Soquel Demo State Forest Trailwork May 8th

Hey all you trail riders and trail workers out there,

Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz is sponsoring the next trail work day at the Soquel Demonstration State Forest. We will be providing coffee and pastries, and FREE SCHWAG for those who sign up at www.trailworkers.com, a free raffle and post work snacks and beers!

Now, that’s an offer you just can’t refuse!

First, please sign up at www.trailworkers.com so we know how many tools and food and free stuff we will need to bring. Next show up on Saturday May 8 at the Demo parking lot by 9:00AM to get your free stuff and to sign in. We will be opening the parking lot for trail workers only so don’t be late if you want to park inside the gate. Bring a lunch with you because we won’t make it back to our vehicles until sometime between 2:30 and 3:30.

View Soquel Demo State Forest Parking Lot in a larger map

We will be working on Ridge and Corral so bring your gloves, comfy boots and your great attitude and let’s get’r done!

This could be one of the last trail work days of the season at Demo so let’s make it a good one!

Titus El Guapo Raffle at the Sea Otter Classic

The raffle for the Titus El Guapo was held on the last day of the Sea Otter. It was a very successful campaign. We managed to raise about $5500 with raffle sales and we also used this bike raffle as a motivation to do online memberships - which is something we have been wanting to do for a few of years.

We had an amusing way of conducting the raffle at the MBOSC Sea Otter booth. Cooper was a great barker/host who really drew the crowd in and pumped them up. I gave a pitch for MBOSC, thanked the audience, Sea Otter and Titus and mentioned why we are raising funds. Then I held my blindfolded 7 year old daughter upside down in the raffle bin. She shuffled the tickets and the crowd told her when to pick the winner. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind about the randomness of the drawing.

The winner was Mark Woodhead - a Santa Cruz local and one of the founding members of MBOSC. Mark is no longer active with MBOSC leadership but he does lead the weekly ride. Winning the bike was good karma for him and he has promised to be more active in the future. I wasn't surprised that a good friend won the bike (since a lot of my good friends bought multiple raffle tickets) but I'm pretty impressed at how many tickets we sold at the Sea Otter. Titus has a great reputation and a strong enthusiast base. Many bought tickets to support MBOSC and the cause. But many out of towners bought tickets because they love Titus and wanted to win the El Guapo.

Thank you all for participating. We raised about enough money to fully fund the SDSF parking lot environmental mitigation project. We're golden. All mountain bikers of Santa Cruz County and the visitors to Soquel Demo State Forest are winners!

10% off BlkMrkt Products for Delivery at Santa Cruz MTB Festival

Our good friends from BlkMrkt Bikes are offering a 10% off in stock items purchased from their online store for delivery in Santa Cruz at the Jump Jam on Feb 28th. This is a special deal for participants in the Santa Cruz Mountain Bike Festival.

BlkMrkt will have few bikes to demo at the Jump Jam held at Depot Park and they have also graciously donated a Chrome Mob Frame for the event raffle after the premier of "Awesome Land: Women of Dirt".

Freedom Riders Showing Thursday Sept 17th

MBOSC presents the Santa Cruz showing of Freedom Riders 7 pm Thursday September 17th at the Rio Theatre.

This film is a benefit to raise money for our local State Parks district to replace the sign at the entrance of the Wilder Ranch back country.

Tickets are $10 available at the following locations (cash only):

• Another Bikeshop


• Bicycletrip


• Spokesman


• Scotts Valley Cycle Sport


• Aptos Bike Station


• Sprockets


• Family Cycling Center


• Trailhead Cyclery (San Jose)


• Passion Trail Bikes(Belmont)

Tickets are also available at the door and will include a raffle ticket. We will also sell additional raffle tickets in the theater.

Freedom Riders is the story of a core group of riders who evolved from covertly building rough and unsustainable trails, to creating a precedent setting relationship with the Forest Service and creating some of the best Freeride trails in the country.

This is a great way to raise money for our local state parks

Hope to see you there!

Why we are supporting State Parks for "Freedom Riders" showing

Our showing of "Freedom Riders" this Thursday is a fund raiser for our local State Parks District. I'm a mountain biker and parks supporter. Not only do the parks provide great trails for riding but they also provide other recreational/educational opportunities for local residents and visitors.

