Tour of Da U.P.

Ryan had been after me to make a trip up North with him for a while. So, we’d decided to leave the Monday following my fight as sort of a recovery-time trip. I generally made the best of having one and a half black eyes…

Our first stop Monday night was at his brother’s house in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. It was a quick stay-over before we continued north to his Mom’s (Gail) house in Marquette, MI.

It was cold and damp up there, and we ended up borrowing warmer clothes from his mom and finding a local shop where I could get a set of arm warmers. Tuesday night, we hit up a group ride that left from a friend’s house and went to the North Marquette trail system. I later found out that it was supposed to be a “guys only” ride, though I’d been fully accepted into the group via both my riding ability and my skill of opening a beer bottle using an SPD pedal.

Gail baked espresso cookies while we were out. No exaggeration- I probably ate a dozen of them within a two-day period.

The next morning, we set out on a loop of the larger/more climbey South Marquette trail system. There was a course used in a local cross country race that incorporated most of the trails within a 3-loop cloverleaf. The trails we found were mostly machine-built, flowy, and sometimes steep/kinda rocky. One part, near a golf course, had signs every mile or so saying to be quiet. Then, once you were past the course…

Near the end of our adventure, we climbed up a steep forest road to the Marquette Mountain overlook, then descended a trail called “Scary,” which was definitely one of several trip highlights, as it dropped from what was probably the highest point in town down to almost lake level… quickly.

With all of our navigational breaks, the 29-mile ride took close to 4 hours. Back at the house, we ate, napped, had more cookies, and packed our things to go to Ishpeming for another group ride on the Ishpeming/Negaunee trail system. We found a handful of local hammers (including the town “Antique Gun Show”) and hung on tight.

Every riding community has an Antique Gun Show (a.k.a. “silver fox” or “bald eagle”), and if you don’t know who/what I’m talking about, you should go ride with Todd Henne in Arkansas.

I’m not sure I could find my way around those trails without local assistance, so I’d suggest the Wednesday night @6:30 group ride from Jasper Ridge Brewery if you’re ever in the area (there are several groups, so all skill levels are covered). The trails are worth the visit- lots of steep, tech stuff that will challenge you in all sorts of ways. It’s a nice, hand-built complement to the machine-built smoothness of the South Marquette system. Highlight of the ride? Hearing locals’ discussion of where to go next- something along the lines of, “let’s take that two-track that crosses the luge” (thing you will never hear in Memphis #123). It was a pretty exhausting but highly rewarding two-a-day. Gail had made polenta lasagna and kale salad for dinner, which, along with more cookies, was another highlight of the trip.

In keeping with our “ride lots of trails in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan” theme, Thursday Morning, we drove to the Houghton/South Range area at the base of the Keweenaw Peninsula.

That afternoon, we rode the snowmobile route from South Range to Houghton to ride the Michigan Tech Trails. If you can tolerate riding in loose sand, those things will take you anywhere you want to go:

The ride out was fast, because it’s all downhill by about 1.5%. It’s worth not getting in to a half-wheel contest with your riding partner at that point since you’ll be climbing back up that same grade in tire-deep sand on the way home…

The tech trails are really cool. We rode the “red loop” first, which has some neat wood features that I only took pictures of.

It also includes the “Hairy Toad” trail, which, with all of its rocks, was another favorite for me. On a stroke of luck, we found a brand new downhill dirt jump/flow trail that was like an express train from the upper trail system to the lower one. No pictures of that one, only grinning and occasional whoo-hoos.
After a couple of hours there, we headed back up to South Range. The “uphill in the sand” ride back was as fun as I’d imagined it being. I get excited at the prospect of hike-a-bike followed by terrain that tries to be soul-crushing, no matter how simple it is.

Something that’s hard to get used to… it stays light really late up there. This photo was taken at 10:00pm:

Friday morning, we drove up to Copper Harbor. We started by riding the suggested “IMBA Epic” loop, which covered most of the trails in the system. Then, we rode up Brockway Mountain on the road to the Flow trail that meanders back to town.

