Weekend update…

Today’s group ride was really fun.  Quite a few people showed up to ride on their own, others joined us for the Mad Cow-Sotol Forest loop.  What a blast!  Beautiful day, great trails, and food afterwards. 

Our club meeting is on for Monday night at 7.  Same place…Sunset Pizza on Mesa.  Come early to order your food and socialize a bit before the meeting.  Most of our agenda will cover things to do with the Puzzler. 

Upcoming events include the following:

Jan. 10 at 4 pm.  We’ll be hosting a Puzzler preparation party at Dave Wilson’s house.  We’ll be doing sign inventory, making some new signs, and building the trophies for this year’s puzzler.

Jan. 11  9 am - Puzzler loop leaderless ride.  This ride will leave from the upper parking lot in the Tom May’s unit of the State Park.  We’ll be firing up the grill after this ride for those who want to feast afterwards.  Emphasize that this ride is a NOT group ride.  Check the post previous to this one (below) for the gps file and maps.

 

HOLIDAYS!!!!

Wow! This year has flown by.  So many trails ridden….and more to come.

Here are the plans for the New Year:

January 4th – 9 am – Heinrich Park group ride and potluck.  We are calling it a potluck as we aren’t sure what the weather will be like or how many people will show up due to the holidays.  So bring your grill if you’ve got it and a little extra for your friends.  We’ll be there with membership apps and t-shirts.

January 5th – 7 pm – meeting at Sunset Pizza.

January 11th – 9am – Tom May’s (west side main state park) – UPPER PARKING LOT – Leaderless Puzzler loop ride.  Every man/woman/child for themselves.  First one back to the parking lot lights the grill.  Plan on about 5 hours for the fastest/shortest loop.  The full loop has been taking us close to 5 hours every time and we haven’t been messing around too much.  Download the gps file here so you won’t get lost.  And print out this map here so you will know where you are.

 

Missed opportunity

Today’s group ride/bike demo at Heinrich was really awesome.  But I will be the first to admit that the BMBA missed a wonderful opportunity to bring more members into the club.  Apologies go out to those who were looking to join up.  We now have membership applications available here.

Thanks to The Bicycle Co. for the cookout.  The demo was a blast and people got to ride bikes that they’d never think of riding if it wasn’t staring them in the face with trails just a few yards away.  I actually rode a road bike.  It’s the first road bike besides my own I’ve ridden in almost 10 years. 

Next month’s club ride will be at Heinrich Park….again.  We’ll be back on our normal schedule.  We’ll ride Jan. 4th at 9 am.  Our meeting will be Monday night the 5th at Sunset Pizza.

Dave

 

December Meeting

Wow!  This year has flown by and we’ve accomplished so much.  Yet there is so much more to be accomplished.

Join us Monday night (Dec. 1) at 7 pm at Sunset Pizza on Mesa for our monthly meeting/social gathering.

The agenda so far:

• Puzzler stuff (we’ll be meeting at 6 to discuss this)
• Membership, accounting
• Park issues – suggest a master plan, iron rangers on east side, existing trails, etc.
• TXDOT Culvert on west side
• Change of group ride on Dec. 7 to Heinrich Park
• Pedi-cab
• Member input

 

TRAIL WORK DAY A SUCCESS

Oct. 25 provided us with a beautiful day for doing some trail work.  Trail guru Robert Newman led us to the roughest spots on his new Sotol Forest Trail in the Franklin Mountain State Park for a little TLC while three other club members headed up Hitt Canyon to clean up the single track northwest of the windmill.

Check out Robert’s snake chaps.  They double as trail tool holsters!  Robert is now a member of the BMBA….for life!  After our day of trail building, we knighted Robert as an honorary life member.  Most of the mountain bike community knows the great work this man has done for us.  He’s a special person for El Paso and we’ll make sure his trails get ridden a lot!

Robert Newman (r) and Mike Rossen

A nice 4×4 road gave us easy access to the trail.  We only had to walk about a quarter mile from where we parked the trucks. 

The primary motivation for this effort was to improve our rocky trails.  Much of the work consisted of moving protruding rocks into a better position on the trail.  Doing this keeps the trail “rock solid” and keeps trail workers from having to fill a big hole left by the pesky rock.  Check out Brent laying stone…it’s definitely a skill you can easily gain here in El Paso.

Afterwards, we enjoyed the trail doing what we do best.

  

Later in the evening we got to enjoy some special brews courtesy of New Belgium Brewing!  These guys rock!  We were hoping to draw all the people from the work day on the 25th and from the weekend before, but only about a dozen showed up for our New Trail Celebration.  We did make a small dent in the beer, but we have plenty left for another celebration of some sorts.  We’ll keep you updated.