The main reason why MBOSC as a mountain bike club is raising money for our State Parks district is we appreciate that they are serious in finding more legal mountain biking opportunities. We have made a lot of progress with State Parks this summer.

Here is a summary of the story so far.

• History: back in Nov 2006, we submitted a trail conversion proposal which asked to convert 24 mi of single track and 12 miles of fireroad to multi-use from limited use in Castle Rock, Big Basin and Fall Creek State Parks. We focused on trails which are currently open to hikers and equestrians only. This proposal has been met with stale mate. We met with the parks staff many times and have been stonewalled.... until this year.
• More history: There has been a change in leadership in the district. Senior management - mostly conservation oriented - have retired and been replaced by newer leaders who are sympathetic to active recreation. They have also filled a role of a District Trails and Road Superintendent - a key position required to address our proposal and other change in use for existing/future trails.
• Back in February, there was a change in strategy to deal with unauthorized riding at Henry Cowell Park. The Rangers would be issuing warnings then citations to enforce the bike ban on the west part of the park adjoining UC - incorrectly referred to as "UCSC" (ie. Campers, Carpet, Sick & Twisted, etc...). This was seen as those handouts on car windshields in the lot.
• MBOSC successfully negotiated a change in tactics from enforcement to education. In response, we ask that mountain bikers try to limit their activity in that area.
• Sensing growing negative sentiment towards the local parks by mountain bikers, the State Parks District Superintendent made creating more legitimate mountain biking opportunities the highest priority for the new Mountain Sector Superintendent (to be hired). He suggested that addressing our submitted proposal is where the new Sector Super will start.
• Karl Tallman was hired as the Sector Superintendent earlier this summer. In June, MBOSC members and Tom Ward from IMBA CA met with him and the District Trails and Roads Supervisor to restart the trail proposal process. Karl demonstrated the commitment of the District to find more legitimate mountain biking opportunities. We spent most of the meeting looking at maps and discussing the trails in the proposal. There was a definite "can do" attitude within the State Parks Staff. We made more progress in a 2 hour meeting than we made in the past 2.5 years. I want to emphasize that last point: We made more progress in a 2 hour meeting than we made in the past 2.5 years.
• The senior trails specialist from Sacramento has been visiting Santa Cruz this summer (at least twice) to move this process forward. The sector super has been giving me progress updates all summer. This demonstrates the commitment from the District AND Sacramento to provide more legal mountain bike trails.
• The Sacramento trails specialist will be in town on Sept 15th to meet with the District Trails and Roads supervisor to do a construction estimate on the first trail (3 segments) in our proposal to get addressed: The Skyline trail in Castle Rock - which is part of the Bay Area Ridge trail.

The biggest impact has been the change in attitude towards mountain biking in top management in the District. Our local State Parks are willing and honest partners for mountain biking. This means that we have a bright future for legal mountain bike access in Santa Cruz.

We want to demonstrate our appreciation for the district by raising money to help pay for some hard costs of maintaing the district. We hope you agree and support more legitimate mountain biking in Santa Cruz County by attending our showing of "Freedom Riders" this Thursday at the Rio.

Kranked 7 at the Rio May 1st

... and another event from the Bike Trip...

Kranked 7 “The Cackle Factor”

GET KRANKED!

We’re hosting the Santa Cruz premiere of Kranked 7 “The Cackle Factor”, a Radical Films production featuring epic riding sets from top riders like Jamie Goldman, Nathan Rennie, Steve Romaniuk, Mike Kinrade and Eric Porter… filmed in Alaska, British Columbia, California, Vermont, Switzerland and France.

7 PM on Thursday, May 1^st,  2008 (doors open at 6:30 PM)

Rio Theatre,
1205 Soquel Ave in Santa Cruz, CA

Event proceeds will benefit non-profit community bicycle education programs Bike Smart and Bike Shop At School.

The Bike Fest Jump Jam May 10-11

Sweet Bike Week festivities...  Oh yea, baby got hang time.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

20th Anniversary of Seabright Brewery

May 14th represents the 20th anniversary of Seabright Brewery. Seabright has been an incredible sponsor and host for the MBOSC meetings for many years. Happy Anniversary!

Speaking of Seabright...

