2011- The Year in Review

Another busy year for GORC. With 19 official workdays, not to mention some impromptu ones, as well as a lot of unpublicized individual efforts, it's hard to keep track of everything. Here's a summary what went on this year, and I'll try to point out the plans for each of the trails in the coming year.

SIUE - 2 workdays. 0.3 miles of new trail.
1/15 - minor reroutes, and armoring of areas which were becoming troublesome to deal with. Announcement of the opening of additional area for building of new trails.
12/10 - first 0.3 miles of trail in the new area south of the Morris bikeway.
What's up for 2012: Continued expansion south of the bikeway and development of new area east of University Dr.

Greensfelder - 4 workdays. 1.25 miles of new trail.
2/26 - 0.5 miles of new trail on the Deer Run trail descending from Scenic Loop Rd. to Eagle Valley trail.
4/9 - Greensfelder- armoring of Deer Run trail in preparation for Greensfelder Challenge race. Armoring and maintenance on Eagle Valley trail behind Visitor Center.
9/24, Greensfelder - Worked on rerouting trail at the north end of the Green Rock just inside the park boundary that was encroaching on private property.
11/12 - completed reroute on Green Rock.
Greensfelder Challenge race was held in May as a fundraiser for GORC (Thanks DRJ and United in Dirt!).
What's up for 2012: completion of Deer Run descent from Scenic Loop to Eagle Valley. Work on new Beulah trail branching off from DeClue.

Matson Hill - 3 workdays. 1.1 miles of new trail.
3/12 - Matson Hill- construction of 0.6 miles of new singletrack branching off from the Oxen Mill trail, and opening a new section of the Hayes property addition.
4/23 - Matson Hill- canceled due to rain and mud.
10/15, Matson Hill - continued with work extending trail up the hillside.
10/29, Matson Hill - Up, up and away. Continuing up the hillside of the multi-switchback climb.
What's up for 2012: Continue heading southward towards Duke Rd. Matson will eventually have more than 10 miles of singletrack!

Indian Camp Creek - 2 workdays.
3/26 - reroutes, maintenance, and armoring projects.
6/4 - National Trails Day. Maintenance on the Ridge Trail.

Cliff Cave - 2 workdays, 0.8 miles of new trail.
5/21 - work on addition to Spring Valley trail which will complete an inner loop within the main SV trail.
10/22 - worked on completing inner loop of Spring Valley and rerouted some problem areas.
Tons of unofficial work put in by Kevin Ginther, Steve Ludwig and others. The official stats don't do justice to this.
What's up for 2012: Completion of Spring Valley inner loop.

Castlewood - 2 workdays.
6/4 - (moved from 5/14) - National Trails Day. Maintenance on main trails at the front of the park.
11/19 - reroute on Cedar Bluff trail, and maintenance.

Rock Hollow - 2 workdays.
9/17- worked on creek crossings which will show the contractor who wins the bid to complete the trail what level of work needs done.
12/3 - continued work on creek crossings.

Creve Coeur - 2 workdays, 1 mile of new trail.
11/5 - (GORC Appreciation Party) - 0.5 miles of new trail and Volunteer Appreciation Party complete with donation of Stone Beer from Major Brands! Thanks to all GORC volunteers.
12/17 - completed 0.5 miles of new loop trail giving it a total length of 1 mile. There is now 4.25 miles of singletrack at CCP!

Lost Valley - No official workdays, but the trails got a lot of much needed maintenance attention thanks to Greg Ott, Mitch Johnson and Larry Koester.
What's up for 2012: replacing doubletrack with singletrack, and lots of it!!!

In additon there were many events throughout the year that GORC members participated in: Ouachita Challenge, Syllamo's Revenge, trip to Taos, Brown County Breakdown, Berryman Trail Epic, Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day, and numerous mountain bike and cyclocross races.

Matt Buckley took over as head of the GORC chapter of the National Mtb Patrol. Look for them out on the trail, or at a race.

This year also has something different with a bike (donated by Ballwin Schwinn) being raffled off to those who participated in 2 workdays. The drawing is January 4th at the monthly meeting.

It was a great year, and we hope to continue to add new trail, and keep what we have in good condition. None of this could be done without your help, so please continue to volunteer whenever you can.
See you on the trails!

