to be easier (tear out rocks or roots) or harder (add rocks or jumps) on your own personal time is not allowed by the land managers unless they approve it.

 

Our by-laws state we are a multi-use trail building club. We do not / can not advocate for a biking only trail but we are more than willing to build a biking or biking / hiking trail if the land manager states that it is their intended goal.

 

I don't mean to rant or sound angry but we are a volunteer organization working on a modest budget and I think we do a pretty good job without the millions in the bank.

 

Someone or some group prove me wrong and get to work and get some flow trail built in STL so I can go ride it.
Your new club can join IMBA and get some solid plans together to build at ...... <INSERT PUBLIC LAND SPACE NAME HERE >

"This is the only place I have ever been where people worry about rain and mud"

Well, if you google "trail closure hotline" or "trail conditions wet closure" you'll get results from coast to coast. This most certainly is not the only place where people worry about rain and mud.

Easy: those places have different soil types that dry much more rapidly and erode differently. Our soils when broken away from the substrate tend to blow/flow away and riding in wet conditions promotes that process of erosion. We also promote leave no trace and tire ruts definitely don't abide by that policy.

Also, just cause people don't worry about it doesn't make it a non issue. IMBAs rules of the trails has it as their number two rule....

https://www.imba.com/about/rules-trail

And they evolved from CO and are international as the name implies.

For whatever reason I decided to roll through the campground at GF pre ride yesterday afternoon. I came across a group with Illinois-Iowa license plates, bikes and tents set up. I stopped in to see where they were from and talk about where they were riding. They were from Chicago and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Fridays ride was Berryman which they raved about and yesterday was Chubb in the am and BV-RH in the afternoon. They raved about the local trails, how friendly everyone was including great horse-cyclist interaction. I spent about 20 minutes with them and shoved off, The take away being that we do have world class trails here and are a destination for MTB'rs. Bravo!

*******Press Release*******

 

The Gateway Off-Road Cyclists have made a proposal to the City of Wildwood and St. Louis County to build a downhill directional flow trail in the currently undeveloped Belleview Farms Park.  This park is along the Meramec River corridor that includes the Al Foster Trail, Bluff View Trail System, Castlewood and West Tyson Trail Systems.  The Belleview Farms Trail System would be an extension of the already great trails along this corridor, but would provide the type of trails not available in our area and desired by many mountain bikers.

 

This proposal has been brought to the Wildwood City Council, so now is the time to make this public and rally the mountain bike community.  I'm attaching the basic proposal that GORC made to the City of Wildwood and St. Louis County Parks.  The map is a concept of what we propose.  The mileages are approximate until we design the trail(s) in detail.  The open, grassy area may be off limits to trails.  The pink trail and dual slalom trail may not happen due to open space requirements and other recreational uses.  However, it is hoped we can build an intermediate level flow trail from top to bottom with some advanced features built in.

 

This is preliminary and with any government project, a lengthy process that must be handled professionally and with respect to the land managers rules and regulations.  Please respect the fact that this park is currently closed.  But, feel free to contact your local Wildwood City Council person and express your support for this proposal.  Even if you don't live in Wildwood, contact the parks department and let them know how much you would like to see this type of trail in our area.  We, mountain bikers, have a huge presence in the St. Louis area and GORC needs your voice to make projects like this happen.  The poll we took a couple years ago on what type of trail you would like to see had over 1,500 votes.  That number was influential in this government decision to move forward.  Let's keep up the momentum.

 

If the project moves forward, there will be a lot of ways to get involved.  We, of course, will need help with the building of the trails, but in order to put in a first-class pump track and skills area, we will need donations of materials, time and money.  Our portion of this project will be all done by volunteers and funded by donations.  I'm sure we will be looking into fundraising opportunities in the future.

 

I'm also attaching the City of Wildwood document that introduces our proposal.  The complete proposal can be found on the City of Wildwood City Council agenda web page.

 

Sincerely,

Bryan Adams

Well, it's been a great 8 years here in STL, met a lot of cool folks and rode a lot of miles with some good people.  May have drank some beers, too.  I will miss all the great trails and people here, but I am not going too far.  Headed to Bentonville, AR for a new job, but hope to see some of you out on the trails over the next couple of weeks before we go.  And I will likely try to make it to Burnin' in the fall.

 

Keep up the awesome work!  I'll check in if I'm in town, and hit me up with a PM if you are headed to Bentonville.