MBOSC will have a meeting this 7 pm Monday April 14th at Seabright Brewery.
The Sea Otter is a week away (where did the last 3 weeks go?!) and we arein the thick of preparations. MBOSC will have a booth at the Sea Otter and will be co-ordinating the volunteer course marshals on the Dual Slalom course. The agenda for the meeting on Monday is to discuss the Sea Otter and drink some great beer.

• We could use some additional help with the DS course on Thursday and Friday. We would appreciate it if you could help out. If you want to work on the weekend then we may be able to accommodate that as well.
• Booth duty. If you are interested in hanging out at the MBOSC booth and telling people about the wonderful world of mountain biking then please contact me or come to the meeting. I could use a hand. It's pretty low key work, flexible hours. We're sharing the booth with MORCA.

Hope to see you on Monday 7pm at Seabright!

We have free beer at our meetings courtesy of Seabright.

Jacquie Phelan at Seabright Brewery Sunday April 6th

ROMP Christmas Party with guest Joe Breeze

The ROMP Christmas party will be Friday November 30th in Mountain View, California. The special guest this year will be Joe Breeze. Details for the party:

This year's party will be at Michael's at Shoreline Park in Mountain View. Dinner will be served banquet style around 7:30, starting with drinks and appetizers at 6 PM. This year Joe Breeze will be our guest of honor.

Joe Breeze was one of the central figures in the development of mountain biking. He's probably best known as the designer-builder of the first successful modern mountain bikes. Joe became a leading designer and proponent of a sport that has gotten more people on bikes in the western world than at any time since the 1890s. Joe attributes his successes with mountain biking to his passion for bicycling, evident in his oft-quoted line, "We were just havin' fun." Joe has made bicycles his life's work--as rider, racer, designer, builder, and advocate.

More details can be found at http://www.romp.org.

My wife and I have been attending the past few ROMP Xmas parties and have always had a great time. Great attendees, good food and the guests are always interesting. It's a good time in the for Bay Area mountain bikers and an opportunity to dress up, look sharp and party with the legends of mountain biking.

Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz donates $3000 to support IMBA California

Tom Ward from IMBA California attended the MBOSC 10th Anniversary party last Saturday.

Tom retired as the manager of recreation at California State Parks in Sacramento a few years ago. His position as California policy analyst for IMBA was originally underwritten by Specialized in early 2006.

He is working on policy issues which impact mountain bikers in all of California including Wilderness designation boundaries which will maintain existing and future mtb trail networks, lowering the red tape for trail projects, lobbying State Parks for more trail access and building coalitions with equestrian groups. He has a lot of connections in Sacramento and he's a guy who can get the meetings with decision makers and push the mountain biking agenda. He is great at articulating the mountain bikers point of view and he has an Teflon coated bull s**t detector. He is the best thing to happen to mountain biking in California since the Marin County Repack races in the 70's.

During the announcements, MBOSC issued a donation of $3,000 to support Tom's efforts in Sacramento. The future of MBOSC and other clubs will leverage the great work done by IMBA California. We recognize the importance of Tom Ward and IMBA to create more riding opportunities for mountain biking which will benefit all riders in California. We support IMBA California and so should you.

MBOSC's 10th Anniversary Party at Seabright Brewery

MBOSC celebrated it's 10th anniversary at Seabright Brewery last Saturday. It was an excellent celebration on the patio with great weather, great friends, the old Santa Cruz advocates, the IMBA Trail Care Crew and some equestrians, special guests from the trail building community and Tom Ward from IMBA California.

Everyone had a good time. Charlie Meehan - the owner of Seabright - was on the BBQ grill and offering free BBQ appetizers. He also gave party attendees $5 pitchers of fine beer which was brewed on the premises. The Oatmeal Stout was fresh this week and was a huge hit. The Double Wide Ale was tasty and packed a punch of 8.5% alcohol. I stayed away from the Double Wide. I wanted my speech to be coherent.

It was great to see so many people passionate about advocacy and beer. Charlie made the comment later that this group provided a lot of interesting conversation and were very appreciative and polite to him and his staff.

I gave a speech which recognized the early founders of MBOSC which included Keith Kelsen, Geoff Smith, David Baskin, Doug Landaur, Don Carol, Mark Woodhead, Dawn Weathersbee and Caroline Murphy. Local trail building legends Bud and Emma McCreary graced us with their presence. Bud and Emma are responsible for most of the best legal single track trails in many of the area parks including Wilder Ranch and the U-con trail. We publicly thanked them for their work over the past few decades in building the trails that we all enjoy.

