Recreational Biking in Pogonip

Once upon a time people had fun on bicycles in Pogonip. And it was good. Bikes weren't exclusively for transportation. These bikes were used for pure whimsical recreation. In Pogonip. And it was good. And people had fun. In Pogonip.

The image of bike polo was scanned from "Pogonip: Jewel of Santa Cruz" 2007 Joan Gilbert Martin & Colleen McInerney-Meager. ISBN 978-1-890625-08-5

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.

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...

David Vincent, California State Parks

David Vincent has been the District Superintendent of Santa Cruz area State Parks for the entire time that I have been living in Santa Cruz and involved in bike advocacy. Dave is retiring at the end of this month and it represents the end of his 32 year career at State Parks. I remember meeting David Vincent at a Coast Dairies public meeting back in 2003 and he seemed like a great listener. More recently, I have been meeting with him and talking to him on the phone about mountain bike access issues and he is always fair and reasonable in his dealings with user groups.

The old timers in MBOSC gave me a couple of nice anecdotes about Dave Vincent:

Dave was introduced to MBOSC on the first week of the job. Grey Whale was about to be opened and there was a problem with the fire road known as "Woodcutters". It needed repair otherwise it would not be approved as an "open trail" by the California Coastal Commission. Dave authorized Bob Culberson and MBOSC crew that Saturday to go in and fix all of the problems on Woodcutters before the approval the following week by the Coastal Commission. Thanks to Dave we got it opened!

Dave has always been a proponent of one trail-multi use. This concept has driven his support of continuing mulit-use trails in Wilder. He used to say: "There just is not enough land to support two trail systems". He has always appreciated the support that the mountain biking community has done over the years to develop and maintain the local trails.

This State Parks district has the most public land out of any land management agency in Santa Cruz county. There are a lot of people in Santa Cruz who are passionate about the environment. Dave had a pretty tough job as the District Superintendent and he was always in the cross hairs of mountain bikers, environmentalists and dog walkers. Everyone wanted something from State Parks and Dave was the one they went to. Dave had a tough job balancing the needs for recreational access and resource protection. He has to weigh all of these competing influences and do it with budgets which have been sliced to pieces in the past decade.

MBOSC would like to thank Dave for his many years of service to Santa Cruz County and managing our amazing public parks. We wish Dave Vincent the best of luck in his future endeavors. Thanks Dave for all your great work!

Bear Mountain Cycling Adventure at Roaring Camp

The Bear Mountain Cycling Adventure program is a new program which will be offered by Roaring Camp in 2008. It's a shining example of a great eco-tourism experience which combines learning about the local history of Roaring Camp and the biological species which inhabit the old growth forest. On top of that it's an enjoyable ride thought the woods.

My wife, child and I were on the inaugural intermediate program run to give feedback on the experience. I have been interested in this program since it combines a docent led outdoor educational experience with mountain biking - a challenging physical activity.

Paul Nakamoto - the Director of Business Development at Roaring Camp and a mountain biker - helped to develop the program. Our guide and docent was a Cabrillo College student Eric Lynberg. I was really impressed with Eric's knowledge of the forest. He grew up in the San Lorenzo Valley and learned about the forest and plants from his parents - who were passionate about nature and the outdoors. This job represents an amazing opportunity for him to combine his passion and knowledge of the forest with his love of mountain biking.

The adventure starts with a fire road climb to the top of Bear Mountain with stops along the way so that Eric could discuss some interesting historical and biological points of interest. This breaks up the climb so that you can savor and learn about the forest - and take a breather if you aren't physically up for the climb.

The Roaring Camp property was spared the logging that took place in the Felton/Henry Cowell properties. Many of the old growth redwoods and douglas fir are still standing. Eric identified and pointed out interesting examples of redwood (with spurs which are characteristic of old growth), manzinita, madrone, ponderosa pine, coffee berry, douglas fir, tanoak and bay trees. He knows how the indigenous Ohlone Indians used the local plants for food, customs and medicine. He also discussed the local history of Roaring Camp railroad and Felton.