 

-Rich

I would like to personally thank everyone that has come out the past the past several months to help complete the six switchbacks and connecting trail on the Rock Hollow/Bluff View Trail.  My goal was to get this section of trail open for summer use.  Through everyone's hard work this has been accomplished!  This was one of the most labor intensive trail builds for 1000 feet of trail in our history.  The expertise that was exhibited by everyone involved shows in the final product.

 

There are still tweaks to be made as people ride it and find the "perfect" line.  We will address that next fall, but for now, we're tired and just want to ride our bikes for the summer.  GORC members put in 1,415 hours of labor on that hillside since January.  This was mostly done on non-official trail builds due to weather cancellations.  We had several Thursday evening trail builds that were attended well and really showed how much people cared about what we were doing.

 

I'd personally like to call out Glenn Meyer for putting in over 100 of those hours and bringing the tool trailer out whenever needed.  Volunteers like Glenn are invaluable and I can't thank him enough for his help.  Also, Paul Keppel kept me motivated and put in over 60 hours himself on that hillside.  There were many others that showed up regularly, Drew, Tom, Rich, Dan, Adam, Patrick, Cass and others...thank you very much!  There is some great features on that hillside that we all put a lot of thought in to.  After riding the completed product last night, I was amazed at how incredible it turned out.  You all did amazing work!

 

If you haven't had a chance to check it out, please do.  We are nearly complete with only about a 1/2 mile of the Eastern section to finish next fall.  This will complete the loop in Rock Hollow.  Design and construction on this trail started in 2009/2010.  It has been a long build and it's great to see it nearly completed.  There are areas that will need some TLC after we are done with the main construction.  We will get back to them.

 

Also, please respect the sign at the end of the Eastern section of trail that is at the rock slot.  The turn at the bottom of the slot is not complete and unsafe to ride.  We will work on that turn this fall.  So, for now please turn around at the sign and enjoy the trail in the other direction.

 

Thanks again to all the great volunteers we have in St. Louis!

Bryan

If you are considering buying any OT maps be advised that the Alpine Shop in KW is having 25% off all maps thru Oct 30. 

The rewards of building a new section of trail are awesome!

 

Here are  'Before' and 'After' pictures from a couple Trail Builds.

It's pretty cool to see what was there prior to the trail magic.

 

Creve Coeur 

Before:          

 

During:         

 

After:                 

 

 

Cliff Cave

Before:              

 

After:             

 

Here are the Top 5 Reasons to attend a GORC Trail Build

 

                                       Number 5

 You get to hang out with other cool people and make new friends.

 

                                       Number 4

                You'll feel a great sense of accomplishment. 

 

                                       Number 3

                           Builds good trail Karma.

 

                             Number 2

            You get to ride what you built !!!

 

             And the Number 1   reason

It's just really fun to play in the dirt !

 

 

So please consider attending a Spring Trail Build 

        

https://forum.gorctr...lding-schedule/

Maybe you could chill with Saturday morning humor on this subject. Pretty much not joking.

Check back in a week or two.

GORC was represented by Laif and myself. Very nice event in their new pavilion.

With the help of Bekin at SCCP and a few St. Charles riders, we've opened up a new flow/ play section at the island. This is a short series of loops that plays along the natural contours of a dry slough. It has several small jumps and we are adding features all the time. It is now open to the public and needs tires on it to keep it established. It can be found by riding the Slough Loop counter-clockwise. Immediately after the 3 jump sections, you turn right where the trail starts to turn left. Opening is marked with pink flags. I've also placed many pink flags where weeds will be overtaking the different lines. Please take a friend and help get this trail ridden in. If you would like to volunteer to help work on new features, let me know. I have all the forms required by county parks. I am hosting dig and ride sessions on Wednesday and Friday evenings (mosquitoes permitting).

You can contact me at bikestopcafe@gmail.com or find Bike Stop Cafe on Facebook and message me through there.

Strava link> https://www.strava.c...nts/22266983879

Council Bluff used to be considered an all year, all weather trail. However the last couple years of extreme weather (namely floods) has brought that status into question. Lack of major maintanence has allowed CB to suffer some erosion and lack of tires hasn't kept the tread beat in very well. The dedicated few have given it the love it needs to keep it as a destination ride during decent weather, but Probably not at the moment.

I'd recommend Middle Fork, but for the same reasons, it's not a rock solid bet either. Berryman has received much more major maintanence and rerouting which will make it more of a sustainable trail, but all the disturbances in soil/tread means it gets sloppy in these conditions as well.

So, cross off the classic Mark Twain National Forest trails at least for the next couple of days.

The guys down at Forest City in St James have put tons of time and work into those trails to be very sustainable. There is a Facebook page that is regularly updated with Forest City conditions. That trail may be OK by say, Wednesday.