From the Red Trail on the Loop:

From the Flow Trail (that wooden structure is part of the “Overflow” gravity trail that takes a much more direct route down the mountain):

The Copper Harbor trails are cool and lots of fun, but definitely don’t skip the other ones in the U.P. area, because they’re equally, if not more enjoyable. We also stopped by the Swedetown Trails in Calumet. I didn’t take photos, because the accumulation of leg hurt from all the other riding made the loop at Swedetown a bit of a mosquito-driven deathmarch. We toppped off the long day with a pasty from Toni’s.

…and a little Tour-watching back at the house

Saturday morning, we started the long trip home by driving back to Fond du Lac. As a little recovery, we tried to go ride some nearby trails. I say “tried” because all of the designated “bike only” trails in the park were way overgrown. So, we ended up just going on anything that wasn’t marked as a hiking-only trail.

Back at the house, we ate dinner and sat around watching the Tour with the kids and animals.

Sunday, we finished the drive. It’s a looooong day.

I’m pretty sure Indy was happy to have me back.

Observations from the trip:

#1- the Upper Peninsula dialect is equally as unique and endearing as a thick Southern accent.

#2- Don’t take a trip up to that part of Michigan without visiting all the trails. Lots of people just go to Copper Harbor. It’s great, but the others are too good to miss, and not far away.

#3- Take bug spray. The mosquitoes are the size of hummingbirds, and the flies have found their way into someone’s meth stash.

#4- Bring some fall clothes. It warmed up some from our first days there, but overnight lows in the 40s/50s in the middle of the summer are pretty normal.

#5- Hardtail or Full Suspension? You definitely won’t die on a hardtail, but there are lots of roots, rocks, and techy stuff that make a full suspension a good choice if you’ve got one.

July 3, 2014July 3, 2014 Andrea

Rain and Stuff

First, to anyone who hasn’t seen it… A photo of me at Dirty Kanza is the headliner in an Outside Magazine article: 200 Miles on 2 Wheels

Of course, my first nationally published photo is of me, looking like I’m about to pull over and burst into tears. It was a photo from early in the race, so I’m not exactly sure why I looked so concerned. I’ll take it, though. It’s otherwise a cool photo and story.

I mentioned storms and trail saturation in my previous post… following that, Mother Nature took that to the next level, and it stormed/downpoured enough that the Wolf River flooded large parts of the Wolf River Trail system that I frequently ride from my house. Flash flooding abounded…

My nicely groomed back yard before/during:

Marley appreciated the dig-ability of the soft mud once it had stopped pouring:

The entrance to the Germatown Greenline:

And, the concrete ditch you’d normally ride through to go down the Gray’s Creek trail:

That last one is the day after, as the water was receding. You can see by the mud line on the surrounding vegetation that I would have been standing under water in that spot at the crest of the flood.

The rainy days gave me a chance to finally fix my Whiskey No.7 fork. The brake mount came with a very poor finish from the factory, so it was a struggle to get the front brake adjusted correctly. The guy in their warranty department pulled a *Crank Brothers, telling me it was my job to face the post mounts on a brand new fork. So, the shop had to purchase the tool, and I had to wait until I had time to do the job. The bottom mount seemed to be the problem child… I had to remove a slightly unsettling amount of material from it in order to get proper alignment. The whole process took a little less than an hour (if I had to do it again, without meticulously double checking all of the instructions for each step as I went, it’d still be a 30ish minute process).

The small gap between the back face of the cutting guide and the knob of the cutting tool represents the amount of material that needed to be removed from the lower post in order to make it even with the upper post:

It works now, but it still chaps my ass that I have to deal with something that shouldn’t be the shop/consumer’s problem.

*”pulling a Crank Brothers” refers to how Crank Brothers’ customer service informed me that I need to disassemble every pair of new pedals that I sold and replace the tiny bit of thin, pixie-dust-esque grease that was in them from the factory with something of a higher quality. They blamed it on a problem with their manufacturer and said that they wouldn’t warranty pedals that fell apart because the grease from the factory dried up within 2 weeks of use.

