Summer Happenings

While your club leadership enjoys mountain biking in other areas of the country, remaining members are keeping a close eye on the trails in El Paso.  Every Wednesday, the guys from Rough Rider are working at the West Side Rec Center off High Ridge (3 Hills) putting in some sweet jump lines.  They’d love your help.  There are also some trails being built on the hills surrounding the park.  Volunteer groups are showing up and haphazardly constructing trails.  If you want to help out, please contact Arlen Bowden as he is going to be flagging future trails in the area.  If you want to help with the jumps, contact Hunt Burdick.

Keep an eye out for the volunteer bike patrol this summer.  John Duffy, Adrian Urias, and Richard Gonzalez are wrapping up their certifications and will start racking up volunteer hours.  If anyone else is interested in earning some easy volunteer hours by being an IMBA certified patroller, contact bmbaelpaso@hotmail.com and we’ll set up another park volunteer training for the end of the summer.

Stay hydrated and have fun this summer.

 

Ride the Y’s

June’s club ride is going to be a little different this month.  Instead of Sunday, we will meet Saturday June 6th at 7:00 am at the Northeast YMCA.  We will ride from the Y to Heinrich Park.  This regular recreational riders less than half an hour.  So some people may drive or go straight to Heinrich.  The ride will regroup at Heinrich and head out.  We’ll probably do Lazy Cow plus some other stuff.  Lazy Cow is an excellent beginner single track.

After the ride we will regroup at the Y for a trailside repair clinic at 10 am.  Everything is free and there is a pool pass included.  So bring your swim trunks for a dip afterwards.

Our club meeting is June 1 at 7 pm.  Sunset Pizza on Mesa.  Come by to join, renew, or buy some cool club socks.

June 7th at 8 am is the park volunteer training at Tom May’s.  If you think you might want to be a bike patrol member, come to this training.  IMBA requires training from a local land manager to be an official IMBA bike patroller.

 

Poker ride and cool new socks!

Today’s Poker Ride was really fun.  The route was quite challenging and the weather was pretty nice.  It actually started out really cool with a blanket of clouds covering the peaks.

Renewing members got new socks and they look great!  Some shops will be selling them for $13 and I think the club will be selling them for the same price.

Ryan Cody won the poker ride with a full house.  There were 4 straights that took home the other prizes.

Adrian G.’s worst hand took home a bottle of Boone’s Farm.  Nothing like giving a slight nudge toward’s skid row to someone who was down and out on a poker hand.

I think we’ll have to do more of these, but give chips out for riding the altar!

 

MAY and JUNE….We have SOCKS!!

The heat is now upon us.   Make sure you keep your bottles and camelbaks clean….don’t want any additional flu bugs floating around!

May 17th is our Poker Ride.  Meet at the end of Redd Rd. before 8 am.  The ride will start at 8.  If you need to register, be early.  Members pay $5 and non-members must join ($25) and you will ride for free.

June 6th is our monthly group ride day.  Instead of meeting at 8, we’ve bumped it up to 7:30.  Why?  We are leading the ride from the Northeast YMCA on Will Ruth.  It takes about 30 minutes to get to Heinrich Park from there by bike….if you are an intermediate or better rider.  Most people will probably drive.  We will leave the Y at 7 am.  We will later return to the Y at 10:00 for a trailside repair clinic.

New shirts and socks are now available.  Socks will sell for $15 and new shirts for $10.  If you renew your membership, you’ll get a pair of socks.  New members get a shirt.

 

New Time for Group Ride

The monthly group ride will now meet at 8 am.  This month’s ride meets Sunday May 3rd at Heinrich Park.  No food will be served as it will probably be very hot and most people will want to head home after the ride.

Club meeting is still at 7 pm Monday at Sunset Pizza on Mesa.

 

April Activities

A new month is upon us and we are finally seeing El Paso’s third “season”….WIND!  I classify our seasons into HOT, NICE, and WIND.  I’m staring at some shingles in my backyard.  I hope their not from my roof.

Anyway… 

Club ride this Sunday at Tom May’s.  9 am upper parking lot.  Look for the banner at one of the picnic tables.  The more that show, the more fun we’ll have.  Not sure on food as no one replied to my email earlier in the week.  I  will be riding over from the east side, so I’ll only be bringing the banners.  It doesn’t seem that many people really want to stick around for food anyway.

Meeting Monday at Sunset Pizza.  7 pm.  We’ve got a lot on the agenda.  come early for pizza and socialization.  I’m usually there around 6.  Agenda will include city trails status, 2010 Puzzler….(yep, already), state park trails work crews, changes in city parks/stormwater management, and final plans for bike patrol.  Please come if you have any interest in any of this stuff.  We need more members to volunteer to help with things….especially trail building.

