Club Notes: Midwest

IMBA Trail News
Volume 14, Number 2
Early Summer 2001

As this edition of ITN went to press, Springfield Area Mountain Bike Association (SAMBA, of Illinois) was prepping for an important late May trailwork weekend at the Jim Edgar Panther Creek Fish and Wildlife Area. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources is building a campground there (at Site M) for use by mountain bikers and other visitors. SAMBA is contributing labor to build a trail that will link the campground with a 15-mile path that circles the 210-acre lake. Info: www.cityscape.net/~samba.

Oklahoma summers can be hot, but it's never too warm for trail maintenance. Oklahoma Earthbike Fellowship, Bicycle League of Norman and Oklahoma State Parks and Recreation Department will continue working together on the Clear Bay mountain bike trail at Lake Thunderbird in Norman.

Years of persistent work by the Indiana Bicycle Coalition and other Hoosier cycling groups is paying off big-time as a new partnership between IBC and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources will finally open state land to mountain biking. The DNR's Forests division is the first branch of the DNR to designate trails for mountain bike use: the first five trail locations should be announced by time you read this Info: www.bicycleindiana.org. DNR-managed reservoirs, forests and recreation areas should follow with trail announcements, though the timetable is uncertain. Thanks to Connie Szabo Schmucker and Richard Ries of IBC, the Indianapolis Spoke Breakers and the trails staff at Indiana DNR, for pushing to make this important change happen.