Between rain storms, I did manage a good bachelorette week while Ryan and Matt were out of town. I locked my keys in my car at a going away party:

Kicked some stuff hard enough to necessitate the shaping of my ice packs to match my shins (sparring with a big dude = continuation of training in Expert Mode):

Geeked out about getting a single-stream recycling bin:

And finally got a new fork for the Cysco Hardtail:

The only downside of the new fork is that it’s white. Between the black and white fork, the ti frame, and my multi-colored I9 wheels, there are faaaaar too many colors on my bike. I can’t complain too much, though. It is a really, really nice fork that I’m very happy to have. I’m going to ride it down to the Wolf River Trails today and see if the trail looks like it will be dry enough for a 4th of July ride tomorrow.

June 23, 2014June 23, 2014 Andrea

Mulberry Gap Women’s Weekend

After a hard-ish week of training, I was really looking forward to the Mulberry Gap Women’s Weekend. I’d volunteered to help with the bike maintenance instruction part of the weekend, and, though I wasn’t 100% sure of what to expect, I knew it’d be a good time no matter what. What I definitely didn’t expect was a near-blowout of my passenger side rear tire, which went totally flat in the space of about 10 seconds while I was going fast in the fast lane of the heavily-trafficked 3-lane I-75 just south of Chattanooga. Luckily, when no one is punching you in the face, it’s pretty easy to deal with panic-potential situations with a cool head and steady hand. I guided the Steel Box through traffic to the shoulder, which I found to be far too narrow for a tire change, so I limped to the next exit with my hazard lights on and found a suitable parking lot. (p.s. keeping a yoga mat in your car has more use than just impromtu yoga sessions)

From getting out of the car to finding a ProGold pro towel for a final hand-cleaning, flat change time was 12 minutes.

Once I’d found a tire repair shop, purchased a new (used) tire (the rim-ride had destroyed the inside of my old one), and waited for the installation, the total time lost was only an hour. After that, it was off to Mulberry Gap.

The afternoon meet-and-greet time & settling in was just getting warmed up when I arrived. As an added bonus to everyone being excited to meet each other, Mulberry Gap is dog-friendly, so there were some 4-legged friends around as well…

…and a cool moth

Sometime around dinner, we found the clown bikes in The Barn.

…and before bed, there was a bug that needed a proper dispatch from the cabin. I found a suitable page of a nearby magazine that served this purpose well.

Saturday morning, we started out with breakfast and a short ride to talk about bike handling. Split into beginner and intermediate groups, I rode out with Anet, one of the event organizers, and the latter of the groups, and we went to a short section of a nearby singletrack climb. Before we started, I made one rule for the group- unless you’ve actually hit, injured, or caused some other accidental physical harm to someone, there’s no apologizing allowed. That’s something you don’t often hear in a pack of guys that’s learning something new- them apologizing for not being able to clear an obstacle or for having a slip-up of any sort. Women, on the other hand, seemed to feel compelled to say they’re sorry for these things. I let them know that there’s no need to be sorry for a normal part of the learning process.

Just before the ride, everyone filled their pockets with some goodies donated to the event from Gu Energy Labs. They were super stoked…

After our short ride and some lunch, we geared back up for a longer afternoon ride. We went up a long forest road climb to the Bear Creek trail with a quick stop at a very nice overlook. Luckily, the rain in the picture missed us until the very end of our ride.

Once we were down Bear Creek, we rode more of the Pinhoti Trail. I made it up and over a climb just ahead of my group, so I stopped and took some photos, and caught a few of the ladies on their way through the creek at the bottom

Just as we arrived back at camp, the bottom dropped out as a big storm came through. It knocked the power out until nearly midnight. Which meant, unfortunately, that my bike maintenance portion of the evening was blacked out. I was able to help a lot of the ladies individually, though. I’m sorely disappointed in some of the halfass things that husbands were doing with their wives’ bikes.

For example, one woman’s bike was set up with gripshifters. No biggie, but he hadn’t taken into account the length of the bar end, grip, and shifter when assembling everything. So, she ended up with her knuckles approximately 6 inches apart from each other on the bars when grabbing in a spot where she could use both the shifters and the brakes (you can see in the photos below- the scratches on the bar are where the brake levers were clamped prior to my moving them). I cut about two inches off of each one of her grips and moved everything out. She was stoked.

Then, there was the woman who was missing a spoke.