Winter Alt Riding: Gravel Grinders

Editors Note: This piece was written before Missouri decided to give us the best winter present ever so far - little precipitation and mild weather. But all good things must end and when they do this little piece will come in handy...

As you know, winter can be tough in the Midwest. Whereas, if you are currently living in Crested Butte you pretty much figure it out in about a week that you aren't going to be mountain biking as the snow gets deeper and deeper, here in the middle (North/South) middle (East/West) midwest the weather can play tricks on the outdoor-oriented adventurers. It can be wet and sunny or dry and cold but never dry and wet...

Well, that's not true either. With Missouri's typical freeze/thaw cycle there are days when you can ride the trails and days when they are best left alone. Sometimes you can't seem to figure it out... How can it be 40 degrees and the tread is firm at Greensfelder but at freezing temperature and slimy over at Broemmelsiek?

Since I don't have a degree in metro-astrology I'll pass on the explanation and simply give you a web link to a trail riding workaround that:

A - keeps you in shape and actively riding while at the same time;
B - sparing our treasured local singletrack from getting squished, mashed, and otherwise smeared up by rutting mountain bike tires getting their groove on.

These links offer a training tier that will lead your mind to gravel enlightenment:

gravelgrinder.blogspot.com/
a riding series which will prepare you for the
cedarcross.wordpress.com
which prepares your soul for the final gravel atonement while your dying corpse is in a ditch hiding from a tornado and your dehydrated brain is contemplating why you thought the
www.dirtykanza200.com/
was a good idea.......

 

Image courtesy cedarcross100 

I guess I should back up a moment and mention the gravel concept. A few years back some of the locals and rural-locals started putting together gravel road rides - hence the name gravel grinders. Many people use these rides to prepare for life-altering events like the DirtyKanza200, the Leadville Trail 100 or the inaugural CedarCross100 taking place just outside Jefferson City, Missouri. 

The bigger picture here is that you can make your own gravel grinder. No, the whole route doesn't have to be gravel. Yes, some gravel or dirt that's not a dedicated singletrack trail must be included or it's a /gasp/ road ride.

 

Image courtesy cedarcross100  

With online services such as mapmyride or everytrail you can pretty much zoom in on an area and layout a tentative gravel route - usually the roads show up super white in color. For instance, out where I live, I could ride some road to get out towards Gray Summit and hit up Grand Army road from Spring Valley road which are both gravel routes.

Out in St. Charles, you can grind gravel all day on the KATY or through Busch Wildlife, the Hamburg or parts of Lost Valley. I ask everyone to steer clear of true gravel 'trails' like the Hamburg or KATY if the conditions are mush - stick to the gravel roads because if a car can drive on them then you can't mess them up! Pretty sure it's physically impossible to wreck an 8 foot wide vehicular road with a non-motorized bike.

The best steed for this type of adventure is a cyclocross bike. If you don't own one but have a 29er, buy some narrow mtb or burly hybrid tires and you have the start of your very own franken-monstercross. Put some dirt drop bars, switch the triggers out for bar end shifters, maybe go 1x9 or single, maybe even hook up some Jones H-Bars and you'll be a true-blue tourer type.

 

Image courtesy cedarcross100  

  

There's nothing like exploring little used gravel roads at a medium pace and checking out the scenery. Usually these gravel roads come with low-tech water crossings, chase dogs, free-range chickens and the occasional ATV convoy. These are not bad moments unless you are dragging the dog with your ankle.

And logging roads count. And fire roads. Heck, you can ride for days around the Ozark National Forest just on fire roads and old logging roads without even being on a signed piece of singletrack. The secret is out; if you open your mind up beyond singletrack you can epic real easy, real fast. There are other states that would beg to have what we have just 1-2 hours outside of urban St. Louis.

 

Image courtesy cedarcross100   

I understand it's not really mountain biking on a piece of singletrack. But sometimes, you just have to give the local trails some time to dry up and ready themselves for the upcoming year.

I hope I have many of you thinking about the possibilities.  I'll see you out in the backcountry.