At the top, we would rendezvous with the tour train at Bear Mountain to hear the conductor discuss the cathedral grove fairy ring. After the train left, we headed for a thrilling and swoopy downhill single track run back to the Roaring Camp grounds. My daughter was laughing and enjoying the ride down from the back of a trail-a-bike. Weeeee!!

It was a great adventure and it was the first time that my wife and daughter had ridden in this part of the forest. Eric was impressed that I managed to clear all the logs and A-frames pulling a trail-a-bike. I've had a lot of practice.

The Roaring Camp folks really figured out how to do eco-tourism safely. Eric has first aid training and carried a kit and a radio. He was in steady communication with operations and understood the train schedule so that the ride doesn't interfere with the running of the trains. He carried a GPS device that contained a map with way points that showed his exact location. The way points were co-ordinated with emergency services so that response time would be very quick if an accident were to occur.

I have been looking for a program like this to promote as a great activity for middle and high schools. Not only could it satisfy criteria for outdoor education (they are working on expanding the program to satisfy educational curriculum) and it could instill a love of nature in students (Eric's enthusiasm is infectious) but it could also help to mitigate the effects of a sedentary lifestyle by providing a physically challenging mountain bike ride.

Roaring Camp offers several outdoor adventure programs including the Bear Mountain Cycling Adventure. Pricing is reasonable at $25 (if you have your own bike) for a great interpretive ride through the amazing biodiversity of the old growth forest. The downhill run is pretty cool as well. A great value for sure.

Consider checking out the Roaring Camp Outdoor Adventure program if you come to the Santa Cruz area and are looking for an interpretive experience combined with a guided ride though awesome forested single track. You'll love it!

Laird Knight of Granny Gear Productions

One of the best things about being involved in bike advocacy has been the great people that I have met. I'll be writing a bit more about the people I have met over the past couple of years as a result of my advocacy efforts.

Laird Knight is the pioneer of the 24 hour racing format and the man behind the Granny Gear Productions. He is a gentleman and has been honored by his peers by being inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame.

I met Laird in Washington, DC during the Bike Summit earlier this year. I was really interested in his talk about the economic impact of his 24 hour event on a local community and how these races provide memorable lifetime experiences for the participants. During an evening walk to a DC restaurant for Tapas and beer, I talked to him about bringing a 24 hour race to Santa Cruz and discussed the possibility of using the Coast Dairies property as a future venue. Laird was interested in this proposition and we have kept up correspondence.

He flew out in August and stayed with us for a few days for a BLM meeting and a peek at the Coast Dairies property. He was a great asset in the BLM meeting since he has a long term relationship with the BLM near Moab. He is a articulate advocate of mountain biking on public lands and he made a great impression with the Field Manager.

He has the curious mind of an engineer/scientist despite the fact that he has no formal education as an engineer. He is interested in science and keeps tabs on technology and knows how to leverage technology to improve the race experience. Laird is the inventor of the 24 hour race format - which has been copied by many race promoters. However, he doesn't seem resentful about the fact that others have stolen his ideas. He seems amused and flattered. Having more promoters do the 24 hour race format increases the market (and racers) for 24 hour racing and that can only benefit all the promoters. The competition doesn't stop him from innovating. He continues to dream up new ways to improve the experience of Granny Gear races.

Laird is an amazing guy to know. I am really happy to have him as an ally partner and friend in advocacy.

Old Skool Off Roadies

I was looking for information on the Last Chance properties near Big Basin and I came across this gem of a website from Ray Hosler. There are quite a few pages which document these legendary "Jobst" rides from the early 1980's. A bunch of riders including Tom Richey would do epic all day fire and dirt road explorations in the Santa Cruz mountains with their road bikes.

Check out the slide show which documents 26 years of riding in the Santa Cruz mountains. It's neat to see some of the vistas and places that these guys took their road bikes. There are all sorts of neat nuggets of history if you poke around the site including the train tunnels in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

No helmets, CamelBaks or suspension. Definitely old school. These guys were the pioneers of the sport.

10th Anniversary of MBOSC

This year marks the 10th anniversary of MBOSC. In honor of the 10th anniversary, I would like to share this article by Keith Kelsen (the founder of MBOSC and the first President) on the beginning of MBOSC.

Enjoy!

