Fall 2008 Workday Schedule Posted

Bryan posted this on StlBiking:

The following is GORC's upcoming workdays for this fall. We would appreciate your help at a workday or two. If you ride a mountain bike, you've probably ridden at one of these parks. So, come on out and help make them better. Go to GORC to find out the details. The calendar on the home page lists more specifics and go HERE to find out what to expect at a workday. Keep an eye on GORC's forum for details as the workdays draw closer.

Some tidbits...
Klondike is getting a new boardwalk over the sandpit leading to Powerline. This will be 80-100 feet long with some skinny off shoots. Construction of the Ewok village on Donkey Kong will begin next spring. We're always looking for people with freeriding experience to come give us a hand at Klondike. We want to do more there and the park is making baby steps, but most of us are XC geeks, so we need some expertise.

SIUE has added an extension to Trail 2. We'll be working on finishing up a small lollypop near there.

Greensfelder will see continued work on the Declue Extension that links up to the Scenic Loop. We've seen what a wet season can do to a new trail and have plans to nurture this trail along. Mainly, I think everyone has seen how good the Dogwood trail can be when more people go out and ride it. The Declue trail can benefit in the same way.

Creve Coeur Park has 1 mile of new trail. We plan on tripling that this fall with your help. This park could have up to 6 miles of trail when we're done. Go check out it out, very fun.

That's just some of what's going on. So, you can see we could use your help. Pick your favorite trail and give us 4 hours of your time. It will be well worth it. Also, GORC's forum now has a Trail Reports & Conditions section for most of the local trails. Go check it out if you want to know what the latest conditions are or post up the condition if you have been there recently. You can also use this forum to list any trees down so that it gets back to the Land Manager.

Ride Report- Brown County State Park

You may have heard some of the hype for the trails at Brown County State Park in Nashville, Indiana. Well, I'm here to tell you it's all true. Last month a few of us made the trip up there and spent the weekend riding. Currently, there are about 15 miles of trail. Due to their layout as a combination of loops and bi-directional trails, you can end up doing a ride of 23 miles with minimal riding of sections in both directions. Fortunately, these sections turn out to be some of the best parts!

BCSP is an interesting study in that the Hoosier Mountain Bike Association built them using a hybrid method with both paid and volunteer labor. A lot of the trails appear to have been cut with a machine, and the hardest bits, including some major benchcutting and rockwork-- of which there was a lot of, were done by hand.

If you've never been to this part of Indiana, you might be surprised by the terrain. While not having anything really high, it was in many ways similar to Matson Hill. In fact, we got some ideas that we hope can be incorporated into the new trails that will be built at Matson in the coming years.

Probably the most interesting things for me were the way the designers made use of the constantly undulating terrain, and how they used rock work to armor areas that were potential spots for sustainability problems, which at the same time also enhanced the fun factor of the trail. There were several curves through drainages that were armored with flat rocks tilted at angles which created berms that allowed a rider to just rail through it with minimal, if any braking. Several bermed climbing turns were so well done you hardly slowed down for climbing, and barely needed your brakes going down them.

Another highlight was the 2.1 mile climb up to Hesitation Point. Spreading around 300' of elevation gain over this distance made for a really enjoyable climb, in which you never really were at a flat spot, but constantly going up the whole time, but at such a grade that it almost never violated IMBA guidelines. There were several rock gardens on this climb, and they added some major fun to it, as well. It was even better going down!

The newest stuff there is more technical, and consists of fast, curvy trail interspersed with a lot of technical parts. They've constructed a lot of ramps and jumps out of rock along alternate lines on the main trail, so you've got your choice of what you can ride. The last mile or so of current trail is just fantastic. You just roll along a ridgeline, hardly having to pedal, swooping through drainages, hitting as many jumps as you can, until you reach the campground. It's enough to keep a smile on your face the whole day.

There's more construction going on, including a beginner loop near the North Trailhead, and an expert loop near the Southern one, so there's plenty of trail for everyone to ride. I would have included more pictures, but I hardly took any on this trip. I just didn't want to take the time to stop for any! Paraphrasing something Bob Crow said while we were there: "If you don't have fun on these trails, you probably ought to give up mountain biking."