Matt

Ride in Peace, Bob Taylor

Our GORC family lost a cycling brother on Tuesday December 20^th.  While Bob Taylor made the most of the past 15 months – continuing to ride even after 2 brain surgeries and chemo treatments, he lost his battle with brain cancer early Tuesday morning.  He lived life to the fullest and was a great friend to have on any ride.  Not only did Bob love riding, but he truly believed in what GORC stood for – even so far as wearing the GORC jersey at his funeral.  We could not ask any more from a member.  He is survived by his two adult daughters.  

Ride in Peace, Bob.

 

Trail Tools: Spartacus (Revisited)

Spartacus, our rock moving tool developed by one of our own members, last made an appearance on our blog back in 2008 when Ron debuted it with links to the plans.

I am revisiting Spartacus here to centralize the information we have about the tool and link to the blueprint plans.

In our original post back in 2008 we wrote:

"Tom Erb designed Spartacus several years ago to help with much of the rockwork at Klondike, but since we've been using it quite a bit as of late, I thought I'd mention it again.  This is a very clever device, made out of chains arranged in concentric circles, that lets you move heavy objects, usually rocks, when you don't have the luxury of bringing in heavy equipment. The rock is maneuvered onto Spartacus, and then up to 8 handles allow for a number of people, strong of back, weak of mind, to carry or drag it to the desired position. 

The plans for building your own have been released under the Creative Commons license, or you can pay Tom to build one for you."

Well, it's not clear if Tom has the time anymore to build one for you but we are sharing the plans with you. We have enhanced the Spartacus concept by applying the same design using nylon straps like those designed to tie down large truck loads. This has decreased the standalone weight of Spartacus by over 20 pounds (or more). This is a huge improvement as the complaints from volunteers who have had to carry Mr. Spartacus more than a half-mile have been silenced.

 

Image of nylon Spartacus in use 

(poor visibility)

 

Finished product courtesy of Spartacus 

rock delivery method

Below you will find the original document describing Spartacus:

Spartacus

The Spartacus is a chain sling used to enable people to move heavy rocks and objects during trail work. It is ideal for moving rocks bigger than a few people can move, to enable crib walls, stunts, and other rocky features. It's also the ultimate tool for closing renegade trails and building choke points into your trails to discourage unauthorized user groups.

! Specifications:

* Constructed of over 40 feet of 750 pound working load proof chain
* Connecting links are stronger than the chain
* Eight handles allow everyone a comfortable grip

! Directions:

1. Use multiple pry-bars to roll a heavy rock onto the Spartacus.
2. Get a bunch of strong people to pick up or drag the rock to near the desired place.
3. Roll rock into place.
4. Keep a sledgehammer handy to help rocks fit where you want them to.


! Warnings:

1. Not for overhead lifting
2. Use at your own risk
3. Only people should use the Spartacus. Connection to mechanized equipment is not recommended and should only be attempted by qualified personnel.
4. Inspect your spartacus daily for damaged links and connecting link
closures. After years of use, we haven't had one fail yet, but you
could be the first. See numbers 1 and 2 again.
5. Wear boots and gloves, duh. Consider steel toe boots if you do this a lot.
6. If thrown like a fishing net, Spartacus may cause brain trauma.
7. Spartacus is not a toy.
8. Do not taunt Spartacus.


Availability:

Plans, assembly directions, and parts lists are available free of charge under the creative commons license.

Download the blueprints in PDF format (117KB)

Contact GORC via our message board if you need one pre-built.

We do ask that if you build a Spartacus, please send us photos of it in action at gateway_mtb yahoo com.

Best of luck in your trail building endeavors.

Happy Holidays from GORC

You'd think it would be easier to find a good holiday themed image searching for

bicycle + holiday + wipeout

but it would seem that this tree in a box on a trike.bike will have to do (thanks a lot google images). Hipster not included with purchase (but that's an assumption).

However, v this v  did happen over the weekend. 

They knew nothing but rolled with it...

 

Carnage post-package-parcel-delivery derby. 

Gonna need a damage claim form for a lot of those presents.

See you all on the blog in 2012 -

or next week.

Until when.............

SIUE Workday 12-10-11 Pictorial

Wow, a big Thank You! to everyone who showed up at our SIUE workday this past weekend. Forty-nine (49!) people showed up and we completed the new section of trail...yes completed. It was a total of 0.3 miles of trail, while not a lot, it is still something.