I discussed the future of the club and asked for communityy support to achieve big projects like Coast Dairies. The importance of the work of Tom Ward and IMBA California was emphasized and we gave him a $3,000 check from MBOSC to support his efforts. Finally, I thanked the existing pool of volunteers who help with current events and initiatives in MBOSC.

The party lasted for a while. Lots of beer was drank and many good conversations were had. We went back to our house for the after party where waves of mountain bikers arrived to hang out around the fire pit, drink more beer and talk about the direction and organization of the club.

More pictures from the party here.

We would like to thank Charlie Meehan and his staff at Seabright Brewery for hosting our party. Charlie is an awesome supporter of mountain biking in Santa Cruz and we support him too. Thank you for an awesome venue to hang out, the appetizers and the great beer. Beer is the fuel of mountain bike advocacy.

The future of mbosc is looking pretty good. Stay tuned for the 20th anniversary party...

Saturday Group Ride with the IMBA Club Care Crew

Kristin from the IMBA Trail/Club Care Crew joined us on the MBOSC Saturday Club Ride at Wilder Ranch. There were about 20-25 attendees including a great representation of first time attendees and many women cyclists.

It was a great day for a ride. Conditions were perfect. There were a few guys on the ride who have never ridden at Wilder before. I rode with my daughter on the trail-a-bike.

The whole group rode together to the vista at the top of Zane Gray cutoff and then we split into a few groups. A bunch headed up to upper campus, most of the women riders did a few loops within Wilder and Jade and I cut out early to play at the Ranch. I heard that others joined the group but met up from different entrances to the park.

Many of the attendees also came out to party with us at Seabright later. Another fine day in mountain biker paradise.

South Park: More fun than a 5 assed monkey

Do you like dirt jumps, pump tracks, downhill, built stunts and gravity riding? Are you fed up with land managers plowing your favorite jumps and destroying your ladder bridges? Do you want to have a place you can hold races and events in Santa Cruz County?

We have an opportunity for creating a mountain bike park in south Santa Cruz county on 2,500 acres of private land south of the city of Watsonville. It would be great to have this place developed as an IMBA ride center. California needs a ride center and it would be great if it were located in Santa Cruz County near the bike industry and within a short driving distance of 10's of thousands of mountain bike enthusiasts.

This piece of land has the potential for XC, cyclo-cross, dirt jump, DH and DS type riding experiences. We could also have product demos, video and photo shoots, events and races. There could be partnerships between local riders, bike shops, event promoters, the economic development agency of Watsonville and local bike companies. It could be our little mountain bike playground where we can dictate the terms of use we won't have to share our trails with motos, hikers or equestrians.

Will there be events at South Park? How about construction? Rentals? Will there be permits or pay by day entry? Who knows? It's really up to us to built it and figure out how it could work.

Next Thursday we will have stakeholders including IMBA reps, local bike industry, local bike shops, racers, race supporters and active members of the community together in the same room . If the community feels that this is a worthwhile project to pursue then we should do this. It will be a lot of work to develop South Park but it would be a valuable asset to the mountain bike community.

I want to emphasize that it is really up to us to make it happen. No one is going to build a mountain bike park in Santa Cruz County except for the mountain bike community. We have all the resources in this community to get it done: money, expertise and volunteer labor - but we need the initiative. I'll definitely volunteer my money, time and expertise to help make this happen.

Come out to the IMBA Presentation and workshop at Bell Sports/Giro next Thursday Oct 18th from 7 pm - 9:30 pm to learn more about "South Park".

Lets make this happen!

3rd Annual Santa Cruz "Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day" was a big success!

The third annual Santa Cruz Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day was held at DeLaveaga Park this year and it was a great success. The kids had a lot of fun.

After registration and bike and helmet check, the kids went on the skills course to learn braking, bike control and balance. We would observe the kids on the challenging terrain and adjust their bikes to fit them better for off road riding. After a safety talk and a group picture, the kids split into two groups and rode the trails at DeLaveaga.