The woman whose husband had told the bike shop that she weighed 150 or 60 pounds (she’s probably 120 with a lead weight in her pack).

That photo was taken after lots of descending, and she’d only used about half of the travel. In all fairness, though, that one was a pretty awesome bike that he’d ordered her for mother’s day, but it’d just arrived at the shop the day before she left. It would have been nice to have called her and asked, though. I helped her with adjusting the air volume and told her to ride the bejesus out of it down a hill and see if she came closer to using all of the travel.

Some other honorable mentions- running shoes with flat pedals, running shoes with cheese-grater cheapie flat pedals, and a new set of 26×1.8″ tires. Of course, I can also see the view that at some point, its everyone’s job to learn about his or her own equipment. That goes without saying. However, you’ll never get interested enough to learn if you hate riding because there’s a myriad of cheap-to-free things that could be fixed on your bike to make riding more comfortable, easier, and more enjoyable.

I digress.

On a more positive note, here’s Lynn, a very inspiring older-than-the-others woman who has the flat pedal game down to a science, with some nice, wide platforms, and a pair of five ten shoes.

I don’t know a much better way to spend a stormy afternoon than having a glass of wine and working on/talking bikes with some new friends.

More doggies!

The next morning, since I had a long drive home ahead of me, I decided to forego the post-yoga group ride (I actually didn’t do yoga either, instead getting a super kickass sports massage from Shelley, the massage therapist in for the weekend). Luckily, the drive home did not include any more flat tires.

It was an excellent weekend. Mulberry Gap is a really nice place to stay- it’s really close to miles of great singletrack, the cabins are nice, the food was tasty (and you all know how I am about food), and the company was more than I could have asked for.

April 2, 2014April 2, 2014 Andrea

IMBA is Coming to Memphis!

A few weeks ago, one of our local trails was (once again) struck by a bandit trailbuilder. He cut new trail parallel to two different slightly steppy/rooty spots that are steppy/rooty because they’re built up the fall line of the hill they span, which causes water to wash straight down the trail. Unfortunately, the bandit built his bypasses straight up the same hill, just a few feet over, effectively creating another problem trail. I posted a photo and rant on the local mountain bike forum and got responses ranging from “those bypasses are terrible and we’re closing them down,” to “I think they’re ok/don’t know what the big deal is/they might work because they have more curve to them than the original trail.” As I explained in the post, it takes more than a curve and hopes & dreams to build a trail that isn’t going to turn to total crap within a year. Also, if a good reroute is actually built, the original trail is so compacted that it will take hand tilling in order to encourage nature to reclaim the path.
This situation revealed a more obvious problem- a lot of the mountain bike people in Memphis don’t realize that there is a real process to planning and building a trail. Heck… even the “legitimate” bypass trails that were built after a flood left large stretches of deep sand on the trail could stand some work to remove stumps that were left into the ground, improve flow, etc. Brad Corey (of the Mid South Trails Association) who I’d consider to be Memphis’ original/biggest trail advocate, had recognized the need for education in the past and applied two years in a row to have the IMBA trail care crew visit, only to be denied both times.

So, following my personal philosophy of “no complaints without a solution,” I contacted Steve Schneider, the IMBA rep from Arkansas who I’d originally met through trying to find help to fix the Syllamo trails. He has agreed to come to Memphis and give a trailbuilding seminar on April 25th. Not only will it be an opportunity for the people who work on the trails in town, it will also be an important learning opportunity for the North Mississippi Trail Alliance that’s about to start cutting new trail just south of Memphis.

Unfortunately for me, that’s the same weekend as the Ogre 150- a gravel road race in Missouri. The race will serve as a very important “dress rehersal” for the Dirty Kanza 200 at the end of May. I’m bummed, and I feel really guilty for catalyzing such an event and not being around. However, it’s in good hands with the guys in town (Brad from MSTA and Chris from NMTA) that are helping with the organization of the weekend.