Big Thanks to The Cyclery for providing lunch! Please stop by and tell them thanks. Also, thanks for to the Bike Surgeon for providing our swag give aways for the day and showing up to work on the trail. Please go in and thank them for their time and swag.

We are continueing our trail building in the new area on Jan. 21st. GORC hopes to see you all out there again.

Thank you very much for taking the time to help make the SIUE trail system bigger and better.

Here are a few photos from the workday;

Just cleared corridor getting ready for some mild bench work

Maplewood has sent one of their paid staff to the last three workdays - this is huge! Jessica is working some benchcut.

Rodney and his daughter Maya taking a break.

Mike Dunston's section looked perfect - of course.

Taking a break from perfection

Ron striking a trail terminator pose

Ross is ready for some Iditabike trail conditions

Post-workday swag giveaway. It was a bit too wet to ride after the hard work so some of us went to the Global Brewery in Edwardsville.

Rock Hollow Workday: A Few Images

Over 40 volunteers (GORC, Americorp and school students) helped clear the trail corridor and build a sustainable benchcut near the beginning of the trail. This workday will help the contractors who are bidding on this project see what the finished trail should resemble.

Here are a few images from the workday:

 

Volunteers hiking in from the Glencoe Mini-Railroad

 

Signage at the Rock Hollow entrance provided by the Great River Greenway organization.

 

Volunteers clearing the corridor

 

Bryan Adams and crew worked on this water crossing the entire workday

 

You can see the trail on both sides of the drainage

Black Friday Gravel Rally - Rolla-Style

Reported by Matt Hayes

 

15 riders finished the 30 mile loop

Lisa and I were headed down to my Grandpa's for Thanksgiving in Vienna, MO and towed our bikes along for a 30 mile gravel ride put together by Dan Fuhrman of Route 66 Bicycles. The ride was on Black Friday and the weather couldn't have been any more mild for late November.

We rolled up to the tiny river town of Devil's Elbow on the Big Piney and parked across from the Elbow Inn. The crusty old dive-bar exterior made it easy to discount as a "biker bar" but as I'm often told, looks are deceiving. More about Elbow later.

 

The silo after dropping out of the Kaintuck trail

Precisely at 10am a group of 18 or so riders left Elbow to ride a 31 mile clockwise loop encompassing low-use pavement roads, gravel roads, ATV paths, part of the Kaintuck trail and narrow fireroads that were a hybrid between the look of ATVs-on-Kaintuck and the feel of horses-on-Kaintuck. The dirt portions were a bit wet but only two areas would be considered bog-like. Three tall, steep punches to the gut precisely at the beginning, middle and end-of-middle portions of the ride ensured that the secondary helpings of our everything-plus-turkey dinner would be purged one way or another.

It was refreshing to ride with complete strangers who quickly became two-wheeled friends. I'm great with faces and terrible at names so my internal naming system now includes "just back from germany guy", "flower earrings gal" and "beer sales guy". By no means am I being disrespectful, it's just that I'm more of a landmark than street names kind of guy.

 

 

Rail trestle approaching Devil's Elbow

The no-drop ride full of single speeders, a couple of cross bikes, (er, not recommended on this loop) mountain bikes, and a vintage Barracuda with hybrid tires rounded out the two-wheeled train.

Wrapping up our route was a beer-lunch-beer stop at the Elbow Inn. This river side establishment located on old Route 66 has been around since 1929 and is a piece of roadside Americana.  We all sat outside on their side patio with Boots the cat hanging out to say hi and get some quality laptime. The beef brisket sandwich was awesome and the no-charge PBR cans courtesy of "beer sales guy" were a definite plus. Be sure to look up at the ceiling for some bra-tastic interior decorating ideas. Next time you are around the region treat yourself to some Elbow.

 

The final mile into Devil's Elbow along the Big Piney River

It's a great change of pace to ride with strangers-turned-friends on gravel and trails never traversed in unseasonably warm weather. It's all too easy to come up with excuses to not do something but I'm glad I took up Dan's Facebook invite.