The kids got a real redwood forest single track mountain biking adventure. The little kids rode the fireroad uphill to the quarry, played and then did a gentle fireroad downhill back to the picnic area. The bigger kids did the more challenging lower loop trail. After getting familiar with the trail on the first lap, they did another loop with more confidence and control. After the ride, the kids and parents came back to the picnic area for snacks, drinks and schwag.

MBOSC would like to thank the Elayna at Fox Racing Shox and Mike and Juli at Santa Cruz Bikes for donating hats, T-shirts and stickers. Saskia at BikeSmart for letting us use the cones/pylons. Piet and Bonnie at Bike2Work for donating orange juice, bagels and strawberries. Also, we would like to thank IMBA for promoting this event nationally and ClifBar for the energy bars.

We would also like to thank our volunteers for helping to build the skills course, leading the rides and encouraging the kids: Rich, Dan,Daryl, Sebastien, Becky and Matt. I would really like to give a special thanks to my wife Eve who picked up so many pieces and details and ensured that all the mundane stuff like waivers, insurance, first aid and other logistical minutiae were properly dealt with.

Finally, I would like to thank the parents and the kids for showing up at our little event. I'm very pleased that you brought your kids to experience real mountain biking. Mountain biking brings kids into nature and challenges them physically and mentally - which builds self confidence in their abilities. It offers them a really fun outdoor adventure while giving them an effective workout. We believe that mountain biking is good for the mind, body and soul and it was nice to share with your kids this very positive activity that we all love to do.

Pictures of the event can be seen here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mark.davidson.sc/TakeAKidMtbDay2007

IMBA Club (Trail) Care Crew will be coming to Santa Cruz Oct 18-21

The IMBA Trail Care Crew will be coming to Santa Cruz on the weekend of Oct 18-21st, 2007.

The IMBA Trail Care Crews are sponsored by Subaru and travel year-round throughout North America and beyond.

Kristin Butcher and Ryan Schutz will be the crew who will be visiting us and they will be working with MBOSC and the community to help build the club and improve mountain biking opportunities.

We have a few events that week:

IMBA TCC Presentation and workshop
Thursday Oct 18th 7:00 - 9:30 pm
Bell Sports/ Giro 380 Encinal Street, Santa Cruz

The IMBA Trail Care Crew will give a presentation and workshop and share techniques that will grow the mountain bike community. Refreshments will be served.

Group Ride for all skill levels
Saturday Oct 20th 10 am
Wilder Ranch State Park

Come out and ride some some of the trails in the local parks.

MBOSC 10th Anniversary Party
Saturday Oct 20th 4:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Seabright Brewery, Santa Cruz

Come and celebrate the 10th anniversary of MBOSC with a BBQ and some great Seabright Beers.

IMBA CCC Visit Flier

It should be a great week to hang out with the mountain biking community and create some common goals. How about a venue for 24 hour racing, high school racing and cyclocross within a 20 minute ride from westside Santa Cruz? We can make it happen.

Elevated Trails for Kids

I spent some time on Sunday helping out the Monterey Off Road Cycling Association (MORCA) folks. I saw a bunch of pictures of the skills course that they built for their spring kids day and I was really impressed with the quality of the stunts. It would great to provide a similar experience for our local kids so I decided to drive down the coast to help with the construction and learn how to build these platforms.

Ken is a master builder of elevated trails. He built a little elevated riding area in his backyard which formed the basic design of the MORCA platforms. He gathered scrap wood in the area- which included palettes - and we tore them apart to salvage the good pieces. He used new 2x4s for the framing and cut lengths of 12" and 16" for ladders and spaced them apart. It helps that he has a pneumatic stapler and nail gun to put them together quite quickly.

These kids are going to have a blast riding this stuff. MORCA's "Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day" Monterey will be at Toro Park this year. Check out this page for details: http://www.morcamtb.org/content.php?id=34

The Santa Cruz skills course will not be as ambitious as MORCA's. The focus of our skills course is to prepare the kids to ride the single track trails of DeLaveaga. We just want them to practice their braking, challenge their ability to ride over rough terrain including bumps, rocks and roots and to navigate through narrow single track. We also want to include aspects of trail etiquette so that the kids know to "go slow, say hello" when encountering other trail users.

Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day will be on Saturday October 6th. The events in the Monterey Bay area will be held:

• Santa Cruz: DeLaveaga Park, hosted by MBOSC
• Monterey: Toro Park, hosted by MORCA

Come out and bring a kid. Better yet, come out and volunteer and show a kid how fun and cool mountain biking can be!