MBOSC - ITS TIME HAS COME

KEITH KELSEN

The headline in the newspaper I was reading was bold and unexpected - "Gray Whale Ranch Bought by Save-the-Redwoods League". Right away I thought, "Wow,this is great!"

Gray Whale Ranch is adjacent to Wilder Ranch State Park. A riding haven on the west coast near Santa Cruz, it had been a favorite of mine to ride for years before it was purchased and trespassing laws enforced five years earlier. But now Save-the-Redwoods League had just purchased the 2,500 acre property with coastal vistas, redwoods, long meadows and chaparral for some 12 million dollars. Save-the-Redwoods League, a nonprofit, has been purchasing land for state parks since it's inception in 1920's. In exchange, they were asking the community to repay $600,000 of the purchase price.

The article also stated that the open space alliance was involved in putting on an auction to help raise some funds. Well, I called some of my riding compadres and told them I would put in $100 if they would put up the same. In no time we had a $1,000, so I raised the anti to $200. So we had $2,000. Not bad, but hey, we could do better than that.

I called the local paper and told them that local mountain bikers... uh... Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz... were pitching in to raise money for the purchase of Gray Whale. They printed the article and a couple of weeks later we had raised close to $7,000.00 and Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz was born.

To raise a portion of the $600K we decided to hold a raffle - the "WIN A BIKE and a Place To Ride Raffle". Our goal was to have our name on a grove ($20K) and more if possible.

We went to manufactures and local bike shops. They were very supportive and gave us over $23,000.00 (retail) worth of donations, including 9 bikes (3 full suspension). And I would like thank them all for the incredible response.

We received media support through co-sponsors for print, TV and radio. We produced commercials for both TV and radio and created ads for print. Along with the commercials we produced a 9 minute documentary on Gray Whale which aired on the local cable channel.

We selected two dates to hold the raffle and distributed tickets to bike shops, who agreed to sell the raffle tickets. The idea was to advertise and bring people into their shops to buy tickets. I was told it was an impossible task. But we kept up on the media and articles in the paper and Gray Whale became a visible movement in the community.

We were also very fortunate to link up with ROMP in the Bay Area to get their help with ticket sales. Also, ROMP donated $1,350 on behalf of its members. IMBA was a great help as well. They published an article in DIRT and IMBA members mailed in their money for the raffle tickets and support. One IMBA member, Tom Shepard, won 5 out of 20 times including a front suspension VOODOO.

For each raffle we opened up Gray Whale just for the day for biking, hiking, and horseback riding. Over 400 mountain bikers showed up for the first raffle and 200 for the second. We finished with $20,000 from the raffle. The total we raised with donations from riders and a Giro donation of $5,000 was $31,000. Not bad for a challenge between friends.

The side benefits to all this were incredible. We have a full-fledged club, we do trail work, a news letter (qtrly), group rides, brochures and actively present a positive image for mountain bikers in the community. We actively seek trail use in other parks. This organization is an idea who's time has come. The work is actually just beginning!

Old MBOSC newsletters are online

This year is the 10th anniversary of the founding of Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz so I have been going through the archives to get a sense of history.

I got a new scanner a couple of weeks ago and I have been scanning and cleaning up the old newsletters. I've put the online as pdf files here:

http://www.mbosc.org/about.html

We no longer produce a Quarterly newsletter (does anyone want to do this?) but it has been really enjoyable to look back at the archives and see some familiar names.

It's amazing how many of the issues that we were discussing back in '97 are like Gray Whale are still unresolved. 10 years later, there are probably many more mountain bikers in Santa Cruz but local mountain bike advocacy doesn't seem to reflect it.

The Gray Whale and Nisene Marks issues seemed to have soured the riding community from getting involved with advocacy. Many riders feel that we have a great collection of unauthorized trails and can't see why they should invest time and energy into expanding the legitimate trail network. The answer is that it could be much better. There is a lot of public and private land in Santa Cruz county that could be potential riding areas. Open up Google Earth and look at the area bounded by Big Basin, Empire Grade, the Coast and the Santa Cruz city limits. There are existing trails, road and other off road goodness that is utilized by locals only. This is our playground. With effort and persistence we can open this up to the global mountain biking community and create new economic opportunities for our residents.