 

The Elbow Inn serves up terrific smoked BBQ, cheap beer and bar cats.

Gravel rides are the new ticket to staying in shape outdoors (keyword: outdoors) during the cold, wet, damp, bog months of Missouri's wet season. Like I keep saying, I see a Surly Ogre (with fenders and drop bars) in my future.

Keep on keepin' on.

Track Link: GPS Track

Update 1: In Dev: GORC 3.0

This project started in early October and is being built after-hours and when I have the time.

Of course, it is much more complicated than I originally envisioned and I had already anticipated a steep climb.

Some features may or may not make it in the first generation of the new site but I'm trying with the help of Rob B. to make it happen.

The site platform will be Drupal 7.x with CiviCRM 4.x handling membership and volunteer hours. I'm also researching a good message board that can 'bridge' the user information so that we all don't need three sets of id/passwords to get around the site. The IPBoard looks promising and is the same one over there on stlbiking.com

How committed am I to this project? Well, I've bought two books so far (about 950 pages total), joined the STL Drupal Users group, teamed up with Rob B and his technical skills and testing server environment, joined Drupal.org, CiviCRM and Issue Tracker (bugs). Spry Digital in St. Louis looks promising for technical framework issues regarding CiviCRM.

However, the club needs money to 'finish' the site's development concerning features and frameworks I may lack the time/expertise to develop. I would say that we roughly need $2,500 - $5,000 to completely finish the site.

Did I mention a site-wide Sponsor system will be in place?

Anyway, what I'm trying to convey is that this project has a long way to go. Once the content is in place, permissions and roles are set, bugs are fixed (yes, there are problems), the final step will be theming; as you can see below, I don't care what it looks like at this point in the project - I'm just happy it works.

Features, opinions, site flow, other mountain bike related sites that you like, send them my way via comment on this post.

Under active development: Some time next year you can touch

I enjoy doing this, I find it interesting. But, it is somewhat stressful knowing the club's modernization hinges on what I know and can do (and I know just enough right now to stay clear of programming code at this stage). With bike time on the back burner and working on this from 7pm-12am almost every night, it's easy to forget that this is a hobby task and not a job.

It'll be cool when it's finished. Especially the administration side.

MattH

GORC Gives Back at Cranksgiving 2011

 

GORC portrait in front of a tiny portion of the food items

Several GORC members showed up to St. Louis 2011 edition of Cranksgiving, the nation's largest satellite event by far. Originally started by bike messengers in NYC, Cranksgiving is a combination bike ride/food drive, with all proceeds going to local food pantries. It involves cyclists following a route that goes past a couple grocery stores.  There, they purchase food items that can be used to help others in need.

 

Matt hauled a BOB trailer filled to capacity

Lisa and Matt recruited additional members Randy, Kirby and Mike featuring JasonBoyd. Other GORC folks were present but I couldn't see them through the mass of over 600+ riders. After completing their 22 mile ride on cross/road bikes and stopping at 5 area grocery stores, all told St. Louis bikers donated 7,506 items - a record both locally and nationally.

 

Beer me up

What started at a microbrewery ended at a microbrewery and as you may guess some beer was involved, followed by copious amounts of Nicaraguan Fritanga. Consider joining another round of Cranksgiving next year, it's always an adventure.

 

Task complete

 

Bike parking

2011 Volunteer Appreciation Party

Cake from last year's party

This year it's at Creve Coeur Park following the workday on Nov. 5th. Now we've held these parties for the last 5 years, starting at Greensfelder, and moving to Cliff Cave last year. Strangely enough, the promise of free beer, food and cake(!) has not been enough to draw many additional people. The first few parties were in Dec. so it's understandable that many might not like to be out in the cold all day, but they've since been moved to an earlier date, so there are no excuses!
If you've attended a workday this year, or even if this is your first one, let us know you're attending by signing up here, and then come on out. Weather permitting, it will be a day of trail building, riding, and free food and beverage. What more could you ask for?-- well, maybe don't answer that one...