Take a Kid to DeLaveaga Oct 6th

My family and I went to Delaveaga Park today to do a test run for the young kids ride as part of Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day. We wanted to put kids under 7, trail-a-bikes, trailers and child seat riders on an out-and-back along the fireroad. We were concerned that it may be too much climbing for kids on training wheels and recent 2 wheeler riders.

Jade, our five year old, just learned to ride on 2 wheels earlier this summer so she's a great test pilot. We helped her with some of the climbing but the ride back was a fairly gentle grade and she could ride it herself. In fact she had a blast riding back down! I shot some video of her ride and it turned out so well that I decided to cut it into a promotional video.



Jade is no ordinary 5 year old. She kicks ass! She got riding tips from Chris Duncan and her parents - who are excellent mountain bikers - have been riding with her and taking her to bike events all her life. I'm really proud of the fact that she picked up mountain biking so quickly. She understands how to pedal, shift gears, pick lines and how to go over rough terrain. She has been mountain biking since she was a year old so she has probably absorbed a lot over the years. Yes, I'm a proud parent.

Jade really enjoyed the ride so we decided that this would be the right ride for the young kids. The route will be along the fireroad from the Lone Tree picnic area to the dirt jump quarry and back. The bigger kids will do the lower loop single track trails. Perhaps in the afternoon, we'll take the more advanced kids and mountain biking parents to "Top of the World". DeLaveaga is a small park but there are a lot of fun trails in there. All of the trails are redwood forested technical single track. All of them are open to bikes.

Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day is Saturday Oct 6 this year. TAKMTBD is a national event and there will be events all over the world. MBOSC will be hosting Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day at Delaveaga Park, Santa Cruz. There are numerous ride options at DeLaveaga and we'll have a skills course. We will have snacks and drinks and a free raffle for the kids. Santa Cruz Bikes have been very generous and donated some soft goods for the kids (Thanks Mike and Juli!).

Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day will be Oct 6th @ DeLaveaga

Come join Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz for a fun day at DeLaveaga park on Saturday Oct 6th. Take this opportunity to introduce a kid to the great sport of mountain biking and the forested trails in DeLaveaga park. Participants will also learn about bike safety, trail etiquette and bike handling skills.

There will be snacks and drinks after the ride and many items given away after the ride. There will also be a skills course where kids can work on their balance and bike handling skills. So come out and make a day of it!

See this page for more details.

This will be the third year that MBOSC has hosted this event. These events are a great way to get kids excited about mountain biking. The first time we did this event it exceeded my expectations. The kids really loved it. You can read about the 2005 event and the 2006 event.

The previous Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day events were held at Wilder Ranch. We wanted to move the venue to DeLaveaga park in central Santa Cruz because it's a family friendly venue and we wanted the kids to experience the joy of riding in redwood forested single track. Wilder Ranch is a great place to ride but it is too far for little legs to pedal to get to the forests.

I'm looking for volunteers to help out. Please contact me if you're interested.

2008 IMBA World Summit will be in Park City

Park City, Utah will be the location of the next world summit. This sounds like a great place to ride and host a summit.

When I was at the National Bike Summit in Washington, DC I saw a great presentation by the Park City Mountain Trails Foundation about the economic benefits of a trail system. The presentation was inspiring and showed how a community could come together around a common goal of building and promoting trails to bring in tourists during the off-ski season. The organization seemed to have built a broad coalition of stake holders - not just mountain bikers and shops - to help realize the goal. Since then I have been very intrigued and want to visit Park City to experience these trails and talk to these folks. I would love to see that type of a trails culture in Santa Cruz county.

Getting back to the IMBA summit, it sounds like the agenda will be awesome:

The 2008 IMBA Summit will be open to the public, and will feature advocacy seminars, trailbuilding workshops, networking, great food, parties, celebrity guest speakers and some big surprises. Topics will include the economic power of trails, sustainable trailbuilding, liability and risk management, urban trail networks, building club capacity and much more.

Trips for Kids will have a chapter meeting at the summit with the goal of inspiring IMBA clubs to create youth mountain bike programs. There will also be an epic ride at the end of the summit.

The 2008 IMBA World Summit sounds like it will be a great event. I'm already looking forward to it.