If you’re reading this and interested in attending (or at least getting the notes afterwards, as I am), here’s the Facebook event page: IMBA Trail Seminar

February 17, 2014February 17, 2014 Andrea

Santos #2

Tuesday, my training schedule was split in half. After getting up and going to breakfast, I came back and went out for an easy-ish ride. I decided I’d go over to the Vortex/Freeride area of the trail system and ride the “black diamond” loop then gawk/take photos at all the crazy stuff I’d only dream of riding during a nightmare. It didn’t disappoint…

I did giggle my way through these two:

What you DON’T see, either in the photo or actually standing at the top of that first one is that right where the rocks are a little ways down the trail, there’s another really steep drop-off. I’m proud to say, though, I handled it without panic or feeling as if it were a “close call” of any sort. I liked the black diamond trail a lot… it was very reminiscent of some Arkansas rockiness.
Fun side story of the day- the Black Diamond/Freeride area has a “qualifier” obstacle at both the front and back entrances (defined by IMBA as a high-skill-level, low-consequence obstacle that demonstrates the difficulty of the upcoming trail or trail feature). I came in through the back, where the qualifier is a rock… I was like, “hell yeah! I love rocks!” And, I popped right over it. I rode the loop, took my photos, then was headed out the front entrance, when I arrived at its qualifier… a tall, skinny ramp/bridge. I got off and walked, garnering all sorts of weird looks from the 2-3 carloads of dudes in the parking lot. Whatevs… rocks > man-made stuff

Once I was back at the tent, I cleaned up, snacked, and kicked back for a little while to figure out where I’d go for the 20 minute intervals I was supposed to do that afternoon:

The selfie was mandatory since it was warm enough for shorts and a tank top.

I wasn’t familiar with the roads in the area, and the ones I’d driven on were all super traffic-y. So, I decided I’d drive out to the westernmost point I’d reached the day before and ride the open doubletrack paths in that area. It ended up working well- there’s just enough up/down grade to force you to shift & chance cadence occasionally, so it was perfect for long intervals.

Once I was done, I drove back and repeated the previous night’s snack/cleanup/dinner at Chipotle routine. Why mess with a good thing, right?

February 3, 2014February 3, 2014 Andrea

IMBA’s Weekend at Syllamo

This weekend, the IMBA Trail Care Crew came to Mountain View to give their presentation to the crowd who’d gathered from all over Arkansas and Missouri (and Memphis) to learn about trail building and maintenance and to lend a hand in the restoration effort for the trail itself. The “crew” is actually a couple- Jesse and Lori, from Springfield, MO. They ended up staying at the cabin (along with their friend, Mark, who’d originally planned to camp before the weather turned to cold/rain) in order to avoid crowded conditions at the USFS-provided housing.

Friday, the group worked on clearing the Red Trail. I really like doing that sort of work, but I needed to get in a training ride. So, we rode a pavement/gravel/horse trail training loop that hit some of the bigger climbs in the area. (Click the link below to see the route)

http://www.strava.com/activities/110892655

It was close to 2:30 before we were finished, and by the time we’d cleaned up and eaten lunch, the work day was wrapping up, and I was becoming one with the recliner.

Saturday started with a trailbuilding class, courtesy of Jesse and Lori. Here are a few of the high points that, from my experience, seem to be often overlooked…

Once we were finished with class, we headed off to lunch and the hands-on part of the day. We re-routed a section of the yellow trail from an eroded, 20-25% grade, to a contour trail that hit exactly within the specifications for sustainable trail. It was amazing to watch… in the space of about two hours, a new trail was born, and the old trail was tilled and covered. It’s really cool to see what’s possible when 40-50 people put that sort of effort into the building process…

That evening, we had a couple of drinks and grilled some steak back at the cabin to celebrate a successful work day…

Yes, of course the only photos I took are of people cuddling with dogs.

Sunday morning, the weather was quickly turning foul. Freezing rain and snow moved in to the area around 9:00, so Matt and I GTFO’d without riding. It was a good move, because the delineation between ice and rain on the radar prettymuch trailed our route back to Memphis by about 2 hours. Jesse and Mark decided to ride a little (Lori stuck around at the warm/dry cabin), and were loading up to do so about the time we were leaving. They called from the cabin as they were leaving, and according to Mark, about 4 inches of snow had fallen between 9:30 and 2:00.

