Trail Access
The urban freeride boom, the bike park boom, rogue trails, gray trails, authorized and unauthorized trails
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on June 12, 2009
Wow, these hurt. Some of California’s best close-in mountain biking venues, its State Parks, are under threat of being closed by September due to the state’s onerous budget cuts. On the list: Mount Tam. It’s hard to believe that this spot, the renowned birthplace of mountain biking and scene of literally thousands of hikers, strollers [...]
Posted in Mountain Biking, Trail Access | Tagged california state park closures, china camp, fort ord, henry coe, mount tam, Mountain Biking, Nisene Marks, samuel b. taylor, Wilder Ranch
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on June 5, 2009
Last night, as temps hit 94 in Bellevue, I went out to ride with IMBA (International Mountain Bicycling Association) and EMBA (Seattle’s Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance) at Paradise Valley, the recently reopened Conservation Area past Woodinville near Maltby. Back in the day I rode Paradise occasionally, recalling it as a cross between an Appalachian firing [...]
Posted in Mountain Biking, Tales from the Trail, Trail Access | Tagged EMBA, Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, imba, Mountain Biking, Paradise Valley
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on June 4, 2009
Over on MTBR.com, Jon Kennedy of Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance has a post updating the group’s efforts to increase access to Tiger Mountain. Jon and I spoke yesterday, and I came away encouraged by EMBA’s efforts to raise awareness and integrate mountain biking interests with trail planning in the region, and especially on Tiger. Jon [...]
Posted in Advocacy, Mountain Biking, Tiger Mountain, Trail Access | Tagged Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, Tiger Mountain
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on May 31, 2009
The Northwest Timber Trail on Tiger Mountain is closed again, this time for logging prep work near the upper trail. The good news is that the damage involves (so far) just one section, a yarding line just above where the trail starts to drop for good, and that a mid-June reopening is “expected.” I put [...]
Posted in Mountain Biking, Tiger Mountain, Trail Access | Tagged Mountain Biking, Tiger Mountain, Trail Access
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on May 28, 2009
Bill’s Trail in Samuel Taylor Park is a 4-mile, switchbacky joy ride through the redwoods. In what is being called a “historic opportunity,” mountain bikers have a chance to gain access to the trail, one of the first expansions in decades to riding in Marin, mountain biking’s renowned birthplace but also host to its bitterest [...]
Posted in Advocacy, Mountain Biking, News Cycle, Racing, Trail Access | Tagged bikewise.org, Giro d'Italia, Marin mountain biking, mclaren park, seattle times, SF Urban Riders
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on May 21, 2009
When we think about doing trail work, our first impulse tends to be, “Any time we spend working on a trail could alternatively be spent riding on a trail.” And guess which we’d rather do. But over the years I’ve learned that trail maintenance has its upside. It’s convivial — you get to spend time [...]
Posted in Mountain Biking, Tiger Mountain, Trail Access | Tagged Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, Mountain Biking, Tiger Mountain, trail work
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on March 11, 2009
The Seattle P-I, which unfortunately is on the verge of closing its print publication, has a long feature on Seattle’s mountain biking organization, the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance. Formerly it was the Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club, but the organization has grown beyond being a club to a liaison with user groups, legislation, government officials and [...]
Posted in Advocacy, Mountain Biking, Trail Access | Tagged Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club, Culture, Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, Mountain Biking, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on March 3, 2009
Bad stuff happens: “TASMANIA Police are investigating an incident where a female mountain bike rider received injuries after hitting a wire that had been deliberately strung between two trees.” There was a similar incident in Marin last year. The local newspaper picked up on it, and it became a rallying point for mountain biking trail [...]
Posted in Advocacy, Culture, Mountain Biking, News Cycle, Trail Access | Tagged bike light, Culture, Daily Roundup, Jet Blast 1000, Mountain Biking, Rudy Project glasses
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on February 26, 2009
Anyone who has spent time in Portland marvels at how bike-friendly the place is. For all its bike-worthiness, however, it has been surprisingly stingy with singletrack for mountain bikes. This is even more curious when you consider one of the great bike shops on the West Coast, Fat Tire Farm, lies within the shadow of [...]
Posted in Mountain Biking, Trail Access | Tagged Fat Tire Farm, Forest Park, Mountain Biking, Portland, Trail Access
By Paul Andrews, BI editor on February 26, 2009
A recent Bike Intelligencer posting on Tiger Mountain access has generated a lively if not acrimonious discussion on the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance Yahoo! forum. It seems there’s lots of energy to talk. Why not siphon that energy into action as well? As I posted to the list: A simple proposal: Whenever one of the [...]
Posted in Advocacy, Mountain Biking, Trail Access | Tagged EMBA, Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, Mountain Biking, Tiger Mountain Issaquah, Trail Access
