2009- The Year in Review

Rip flipping burgers (not with the shovel)

Edwards Creek Trail- Greenville, MI

Taking a break on Georgia Pass- Colorado Trail

Ozark Trail- Trace Creek Section (before)

Thanks to all of those who volunteered, 2009 was another busy, and successful year. Of course, the biggest highlight is the nearly 8.5 miles of trail that GORC built, or helped design. All told, GORC contributed more than 5,200 hrs of labor to the various parks in the area. This total doesn't include an additional 900 hours that were devoted to administrative duties, marketing, meetings and the website. Sadly, we also suffered a big loss with the untimely, and unexpected passing of our friend John Roth, founder of the OTA.

Here's a rundown of events from the year:
Bangert Island: 192 hours, including one workday. Added another 1.5 miles of trail. A lot of other work was put in by St. Charles County Parks with several reroutes, and cleaning up after the island flooded several times.
Broemmelsiek: 203 hours. A short connector trail was completed to provide better flow at the rear of the park.  Several reroutes were also added to eliminate water issues.
Castlewood: 112 hours. A workday on National Trails Day in June did maintenance in the park.
Chubb: 166 hours, including 2 workdays. Maintenance along the river to provide a reroute around a washed out culvert. Began construction of a an alternate route around a fall-line section west of the picnic table.
Cliff Cave: 84 hours. First steps are being taken in getting the trails back into shape. Watch for workdays in the future.
Creve Coeur: 778 hours, including 3 workdays on Bootlegger's Run trail. This trail just opened last year, and there are already 3 miles of new singletrack,
right in the heart of the STL metro area. Lots more to come, including some interesting terrain near the bluffs.
Greensfelder: 929 hours, including 4 workdays. Mostly spent on completing the reroute of the DeClue extension, which is nearly finished save for completion of
2 switchbacks. GORC also designed a section of singletrack which completes the Eagle Valley loop behind the Visitor Center, and led crews on 3 other workdays organized by St. Louis County parks.  Maintenance crews fixed several problem areas by armoring and rerouting the trail.
Indian Camp Creek: 497 hours, including 5 workdays devoted to continuation of new section of trail and reroutes of problem sections that were flooded or washed away.
Klondike: 170 hours, including 2 workdays. Completed Riptide, the last of the wooden structures at the park.
Lost Valley: 864 hours, including 4 workdays, and one additional workday. 2.75 miles of new singletrack replacing the collapsed bridge and bypassing an often muddy meadow area and some old doubletrack.
Matson Hill: 585 hours, including 3 workdays. Some reroutes to prepare the trail for heading back to the newest section of the park which will result in perhaps an additional 10 miles of singletrack! ~1.5 miles of new trail also built in that direction.
North Trace/Council Bluff: 408 hours over 4 outings. 2 were clearing the trail of deadfall, one after the incredible storms in May which closed nearly 80 miles of trail, some of which are still not open. Another was a reroute of a section in which the trail actually ran in a creek bed, and had been an irritant for years. Also cleared the trail in preparation for the  Burning at the Bluff.
Quail Ridge: 94 hours. 1/8th mile trail section added below the dam with assistance from SCCP maintenance crew to move trail away from eroding creek edge. Several small reroutes to eliminate water issues.
SIUE: 130 hours of maintenance and bike patrol.

Midwest Mountain Bike Summit: this year it was in Grand Rapids, MI, and several GORC members made the trip to sample a different kind of riding experience than we have at home. Mike Dunston also led an armoring workshop which constructed a drop on the downhill course at a point where it crossed an XC trail.
Breckenridge Trip: The annual GORC trip headed west to Breckenridge, CO for some spectacular riding and great beer.
Bike Patrol: GORC's chapter of IMBA's National Mountain Bike Patrol provided support at a Take a Kid Mountain Biking day, the Burning at the Bluff race at Council Bluff Lake, and the Lost Valley Luau. This was all in addition to regular riding on many of the local trails to help trail users with any problems they might have, either mechanical or medical. Also led a series of guided rides in several St. Charles County Parks oriented for newer riders, and provided support for the Moonlight Ride series on various full moon nights, in parks which ordinarily don't allow riding at night.
Berryman Epic Race/Ride: some members participated in this 55 mile off-road epic through the Mark Twain National Forest.
Halloween Spooktacular/Volunteer Appreciation Party: provided food and
refreshments for these social events as a way of showing our appreciation for all of the help provided by volunteers throughout the year.