It was great to see such a huge effort and outpouring from the local community. Realistically, the Red and Yellow trails alone need at least a couple more intense weekends of work before Syllamo’s Revenge in May. However, this weekend was a great start in the rehab process.

January 20, 2014January 20, 2014 Andrea

Short Break from the Ordinary

My weekend activities outside of training were slightly more interesting than the usual “sit on the couch and recover” experience. Thursday at MMA class, the other girl that trains there asked if I was going to go to the V3 fights downtown on Saturday night. I wasn’t sure, because, honestly, I’m somewhat of a homebody, and being downtown for any other reason outside of a scenic bike ride is way off my radar for a multitude of reasons.

However, I later saw that the son of a close friend of mine who died unexpectedly back in the Spring of 2011, posted on Facebook that he’d be back in town (he lives in Florida now) to fight. I’ve known him since he was kind of a troubled teen, so it’s hard to express how proud I am to see him doing well for himself now with everything that he’s been through. I definitely wanted to go watch, and, in talking to Matt, found out that one of his co-workers could procure a couple of free tickets for excellent seats.

I couldn’t find any MMA-oriented people who could go, so I took Ryan along. Speaking of…

He dumped a bucket of sanitizer (from his homebrewing stuff) down Matt’s toilet earlier that afternoon. In the sanitizer was an airlock from a carboy… complete with rubber stopper (not pictured).

airlock

When Matt returned home that afternoon, Ryan let him know what happened, but that despite the loss of the airlock, it “flushed fine.” However, Matt decided to further investigate by throwing a wad of toilet paper into the tank and flushing, which resulted in a near-overflow of the bowl. With some advice from a plumber friend of ours, they removed the toilet and retrieved the stuck airlock.

toilet

After that “excitement,” we headed downtown. I enjoy watching MMA on TV, but seeing it live is incredibly fun. I can’t deny getting a little misty-eyed when I saw Tony get in the ring…

ring

Sunday was back to business as usual. I went on a MTB ride with Matt. Our original plan was to ride to the Stanky Creek trail and back, but, once we got there, the “winter shape” (lots of leaves hiding roots and greasy mud everywhere) of the trails turned out to be less than fun, so we poked around a little then headed back to finish the ride up on the Wolf River Trails (which are in excellent shape right now). It was pretty laid back since I’d beaten myself up in the comically blustery wind the day before (it was slightly unpredictable in direction and 25-30+ mph with occasional gusts).

I made it back in time to eat, grocery shop, then sit in the new couch/recliner with a mug of beer and watch football. Turbo took her last nap on the old couch, which was picked up by one of Matt’s friends as a donation to a church.

She’ll now have to resort back to curling up in a ball on her dog bed.

January 15, 2014January 15, 2014 Andrea

Trail Heroes coming soon…

This weekend left me feeling optimistic for the plight of the Syllamo Trails.

When I originally filled out the contact form on the IMBA website and basically pleaded for help with the damaged/overgrown parts of the trail system, I never expected the entire town to get involved. However, the city of Mountain View basically exists in its current form because of tourism (it’s known for not only great trout fishing, but also for being the Folk Music Capital of the World). So, when you tell the locals that any of the tourism draws to the area are in danger of no longer being draws, they want to help… their livelihood depends on it.

We basically hit a tipping point. The handful of us (Wes Wright, Denny Hess, Frank Webber, and others in the “Syllamo Trail Cleaners” FB page) who were trying our best to fix things ourselves were entirely overfaced with the task- essentially, out of the 50 miles of singletrack, somewhere close to 20 of it is subject to severe overgrowth every summer as a direct result of logging the trees from around the trail. There’s also the basic upkeep of removing deadfall as well as the relatively new problem of wild hogs rooting through extensive sections of bench-cut trail, turning them in to frighteningly off-camber and loose piles of rock and leaves.

Enter IMBA and our regional representative, Steve Schneider. He and his wife, Margie, came in and immediately hit the bricks of downtown Mountain View to spread the word about the floundering of one of the towns most unknown tourist attractions. They came back last weekend, and, with the help of Wes and Denny, finalized/organized the locals’ donations of food, lodging, discounts, and all other manners of assistance for an official IMBA Trailbuilding School and extensive work weekend that’s going down a little over two weeks from now…

IMBA Weekend Event Page

I’m excited.

