TCC Journal
IMBA Trail News
Volume 13, Number 4
Fall 2000
The following are excerpts from journal entries logged by Subaru/IMBA Trail Care Crew No. 3, Rich & Jen Edwards. For more TCC info visit www.imba.com
- Highland Lakes, NJ
"Northern New Jersey's Wawayanda State Park is blessed with technical terrain and rock fields reminiscent of West Virginia. Rock was the theme of the day. We struck rock, moved rock, smashed rock and built with rock. Our crew hammered on until the section of trail was finished. As we stumbled back to the car to prepare our bodies and bikes for a well-deserved post trailwork ride, the skies opened to deliver an open-air shower massive deluge."
- Fayetteville, WV
"The National Park Service here at the New River Gorge National River is working to connect mountain bike trails along the top of the New River Gorge with the town of Fayetteville. Nearly 30 hardy volunteers showed up for our project. The rolling grade dips were finished quickly, so we decided to begin building switchbacks. The trail sat on a 30% sideslope, so we knew our retaining wall would need to stand two-to-three feet high. Gathering stone was a priority. Fortunately the NPS trail crew was used to moving rock and began gathering stone and boulders for the wall. After several hours of grinding work we finished the section of new trail!"
- Long Island, NY
"Long Island trail user groups are coming together to save the island's remaining trails and open spaces specifically, stabilizing the glacial till soil which makes up the trail tread in Long Island. We spent two days evaluating trails and leading work sessions with Ken Kindler of Southhampton Trails Preservation Society and the Paumanok Path Management Committee. The TCC-led trail work was a cooperative effort among all the area user groups, including the hiking organization Easthampton Trails Preservation, Concerned Long Island Mountain Bikers (CLIMB), and the Bike Hampton bike shop."
- Conway, NH
"We met with IMBA's New Hampshire state rep Mark Jenks and members of the White Mountain National Forest Management Plan Revision team. The locals have been involved with the National Forest trail planning process since the beginning, giving them lots of credibility. Their dedication has helped the forest planning team realize that mountain bikers represent a significant percentage of the trail users. The plan is still many months from being complete, but should turn out quite positively."
- Arundel, ME
"The Arundel Middle School sits adjacent to 26 acres of open land, and last year the students decided that the best use of this land would be to build mountain biking trails. Smart kids! We met with a small group of teachers at the school and taught them the basics of trailbuilding. Throughout the school year, the teachers will incorporate this information into their standard curriculums. For example, while going through the process of walking the land, mapping the control points, flagging and building the trail, the math teacher might teach about slope grade percentages and the rise-over-run equation. The science teacher will use the trails to teach about different soil types, plant and animal species, etc. The teachers were very enthusiastic, and hopefully the kids will be too when the school year starts."