As always, we have big plans for area trails, and are always in need of help to implement them, so if you like what you see on your local trails, or even if you don't like it; GET INVOLVED! The trails that get built are the ones that reflect the interest of people who care enough to take the time to work on them. Please try to make it to a workday or two in 2010. See you on the trails!

Matson Hill Workday- Sat. Dec. 19th

Craig at the new DeClue creek crossing completed at the Dec. 12th Greensfelder workday

When: Saturday, December 19th, 2009. From 9:00am-1:00pm.

What: We're having the last workday of the year at Matson Hill Park, and everyone is invited. 
This is the continuation of a multi-year project, and we hope to TRIPLE OR QUADRUPLE the current trail mileage at Matson by the time we’re finished.

Directions: Please note that we are not parking at the main Matson Trailhead/parking lot.
From the Highway 40/94 interchange:
• Take Highway 94 South for 7.4 miles to F (turn right on F).
• Stay on F for 3 miles, then turn left on Stub Road. Follow Stub Road for ~.5 miles to gate, and follow directions from there. 
• You can also click this for a Google map link. Clicking the green bike will give you the “get directions” link. 

What to bring: Gloves, Sturdy shoes, eye protection, and something to drink on the trail. It’s also a good idea to read through the article “What to expect at a workday”.

Why: To add more multi-use single track (natural surface) trail to the existing Matson loop. This is Phase One of a multi phase project, eventually utilizing 400+ acres of new Park property.

Please RSVP via ONE of the following (to make sure we bring enough food):

• The St. Charles County Park's (SCCP) office [636-949-7535],
• through the WebTrac registration system on the parks website, http://parks.sccmo.org/parks/
• or on this thread.
  

GORC & St. Charles County Parks will provide: Trail building tools, instructions on trail building, safety guidelines, and lunch (menu still TBD, but rumored to be Bekin’s chicken chili).

Greensfelder Workday and Volunteer Appreciation Party

Saturday, December 12th from 9am-1pm we'll be working on rerouting the section around the creek crossing below the rock garden. This is a fall-line section that's unable to be maintained. After this, there will be only a few other sections on both DeClue and Dogwood which are fall-line, and should help extend the time that Greensfelder is rideable throughout the year. We're also going to be doing a short reroute on the DeClue extension, and if we have enough people, there are a lot of other little projects we can work on.

Afterwards, there will be a party with refreshments for GORC volunteers to thank them for the hard work they've put in over the year to build new trails, and make the ones we have better. More info and sign-up are here.

November/December Happenings

A little slow reporting things lately. Some items of note:

The Nov. 14th workday at Creve Coeur Park saw the completion of the latest segment of the Bootlegger's Run trail. There's now nearly 3 miles of singletrack there with more to come! The map has been updated to show all of the trail in the upper section of the park.

Mike Dunston, Craig and the St. Charles County crew have been busy continuing work on an extension at Indian Camp Creek, new trail at Matson, and some short reroutes at Bangert Island.

Wednesday, December 2nd at 7pm will have the regular monthly meeting at the Tap Room.

Friday, December 4th at 7pm is the last of St. Charles County Parks Moonlight Ride series for the year. This one is at Bangert Island. Meet at the Lewis & Clark Boathouse near Frontier Park, ride, and then have some post-ride refreshments at the Trailhead Brewery. More details are here.

Saturday,December 5th at 9am there will be the last workday of the season for Lost Valley. With a good turnout, we will be able to complete a new 1.5 mile section of singletrack that will replace the muddy stretch through the meadow along the fenceline. It wasn't too long ago that Lost Valley had almost no singletrack at all, and with the latest addition, it should put it up close to 5 miles, with the total length of the loop at around 11.5 miles. Please come out and help if you can. As usual, there will be food provided, and the weather looks good for a ride afterward. More info and sign-up is here.

Saturday, December 12th at 9am will be the start of a Greensfelder workday, followed by the GORC Volunteer Appreciation Party. We will be constructing a reroute around the fall-line section of the DeClue trail below the rock garden. We can use all of the help we can get here, since there's a lot of maintenance that can be done, as well as tweaking some sections of the DeClue extension. More details on the party as they become available.

Creve Coeur Workday- Saturday, Nov. 14th

Creve Coeur Lake Memorial Park, Bootlegger’s Run Trail Extension

Help continue construction that will extend the Bootlegger’s Run Trail along the bluffs at the North end of the park and add about a mile of new trail.

When: Saturday, November 14th from 9am - 1pm (FREE LUNCH!) - Bike or Hike After !