In other news, I’m going in for an MRI today and will find out tomorrow if my toe & foot pain is a result of a herniated disc in my back. I’ll know by noon tomorrow if that’s the case.

In other, other news, MMA class is fun as all getout. We practiced jiu-jitsu last night, and, I managed a successful (albeit slightly rough around the edges) rear naked choke on a training partner when we were rolling (we won’t talk about the number of times the much more experienced guy made me tap out, but it was more than once, probably less than 5 times). I guess you can say, things are getting pretty serious…

You know, because…

This is basically how things go around the house on most days:

November 11, 2013November 11, 2013 Andrea

Syllamo- Help is on the Way

As I mentioned previously, Friday was the day for a meeting between a few of us from the Syllamo Trail Cleaners group (Wes, Denny, Frank, and myself), the regional rep from IMBA (Steve Schneider), and the Natural Resources Specialist from the USFS (Jay Swafford). (Essentially, the Syllamo Trails are in such a state of overgrowth and disrepair that they’re in danger of having their IMBA “Epic” status revoked.) My original plan was to have everything packed and ready to leave super early on Friday morning and arrive in Mountain View by 10am, but I ended up going over Thursday night instead.

I took Indy with me, and he found the drive over to be pretty exhausting…

The last 25 miles of Hwy 14 into Mountain View are nerve-wrecking at night, but my efforts were rewarded with a gorgeous river-fog sunrise

Friday morning, I laid around drinking coffee and playing Battle Friends at Sea (a mildly entertaining iPhone version of Battleship) until it was time to go to the USFS office in town (with a quick stop at WalMart along the way). Once the meeting started, things got a little tense pretty quickly. I learned a lot, and, if you’re wondering, here’s a quick summary and take-away from the 2 hours we spent talking about funding, logging, and preservation..

-The trails were built with government funding, but at the time of their construction, no funds were earmarked for continued care.
-Jay, the USFS guy, is doing his job as best he can, as well as the jobs of one or two other people who were fired with downsizing. As a result, he’s not able to put much time in to trying to preserve the trail (though he actually does care about it, unlike the person who had his position previously)
– When an area is set up for logging, there’s a public meeting about it. No one at the USFS had ever mentioned that to any trail advocates, so there has never been anyone around at the meetings to say, “Hey, how about you NOT destroy this mile of trail in the process of logging the rest of the area?”
-Because the government will not fund any sort of paid effort to work on the trails, the group of us that’s been working on the trail are going to set up a 501c3 non-profit organization (comprised of all trail users- not just cyclists) so that we can receive grants, funds from donors, and donors can deduct 100% of their donation amount from their taxes.
-Steve is one of the most dedicated trail advocates I’ve ever met. He’s planning on going to an upcoming Mountain View Chamber of Commerce meeting and giving a presentation about trail tourism. Also, while we cleaned trail/rode on Saturday morning, his wife Margie spent the whole time Downtown talking to local business owners. All of them want to see the growth of trail tourism and understand that the trail needs help for that to happen.

Afterward, we gathered back at the cabin and hit the trail for a quick look at the orange loop. Steve got to see firsthand the difference between the sections of trail that’d been subjected to logging versus the sections that are still untouched. We also got a look at a new “experimental” cedar glade project that the USFS is trying- they cut down a cedar grove and use a machine to grind/partially grind the logs with the intent that the cedar oils will choke out the invasive grasses. The stupid thing is, where the tree canopy is left in place, THERE ARE NO INVASIVE GRASSES.

This is what it looks like where they’ve ground up cedar groves- the trail is totally gone, and partially ground cedars are everywhere…

It makes you feel sick to see.

Fortunately, that sort of thing gets Steve (and all of us) more riled up than depressed. That night, Margie cooked a great dinner (and fed Indy lots of vegetables), and, while watching an “epic” sky-on-fire sunset, we all came up with the beginnings of our plans to get the trails back in to “epic” shape.