 

A big thanks goes out to New Belgium Brewing for more beer than we thought we’d need.  The rest will go to good use soon.  Thanks to Clif Bar for providing us with some tasty snacks to keep us fueled on the trail.  Thanks to Jesse at the State Park for lending a guiding hand and some muscle.  Thanks to rancher Jimmy Bowen for giving us easy access to the trail via the sandiest road in El Paso.  And lastly, thanks to Robert Newman for his efforts in securing and building amazing trails in our desert.

 

We have a logo!!!!

We finally came up with a pretty good logo last night and this morning and club members gave it the thumbs up at Monday night’s meeting.

We will be ordering t-shirts this week and Jen is working on a jersey.  I’d like to get socks as well…..nice tall woolie Sock Guy brand as they are all the rage.

Here is the logo with the dark background:

The new shirt will most likely be on a 100% cotton colored shirt.

We have added some new members and we are up to 27 members. 

Check the EVENTS page for some updates to our schedule.  We have made some changes to the trail maintenance days.

 

 

 

September Update

We had 10 people show up to our meeting at Jaxon’s.  We may return our meetings to Sunset Pizza as long as the turnouts are this low.  The menu at Jaxon’s is also very meat heavy.  Not a lot of good choices for cyclists.  Sunset also has more New Belgium varieties on tap while Jaxon’s on Mesa has very few beers.

Lots of things were discussed concerning club care and political happenings around town in regards to open space and trail development.  We have a lot of opportunities, but we need more members to help our cause….which is to get more trail in El Paso.

The main things that happened:

• We decided to hire an artist to improve our old logo
• We set up new rides to bring new riders into the club (see the EVENTS page)
• We are hosting the Puzzler race February 7th.
• We got a free keg of New Belgium for our trail building volunteers

If you want more info about the meetings or the events we have scheduled, email bmbaelpaso@hotmail.com.

 

IMBA World Summit Opening Day

The official summit had not even begun and I attended a full day seminar geared towards Trips for Kids chapters.  If you aren’t familiar, they do the bike program for at risk youth.  I came out with lots of ideas and some new friends. 

The opening ceremonies that evening were awesome.  Free beer, great food, and an amazing aerial ski jump show mc’eed by HIll Abel with the keynote address by Utah governor John Huntsman. 

Check back for more updates.

Late…late….late…edit.

It was difficult to get to reliable and fast internet access after the IMBA Summit.  After the summit I was totally exhausted and had less than a week to get rested for my first 100 miler.  For a full update on the Summit and a sharing of the new ideas I picked up, come to our next meeting on Sept. 1.

 

Arroyo efforts rewarded with unanimous vote

It was good to see the turnout from BMBA members at today’s city council meeting.  If you’ve never attended one of your city’s council meetings, I highly encourage you to do so as it is a civic’s lesson in action.  If you are lucky enough to be in a city like El Paso, you see that there is hope!

With the six year effort of Charlie Joaquin and BMBA member Rick Bonart, the City Council finally voted to approve an acceptable definition of an Arroyo.  The main thing we were looking for was to eliminate the man-made concrete ditch portion of the definition and to make sure the size of the arroyo wasn’t limited to the wash or dry stream bed.  The new definition includes the phrase “rim to rim”.  This will be the next point of contention as the definition of the rim is subject to opinion.  But…it guarantees that we will be able to use the arroyos for recreational use without having to build trail right up a stream bed. 

I’d like to thank Wendy and Charles Holt for their comments.  Charles did a much better job than I did.  It was tough to even consider saying anything as by the time we spoke, I’m pretty sure the council was set on our definition.  I think Charlie’s power point did the trick.  Excellent job!

Lessons learned:  Next time there is an item on the agenda that we are addressing, everyone needs to come in at 9 and sign in to speak on that item even if you DON’T want to speak.  You can then pass your time to another person that is more confident and knowledgeable on the subject.

Stay tuned for updates from the IMBA World Summit. 

 

June Meeting Report

Wow!  The meeting on June 2 went smoothly and we were able to hit everything on the agenda in just over one hour.

Thanks to club member Robert Edwards for keeping minutes on his macbook. 