Berryman (Trail) Epic

First, I'll introduce myself. Hi, I'm MashOr or Mitch the Masher or just plain Mitch. I've been riding (and crashing) mountain bikes obsessively for over 20 years, building trail for almost as long, worked in various bike shops for over 10 years and generally like to tell people about whatever is going on. This past weekend was the Berryman Trail Epic or BTE, a 55 mile mountain bike race through some beautiful Ozark woodland all of which is part of the Mark Twain National Forest and I thought a few of you might wonder what it's all about.

Epic would be how most would describe the 24 mile loop that is the Berryman Trail. While lots of you have conquered this hidden gem in the Ozarks, many haven't taken the plunge. This loop is actually named by IMBA as an "Epic" on their blog. Each year the International Mountain Biking Association takes nominations and selects a few elite trail systems to be added to this list.

Now throw in an additional and spectacular 15 miles of the 45 mile Courtois(pronounced code-away) section of the Ozark Trail along with 16 miles of rolling gravel roads, and you truly have an epic day. Start that day with 250 other mountain bikers, and you have the BTE.

This is an event, I didn't say race because only a handful of people are actually racing anyone but themselves and simply try to beat their time from last year or out do their friends. Also, to encourage non-racer folks to get out and enjoy this annual gathering as its promoters provide us with a clean trail, places to refuel and a great atmosphere to test ourselves in.

This year the field was stacked with top level riders, weather was perfect and the trail conditions have never been better. The Ozark Trail Association has spent countless hours re-routing the west side of Berryman that is also part of the Courtois section of the OT, bringing it up to IMBA trail construction standards and much of this work has been completed since last year's BTE. Removed were sections of trail that followed creek beds and had developed into unsustainable washes that would rattle your teeth. Added are flowing sections of benchcut trail that crosses the same creeks as before, but on solid rock faces that will stand the test of time. The new trail adds a bit of distance to the loop meandering up and back down the valleys that the old trail passed right by. I didn't get a chance to see the work completed at the 2011 fall Mega Event , an OTA work day, due to an early exit from the race but that's a whole other story.

This new trail and the stellar conditions allowed a new unofficial course record of 4 hours 9 minutes to be set by Kansas native and long time pro Steve Tilford. Columbia Missouri's Jon Schottler, the 2010 and 2009 winner and previous course record holder, took 2nd. Locals Dwayne "Smiley" Goscinski and Jim Vandeven took 3rd and 4th respectively, while Garth Prosser, a Cannondale rider and super nice guy from Columbus, Ohio took 5th. From Illinois, Andy Gibbs claimed a top ten finish, some cash and a spot on the back of the t-shirt for next year's BTE. Official results haven't been posted yet so I'm not sure of the other top ten placings.

So, what's the point of this post? 1)To shed light on the vast amount of incredible trail we have available to us and the work that goes into taking care of such huge amounts of trail. There are plans to continue this work on the Berryman with a major re-route that will eliminate the only unridable section that drops you down 4 steep switch backs to Brazil Creek. The new trail will head over to hwy W on a less steep hillside and no longer will you have to cross the often deep Brazil Creek. This was tough to do in the winter time and keep dry feet. 2)To bring the BTE out to the masses that might not consider themselves racers but like a good challenge. And 3), to bore you with the first of hopefully many write-ups from this racer wanna-be, trail builder and master of mountain bike crashing.

Thanks for reading!

MashOr

Brown County Breakdown, Yeehaw Edition

Both Lisa and I came to the conclusion in early August that we would again attend the Brown County Break Down in Nashville, IN the weekend of October 8th. Unfortunately the BCB always conflicts with the Burnin' 12 hour race.

Demo zone featuring Giant, Trek and Felt along with other component companies. Lisa fell in love with the small-frame 2012 Superfly 100 Elite. Uh-oh...

However, the BCB is so damn enjoyable, stress-free and awesome that I have no problem traveling the four hours to hang out with other like-minded midwestern mountain bikers looking for great food, fantastic blue-grass music and legendary flowy trails.

Yep, that's her new love. She said it handled well and felt really fast on board. I'd agree with that; we were hauling!

The Brown County Breakdown is HMBA's (Hoosier Mountain Bike Association) big fund-raising event for the year where they rake in upwards of $20K to fund their ongoing mechanized trail building at Brown County State Park and other local parks. The entry fee to the BCB is steep ($80-100 depending on sign up date) but you are rewarded with the above-mentioned music, food, beer, bike demos, raffles, and organized rides.