Here in STL common consensus is that Lost Valley is a quick drying single track AND has great bail out options when you get there all jonsing for a ride, only to find out the single track is wet.

Portions of Grensfellder are near weather proof, but if you don't know the trail system well you'll find yourself ankle deep in muck just on the other side of a ridge from said bomb proof trail. Upper portions of Castlewood dry fast and the Fllint Quarry side of Chubb is pretty hardy as well.

The above is about 7 years of data as collected by weekly and sometimes daily hard evidence, hopefully it helps!

Rode most of the Squealer yesterday.  Didn't get to finish Council Bluff as we ran out of daylight, but ended up with 57.1 miles and 5,536 feet of elevation according to the Strava app.  I'll see what the Garmin says once I get it uploaded.

 

There is a LOT of work needed on South Trace as there are trees down absolutely everywhere.  A few are down on the Telleck Branch connector, some on Middlefork and from the little we hit on Council Bluff, there will be some tree removal and grooming needed.  A lot of time was lost from the dismounting, but it was still fun.  I'd recommend getting a lot of climbing miles in before the race.  Getting some time in on the road bike will also be very helpful for the road and long gravel portion.

There is a plan to continue, don't worry.  This is just a minor hiccup that will be overcome.  We are only talking about 4 landowners that are affected and the trail just barely snakes on to their property.  We will make adjustments and continue closing the loop.

While everyone is worried about what the horses are going to do to this trail, in my opinion, we mountain bikers have done a pretty good job tearing up a few parts of this trail this spring/summer.  After riding it yesterday for the first time in several weeks, there are ruts forming in parts of this trail where I've never seen ruts or standing water before.  The running condition update this year seems to be, "The first half mile is greasy/wet, but after that it's good."  The problem is, right now there's no way to get to the last two miles without going through the first half mile, and a half mile is a long way to go and a lot of trail to potentially tear up in suboptimal conditions.  Most of Zombie seems to dry out more quickly than Bluffview - please remember there are going to be days when Zombie is good and Bluffview isn't, and ride accordingly.

Everyone be careful out at Lost Valley. A friend at work was riding there this past Sunday 5/03/2015 and actually saw a mountain lion walking down the back fire road at around the 7.5 mile marker.  He said the lion heard him and turned broad side (where he could positively identify it as a lion) and looked at him for a few seconds and walked off into the woods.

 

It did not show any signs of aggression at all and just simply walked into the woods and disappeared.  This does confirm that there is a big cat most likely living in the Weldon Springs area.

next time just ride it anyway  ...

 

For the record, this is NOT GORC policy, and may subject the person/people ignoring the trail closed signage to tresspassing and vandalism tickets*.

 

Unfortunately, trail users with this attitude make the entire group of mountain bikers look like they don't respect the resources of that particular park system, or the years of work that it took to even be ALLOWED to build trails there.

 

I would like to invite the forum user who goes by the handle "oldiebutnewbie" to a scheduled - or non scheduled - trail workday, so they can see the effort involved in building/maintaining trails, and why the trail closure policy was implemented in the first place.  If Saturday's don't work out due to your work or family commitments, I'll gladly work with you to find an alternate time.

 

Please feel free to contact me via PM thru my screen name, or see me at the meeting this evening (I won't get there until close to 7:00).

 

GORC is not, and has no interest in, being the "trail police".  Just passing along info.  If you don't like the trail closure policy, contact the people in charge; St. Charles County Parks Department, @ http://www.sccmo.org...arks-Recreation. 

 

The above link has Park Survey, email and phone number contact info, and they DO listen to what people have to say.

What he said......

 

You also need to consider that Matson has been designed by Mtn. bikers for Mtn. bikers since day 1.  The other trail systems in the area are likely trails/areas which mtn. bikers have spent many thousands of hours developing relationships with Land Managers to even get access and to develop/refine trails for mtn. bikers to utilize along with our friends the equestrians and hikers.  We don't always get to do what we want or the land simply won't support it.

 

I echo Lirch's statement about showing up for workdays.  Those of us who have had a hand in building the majority of the trails in the STL area could use other peoples assistance and fresh viewpoint.  We will listen to you, especially if you are standing beside us creating some flowy trail.

 

BTW--if you think things aren't up to par now, count your blessings that you didn't live here 15 years ago. :)

Perhaps putting up a simle sign at every trailhead with a simple, short, sweet and to the point message saying do not ride trails when wet or something to that effect?  Most likely won't stop many but "might" help add a guilty conscience factor to deter a few.