Dave

 

Monthly meeting news and notes

Last night was a good meeting with 11 people in attendance.  Here’s what went down:

• Cesar Mendez from the State Park assured us that the trail over the northern pass in the park will be built and it will be AWESOME…but they’ll need some help.  We’ll keep everyone informed about future trail crews.
• Cesar informed us that the $25 individual bike pass is no longer being sold.  You must now buy a $60 pass, but you can add a friend on for an additional $15….just use the same address.  This pass is a good deal.  To pay it off you only need to ride in the park 15 times.
• The club is going to buy banners and a table to help our exposure at club rides.
• The club is going to buy new t-shirts, bumper stickers, socks, and hats.
• Trail flagging crews will be announced soon in order to finish flagging all the trail at the Westside Rec. Center.
• The old nmsu managed bmba email service will soon disappear…around August.  It has caused confusion as people think they are BMBA members when they sign up for that mail service.  you must pay $25 to be a true BMBA member.  Check the become a member link on the side.
• A small trail crew will do vegetation cleanup on Mad Cow Saturday morning.  Meet at Heinrich at 8:30.  Bring gloves and clippers…rake if you have one.  I’ll have a weedeater, mcleod, and maddox on my bob trailer.  I’m planning on using the weedeater with the blade to cut back all the veg that is sticking out or up.

Dave

 

IMBA IS COMING…IMBA IS COMING!!!

The schedule has been updated…as I finally got in direct contact with the IMBA crew.  Major changes include tonight’s dinner starts earlier….6 pm.  Sunday’s schedule has been changed to our normal club ride at Heinrich at 9 am.  Cookout to follow.  Either bring something to share, or plan to chip in some money.

Here is the current schedule:

• Thursday (Feb 26th) – Daytime- IMBA trailcare crew meets with city planner at Westside Rec. Center to survey site of trail building clinic and trail building session for the weekend.  Evening - Dinner at Sunset Pizza (starts around 6:00) with BMBA and whoever else wants to join.
• Friday (27th) – Daytime – IMBA crew spends the day with Robert Newman checking out a route over the north end of the Franklins.  Evening (5 to 8 pm)-Free food and half price drinks at Cincinatti Bar.**
• Saturday 9 am- Trail building clinic in the am at Westside Rec. Center, PM trail building session
• Sunday 9 am – group ride at Heinrich Park….cookout to follow.

**NOTICE- Free food and half price drinks at Cincinatti Bar.

 

Puzzler is over…now time for the real trail stuff!!

This past month has been really amazing with the Puzzler and all.  After the puzzler I got an email forwarded to me regarding the visit to El Paso from the IMBA trail care crew.  I was suprized that we hadn’t heard anything about this since we are the IMBA affiliated club for the area.  I made a few phone calls and found out that the city…yes…the city has hired a young lady who wants to finish a dirt trails master plan for the entire city.  We’re talking skills parks, trails through power line areas, connectors from Monk’s to Redd Rd., trails on the east side, mountain to river trails, more trails on psb land….(north of Heinrich???!!!)

The trail care crew needs a place to crash.  It’s a husband/wife team that need a place from the 26th of Feb to the 1st of March.  If anyone wants to host, please let me know.  You need to be on the west side.  I’d offer, but logistically it would add an hour or so a day of driving for them as I live off Magnetic.

 Also…..we need as many people as possible to join us for dinner the night of the 26th as this city planner is inviting developers to meet with the IMBA crew.  We need to be there in force to push our agenda.  We have several priorities that need to be addressed before the needs of the city as they have secured tons of land and her plan is to just get the trail master plan within 6 months.

 Our priorities consist of the following:

• Finish the epic loop around the park with a trail over the mountains into Hitt Canyon
• Develop bike patrol to help educate users…mostly for the northeast as the state park has little influence there at this time
• Begin a signage program for all of our amazing trails

 This master plan is a huge opportunity and I’ve given her the club’s commitment to helping her gps all the potential and existing trails.  I told her to stop killing herself on the trails stuff….secure the land and we’ll out the trails.  I’m assuming the city will pay for the construction.

So keep your calendar open for Thursday the 26th…dinner somewhere with the IMBA trail care crew and city developers.  I’ll keep everyone up to date on the location and time.

Also plan to join us on Saturday on the west side for a trail building clinic and construction session at the “three hills” off Redd Rd.

Here’s the link to sign up for the weekend.  Please sign up if you’d like to attend any of the weekend’s activities.

David Wilson, Club President

 P.S.  Thanks again to all the Puzzler volunteers.  I would have shot myself without your incredible help Saturday.

 Check out the coverage at cyclingnews.com.  http://cyclingnews.com/mtb.php?id=mtb/2009/feb09/elpasopuzzler09

 

This Sunday’s Club Ride….

Feb. 1st is another Sunday group ride.  It will be held at the main state park in the upper parking lot.  We meet at 9am.

We are looking for someone to volunteer to take care of the food.  If you want to do this, please contact us at bmbaelpaso@hotmail.com.  We can reimburse you for the cost of the food.

Brent and I along with some others will be marking the course inside the main park.  If you would like to help, bring a hammer and a staple gun that will shoot the LONG staples (9/16″).  I have staples if you need them.

See you there!