Saturday morning, we started with clearing most of the orange trail. I went up Cedar Scrappy with a Silky Katanaboy and cut probably close to 20 low-hanging and fallen branches/trees. In the meantime, Steve did the same on another part of the trail while Wes and Denny were line trimming the open, grown-over area around Old Hwy 5.

This one took about 20 minutes worth of sawing and burro-style hauling:

Then I got a little distracted and hiked a bit to look for a cave. I didn’t find one, but the rocks were cool:

We wrapped up the trail work and drove up to the Scrappy Mountain trailhead to ride out to one of the best overlooks of the trail system (Sylamore Creek on the yellow trail). Steve agreed that it was spots like that one that make Syllamo worthy of keeping its “Epic” designation.

We’re all optimistic. It seems as though there are too many people who care about the trail to let it keep going the way it’s going. We just needed to reach the tipping point where all of us got together and started organizing the supporters who want to see change. IMBA has some great resources, and the community in the Mountain View area doesn’t want to see the loss of a group of tourists & others who come to the area for the trail. We’ve got a long row to hoe, but I’m uncharacteristically hopeful that there will be a big turnaround in the years to come.

November 1, 2013November 1, 2013 Andrea

The Bigger Picture

I’ve come to the realization that, outside of my 10-20 hours of training per week, communicating with/promoting sponsors/potential sponsors, and taking care of an occasionally vigorous schedule of domestic duties that include (but aren’t limited to) cooking, cleaning, and wrenching on bikes, I’ve got enough spare time that I can use it to try and make a difference somewhere important to my community.

As most of you have noticed, I’ve somewhat recently started getting in to more trail work. It’s a product of always wanting to do trail work combined with finally having someone to do it with. Nothing against the local group that typically plans/executes work days (they did a huge work day last weekend and cleared a couple of miles worth of corridor), but they’re usually working on Saturday mornings, which is when I’m usually racing or training.

To expand on that, I’ve joined the review team that’s being formed to plan the rebuilding of the abused/worn out Tour de Wolf trail in Shelby Farms park near my house. The trail was once the site of a huge, national-level mountain bike race back in the late 90’s/early 2000s. Now, it’s the trail that everyone in the city of Memphis rides/walks/runs. It’s extremely high-volume, and, in many areas, the trail is not built in a way that is resilient to either the weather and/or the volume of use. So, later this month, I’m going to the first of the meetings to make plans for restoring the trail.

Also in my plans is a similar call to action for the Syllamo trails. While they may be nearly 4 hours away from Memphis, the Syllamo trails (an IMBA-designated “epic” trail) are where I’ve effectively learned how to ride technical terrain. Unfortunately, given its remote location and the continuing encroachment of logging operations, the small, dedicated group of us who have been trying to do trail maintenance are grossly overfaced. Not only are there the usual needs of maintaining 50+ miles of trail corridor, the loggers are destroying parts of the trail by clear-cutting them, running over trail tread with heavy equipment, and leaving logging debris down the length of the trail area they clear. Even when the debris is cleared and the trail re-established, the logged-off areas become an impassable jungle in the spring/summer.

About two weeks ago, it was reported that they clear-cut part of one of my favorite sections of trail. I’ve spent hours- literally- riding that one section, because it’s incredibly difficult, but it’s totally clean-able. I was somewhat devastated. Then, I decided to stop being devastated and start trying to fight back. I talked to the others about what we could do for help and, last Sunday morning, while I was sitting in the woods waiting for the High School race to start, sent an email plea to IMBA about our need for assistance.

They were very quick to respond (one of the guys in the Trail Cleaners group had recently met/told the new regional IMBA guy about the problems of the trail), and after a lot of group emails and whatnot, a few of us are meeting with the Steve, the regional IMBA director, and Jay, the Sylamore Ranger District Natural Resources Specialist at the USFS office a week from today.

I’m not writing this post to brag and say, “HEY EVERYONE LOOK AT ALL THIS STUFF I’M DOING.” I’m writing it more to profess my commitment to acting rather than just talking. Anyone can sit around and complain or be upset and hope that someone else does something to change it. I know, because I’ve done it myself. It’s easier than action. Way easier. However, taking action yourself rather than waiting for someone else to do it is the fastest route to change.

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