Lisa and I signed up for the 45 mile ride (on review of the GPS the 45 miler climbed 3,600 feet. The 100 milers got something like 9,000-11,000ft of climbing!!!!!). They also offer 25, 65, 80 and 100 mile lengths, however, the bulk of the 500+ attendees typically choose the 45 or 65 mile routes. The 80/100 milers are left for the racers because you really do need to haul butt... this year the 100 milers started at 8am and rolled in between 6-7:30pm... and remember, this ride takes place on a Sunday.

Yes, Sunday. That's the only bummer for us folks in St. Louis. After the fantastic 45 mile ride and buffet-style mega dinner you can revel in some top-notch bluegrass but take note - you have a 4 hour drive home with work awaiting you the next day. Ugh!

Start/Finish zone as we all get into our respective mileage groups. We rode Pine Valley, North Tower, Aynes, Green Valley, Hesitation Point, Walnut, Limekiln and some open-only-this-weekend trails.

The musical guests this year included Danny Barnes on Saturday night (fantastic genre-bending banjo player from Austin's Bad Livers who works solo now and has travelled with Dave Matthews Band) and the White Lightning Boys from Nashville, Indiana. This large bluegrass band rocked and filled the air with the yeehaw vibe.

Beer sampling on Saturday included Uplands Brewery and a newcomer called Flat 12. Both breweries were terrific. Had we arrived Friday night, we would have been treated to Big Woods Brewery, the local and talented microbrewery in Nashville.

The camping around the pool house with hundreds of other MTBers was just right due to the fantastic mild weather. And I can't forget to mention the hot showers all weekend! Other folks from St. Louis included Luke (newport) and his friends, along with Dianna (muleskinner) and her family. Both groups ended up on the 45 mile route.

The ride on Sunday lasted about 5 hours including all of our stops.

Riding on the new Green Valley loop? Check!

Banjo in them woods

Random fiddlers and banjos in the hollers playing to the passers-by? Check!

On top of Hesitation Point chomping on cookies (5!) and getting ready for some technical Walnut

Homemade cookies on top of Hesitation Point while listening to the Whipstitch Sallies? Check!

Tech on Walnut? Check!

Ripping it pump-track style on Limekiln? Double-double check!!

Drop in to the Nebo Cabin for refreshments and music? Check Check!

The Cabin at the 45 mile turnaround. In a tight valley, this cabin is quintessential hillbilly deluxe.

At the end of the ride we both agreed that we would most likely be back next year. The vibe, enjoyable people, organizational prowess, music talentness, tasty good foodness and shred-nastic trail wonderfondness adds up to one hell of an event.

To miss the Brown County Breakdown is a bummer, indeed. See y'all out there next year??!

Cranksgiving 2011 - Let's Make It A GORC GIVES BACK Event

Cranksgiving 2011

Date: 11/06/11
Time: 10AM - 1PM

Where: Schlafly Bottleworks
7260 Southwest Ave
Host: St. Louis Bicycle Works for Food Outreach

Route: 25 mile loop from Schlafly Bottleworks

From Cranksgiving:
The Cranksgiving tradition has spread across the country, with events held in Los Angeles; Chicago; St. Louis; Madison, WI; and Des Moines, Iowa, among others. We are proud to say that St. Louis has the largest event in the country. Last year Cranksgiving hosted over 500 riders who collected over 4000 food items. This year we are looking for over 800 riders!

What happens at a Cranksgiving ride is that cyclists gather where they are given a shopping list of specific items needed by a local food pantry, plus a map of stores along a specific route (10 or 25 miles) from which to buy these items

A typical shopping list will have a dozen or so items, and maybe set back the riders $10-20. It's a terrific way to kick off the holiday season and be out on your bike, doing something good with the community alongside your fellow cyclists. Plus, it's an early start on burning off all the calories you'll be inhaling during November and December.

Cant ride with us but still want to help? Join us at the Handle Bar on Manchester at 8 p.m. on Nov 5th. New Belgium and PBR will be trading 4 cans of food for 1 beer!!

A huge thank you to our sponsors: Big Shark Bicycle, Rehab Care and Ameren.