Where: Upper Creve Coeur Lake Park (Entrance off Dorsett Rd - Follow Signs to the meeting area at the North end of the park)
(Sign up here and get more info and directions to the park.)

What to bring: Gloves, Sturdy shoes, eye protection, and something to drink on the trail.

GORC & St. Louis County Parks provide: Trail building tools, instructions on trail building, and safety guidelines.

Please contact Sue Kuhnert at 314-615-8822 or email skuhnert@stlouisco.com if you plan to attend.

Volunteers will be rewarded with give-a-ways and Lunch from Big Shark Bicycle Company

Day 1 - Images From Breckenridge

by Matt - only images from Matt's camera, hopefully some photos from the other GORC crew soon.

GORC has converged in Breckenridge, Colorado for some much needed R&R - which can only be achieved through mountainous climbs and starry-eyed vision quests. Here's the start of our (hopefully) daily report.

Overlooking downtown Breckenridge, Colorado

Lisa and I rode the Baker's Tank Loop yesterday (Thursday), it was a blast!

Baker's Tank on Boreas Pass - this former railroad grade featured a stop for trains to gather more water for steam. This is at the start of the Baker's Loop singletrack section.

This little guy lives near the tank

Lisa on Boreas Pass

Rode the single on Baker's Loop and had fun - only one short, steep singletrack climb. Got the Salsa for the longer rides - and backup.

Flowin' at Brown County State Park

by Matt Hayes

July 18-19, 2009

Twelve of the GORC crew headed east for a weekend of riding the fast, flowy trails of Brown County State Park near Nashville, Indiana. Tom, Mari, Scott, Marvin, John, Bryan, Steph, Rob, Matt, Lisa, Josh and Valerie represented St. Louis in fine fashion and had quite the time jumping trail rollers, getting sideways on the many berms and balancing over some bridge skinnies. It's safe to say that Brown County is one of the top midwestern biking destinations.

Starting the descent from Hesitation Point

This is Brown County State Park

In four hours you can be out of St. Louis and in Brown County State Park riding hardpack dirt trails with rock obstacles sprinkled throughout the forest. The climbs are single speed friendly and the views are open and spectacular.

With over 21 miles of trails built by mountain bikers for mountain bikers, it's hard to find anything to dislike about the trail system. Two rollercoaster-esqe loops and an incredible out-n-back ridge runner are the most popular but if you look hard you can drop in on the expert-level "Schooner." Serious exposure, technical rock and log croppings force you to get off or get good real quick.

Riding around the drain, it's cool to see where you've been and where you're headed

A piece of Schooner - the expert-level trail - switchback to rock cascade

Unbeknownst to us we randomly came across Nate and Aaron from Grand Rapids, Michigan buzzing around the park. They rode with us throughout the weekend and we reminisced about their great trails we had the opportunity to ride when they hosted the Midwest Mountain Bike Summit this past May.

I'll keep the recap to a minimum and let the photos speak for themselves. The still images don't do the trails justice but our man Bryan had his new HD wide angle all-in-one helmet video camera capturing the moments and should be available for viewing in the near future.

Finally, may I suggest that you rally the Indiana kids to host a Midwest Mountain Bike Summit in the coming years. It could be legendary.

Rock drop with alternate line available - on the way down (or up) from Hesitation Point

Enjoying the grade-reversals

Armoured and rock-solid

Quick Notes:
The 16,000+ acre park is a popular destination for locals and out-of-state visitors. They have a lodge and a large camping area but be sure to reserve weeks ahead of time as they are frequently booked up.

There is a $7.00 entrance fee per day for out-of-state vehicles.

Over 21 miles of mountain bike trails.

There are dedicated equestrian-only trails. You won't find horses on the mountain bike trails. Trail runners and hikers have the right-of-way, however.

The trails can be busy on the weekends so keep a lookout for families and hikers coming your way.

If you like single speeding, bring the bike. The trails are not steep, and while there are some large rocks to ride up and over, you won't encounter loose gravel or super-technical roots.

Make sure you ride up to Hesitation Point - the park's main lookout. The ride up to the lookout is about 3.5 miles long and climbs 400 feet. The downhill is amazing.

Some of the original loops were hand-built but the newer stuff, such as the trail running along the ridge, is machine-built. A small trail dozer roughs the trail in and volunteers clean up and finalize the look and feel of the singletrack. This method speeds up the building process by putting the back-breaking deep benchcutting used at Brown County into the hands of the trail dozer operator.

Marvin rounding the bend

29ers dominated the ranks