STATE PARK SUPERINTENDANT Q &A :

• Bike Patrol – Cesar is going to get more info and get back with us.
• Land acquisitions – The park will not be overburdened if the PSB gives more land to the park.
• Trail building – We have planned two weekends to have an organized trail building day (Oct. 18 and 25).
• Message boards/Iron Rangers – We requested permission to use the current message boards in the park (main park near trail heads and NE near Tin Mine Rd/Mundy’s Gap Rd. junction) and allow us to build and install a message board at the Pile of Rocks in the area south of Transmtn Rd.  We also suggested that they install Iron Rangers (the self pay stations) at the Pile of Rocks and at the first state park boundary sign on the Tin Mine Rd. in the Heinrich area.
• Cesar wants us to call (915-566-6441) or email the him (cesar.mendez@tpwd.state.tx.us) with our pass # anytime we ride the trails where we will not be passing a pay station (Heinrich or Redd Rd. trails).   You can even call once a week (preferably starting Thursday) to tell him you will be in the park Fri, Sat, and Sunday if that’s your plan.  Every user day that is recorded by the park helps them with funding from the state.  Every mountain bike user day shows them how important mountain bikers are to the park.  How many times have you ridden in the park without letting them know?
• Trail workshop is tentatively set up for 2 days sometime in July.  If anyone is interested it would be beneficial to have someone work with the state park on this.
• CELEBRATION OF OUR MOUNTAINS!!  This is a most wonderful opportunity for the BMBA.  This celebration is to take place late September through November.  The park wants us to head up all the mountain bike activities we can.  We already have the trail work days planned (unless it gets finished before then).  Here are some of the things I’m thinking we should do:  beginner ride clinic (maybe more than one), women’s only ride, huge mega super tour of the park (Puzzler Lap???), trail-side repair clinic, night ride during one of the full moons, and Hitt Canyon loop guided ride.  If I could I’d lead every one of them….except the women’s only ride.  Doing so would ruin me, so if you’d like to volunteer for any of these or have any ideas of your own, let me know.  Come up with a solid date as well.  The park will do all the publicity for us.

CLUB CHARTER - I promise I’ll work on it and have it posted before I leave town.  Please leave comments and suggestions.

TYPE OF ORGANIZATION – It was decided that the BMBA should be a non-profit.  Does anyone know any lawyers who would be willing to help us with the paperwork?

T-SHIRT – There is a design, but the computer crashed and we have not seen it yet.  We would also like to make a club jersey.  It would be awesome if we could have both by Celebration of our Mountains.  If you have any ideas or designs for a jersey or t-shirt, email them to bmbaelpaso@hotmail.com.

IMBA SUMMIT – The club approved to pay the registration fee for me to attend the IMBA Summit in Park City, UT later this month.  I’ll be in Salt Lake during that time, so I’ll be taking care of all my other expenses such as diesel (uhhgg) and food. 

CITY COUNCIL UPDATE – Rick Bonart informed us that the city council will be addressing the definition of an arroyo.  These boneheads want to allow developers to build all the way up to the edge of a wash.  There needs to be a buffer.  I sent out an email about this so I’ll spare the details.  The council meeting is Tuesday June 10 at 9 am.  We’ve got 3 or 4 people committed to going.  I’ll be speaking for sure!

NEXT MEETING – Since all the current officers are educators, we’ll be enjoying our summer elsewhere.  Next meeting is Sept. 1 at Sunset Pizza at 7 pm.  Have a great summer!  I’ll keep you updated here and via email.

END OF SCHOOLYEAR PARTY – BYOB&M party at the Sanders’ house.  Tuesday the 10th at 7 p.m.  bring your own meat and beer and throw it on the grill.
directions are below:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=5435+king+place,+el+paso,+tx&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=95.953321,109.160156&ie=UTF8&ll=31.851133,-106.615191&spn=0.026902,0.02665&z=15&iwloc=addr

ONLINE MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION – I’m currently setting up a paypal account so people can pay dues and make donations with the click of a mouse.

Your President

*  Celebration of our mountain is Late September to November.  We need people to volunteer to take beginner level riders out.
*  I think that we all decided on non-profit status as long as it is not cost prohibitive.  I can get in contact with someone on that issue and see what they come up with.  Just looked at legalzoom.com and they charge $139.00 to do it + any applicable state fees.  I reckon that it can’t be too complicated…isn’t there a lawyer out there somewhere who will do this for us bikers?
*  Trail workshop is tentatively set up for 2 days sometime in July.  If anyone is interested it would be beneficial to have someone work with the state park on this.
*  Get the summer going right.  School’s out for the summer!  well…kind of.  BYOB&M party at the Sanders’ house.  Tuesday the 10th at 7 p.m.  bring your own meat and beer and throw it on the grill.
directions are below:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=5435+king+place,+el+paso,+tx&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=95.953321,109.160156&ie=UTF8&ll=31.851133,-106.615191&spn=0.026902,0.02665&z=15&iwloc=addr