++++

From Seamonkey:
This is a great event to attend. Lisa and Matt and a few other GORCers rode the 25 mile route last year and had a wonderful time hanging out with other bikers. There are sag wagons to load your purchased goods if you don't want to carry them to the finish at the Bottleworks. We hauled a BOB trailer last year and it held everything.

Cranksgiving is on a Sunday - the day after the GORC Appreciation Party. I hope to see my other GORC friends at Cranksgiving. If you have a GORC jersey, plan on wearing it so the community can see the club doing what it does best - volunteering and giving back!

Look for info on the message board in the coming days/week.

See you there,

Matt

Link to BicycleWorks info.

A Busy Month

The next 30 days are going to be very busy. Ride your bike and help build some trail.
Coming up in the next month:

October 8th: Burnin at the Bluff
October 8-9th: Brown County Breakdown
October 14th: Moonlight Ride at Indian Camp Creek
October 15th: Matson Hill Workday
October 22nd: Cliff Cave Workday
October 22nd: Berryman Trail Epic
October 29th: Matson Hill Workday
November 5th: Creve Coeur Workday and Volunteer Appreciation Party

This Tagged along for my ride on the Berryman

(Photo from bugguide.net)

After I finished my ride on the Berryman this weekend, I took off my helmet and found this not-so-little fellow lodged under one of the vents. I've had a lot of spiders in there before, but this was definitely the biggest, the green and black part being probably close to the size of a dime! In case you're wondering, it's a Marbled Orb Weaver, and totally harmless- unless you're a fly. I was still happy to have been wearing a skull cap! It was quite strong. Had to help it out with a stick, because it couldn't be dislodged by tapping on the helmet.

img: Horsepower

Meeting in the stable: fast crabon is introduced to golden fibreglass.
Ignore the bucket of walnuts. Discuss.

Binder Lake

Last Tuesday I treated myself to some new dirt. Since Binder Lake in Jefferson City MO has been on my to do list for a while and BigJimMac was available for a few hours after work to give a guided tour, I couldn't pass it up.

The plan was to drive out, set up a campsite for myself, ride some, then fish the lake from a belly boat, then grab a night ride (which is quite legal at Binder by the way). Of course I was running late so the fishing portion got dropped. I was able to ride the Yellow Loop on the east side of the trail, 1 lap counterclockwise on a 29r and then a portion of a lap clockwise on a double-boinger 26r, after setting up my tent and hammock and making sure all my little baby beers were nestled snugly in their icy beds for later.

I liked the Yellow loop a lot. It's all singletrack with a hardpack dirt surface with a lot of forest floor debris on it (rustic!) and plenty of embedded rocks. Going ccw it mostly just winds, twists, and switchbacks up and down the hillside that is the eastern shore of the lake until you hit a little clearing at the northernmost point where you turn back and cruise a rocky shoreline trail back to the beginning... 4 miles-ish. There were some neat bits of well-done rock armoring done at a few of the drainages and the whole trail flowed nicely.

Then it was beer-thirty.


As the daylight faded, Jim showed up and we headed across the little dam at the south end of the lake. We rode north on the Dark Blue to Light Blue to Dark Green to Light Green (staying right/east) then looped back (staying right/west). It was dim on the way out and dark on the way back.

That big loop route on the west side was awesome. There were some man-made features here and there but the star of the show (for me) was the fast and flowy sections (and there were plenty!). There were a few spots that required you tuck your bars through some close-spaced saplings and quite a few tight-ish switchbacks but that just kept things interesting. Definitely going back to ride this again, fo' sho'.

Also worth mentioning, the campground was quite nice. It's more oriented for RVs and pop-ups but most of the sites had a flat spot suitable for a 2 or 3 person tent. Besides just a flat spot, you're getting a 2 car paved parking pad, a picnic table, BBQ grill, trash cans, Forest Service-style fire ring, a wooden canopy, water spigots every few sites, and (get this) hot showers and flush toilets in the newer-looking campground bathroom. Nice.

I was really impressed with Binder. Kind of a nice mixture of Brown County (hot showers, flush toilets and bike-oriented trails) and Council Bluff Lake (Ozark dirt and rock riding and... a, well, lake in the middle).