Subaru/BikeTexas
Trail Doctors Diaries
November
2003
Onion Creek / Tapatio
Springs / San Angelo SP / Canyon Lake Park
Hi
folks! Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving and that
your holiday season is going well. Here’s
what the Trail Docs have been up to in November.
We kicked off the month with an REI service project
in south Austin at the Onion Creek Greenbelt.
Together with the Austin
Ridge Riders, Texas
Trail Tamers, and several volunteers we did
a huge clean-up project and cut a few new singletrack
reroutes to improve trail user experiences. From
there we headed over to San Antonio to do a presentation
at the monthly meeting for the STORM
club (South Texas Off-Road Mountain Bikers). We
are grateful that the club has generously donated
$250 to our program to match the $250 donated
by Bikemojo.com
for prize money in our upcoming fundraiser race.
(For those of you who haven’t heard, we’re
sponsoring a race called the Trail Docs Torture
Test on January 3 to raise money for our program.)
Since
we were down in the San Antonio area, we did some
more work flagging trail corridor at Tapatio Springs
Resort, then went to visit with staff at the Cibolo
Nature Preserve that is also in Boerne. Carolyn
Chipman-Evans is the director of the preserve,
and asked if we could visit to offer some suggestions
about how to improve trails at the property. The
preserve is a beautiful piece of property with
abundant wildlife and it sits on the shores of
Cibolo Creek. The trails that are there could
be dramatically improved with just a little bench
cutting, so we agreed to teach a trail school
to local folks in January and lead some work parties
to get that taken care of.
After
a few days off in Warda, we went to Rocky Hill
Ranch in Smithville for the Texas
Trailfest. This event was organized by two
very energetic and dedicated “charity athletes”
in Austin, and it was a fun weekend. Participants
rode bikes, did trail runs, competed in an adventure
race, and practiced on a portable climbing wall,
all while raising money for the Capital Area Food
Bank and Communities in Schools programs. The
Trail Docs helped out by teaching basic cycling
safety, leading group rides, and doing a slideshow
presentation on sustainable trail building.
After
working locally for a few weeks we got to pack
for a long trip and drive the Subaru back out
west to San
Angelo State Park. It was nice to check out
how some of the work we had done last February
was holding up—the reroute we had designed
was dug in last winter by local soldiers, and
it looked good in spite of some recent heavy rains.
We also got to meet with park manager Pat Bales
this time around, since he had been out of town
at our last visit. Pat is the first park manager
that has actually ridden with us, and he just
about left us in the dust—that guy is fast!!
Unfortunately with all of the recent rains, the
trails have gotten very overgrown with brush and
cactus. We cleared back a section of singletrack
and met with some local folks to try to increase
volunteer participation in maintaining the trails.
We
also got to visit again with TPWD cultural resources
specialist Kent Hicks who consulted with us about
approvals for some other reroutes we flagged out.
As always we enjoyed working with Kent, and he
facilitated our visit the following week to Lake
Colorado City State Park since we happened
to be in the area. While at that park we met with
manager Tracy Ferguson (who had taken our trail
school in Lubbock) and worked on designing a brand
new mountain bike trail system with him. It’s
exciting to get in on the ‘ground floor’
and start with a blank slate, instead of being
focused on fixing problems caused by prior bad
trail designs. We’ll keep you posted on
developments in that area.
After
working in all of the cacti and other prickly
plants in west Texas, it was nice to point the
Subaru back towards the Hill Country and do some
work in the New Braunfels/San Marcos area. We
were invited to teach a trail school at Canyon
Lake Park where the Camino Real Bicycle Club
has done a lot of work on the Madrone Trail. The
third Texas IMBA representative Dewayne Buratti
also showed up to help out and lead one of the
work parties. We had a nice group who really enjoyed
the presentation and put in a lot of hard work
on the reroute section we completed. If you haven’t
ridden the Madrone Trail yet, we highly recommend
you go check it out—it’s very technical
and challenging, and offers some beautiful views
of Canyon Lake. Let us know what you think of
it if you do go. The other nice thing about heading
back to central Texas was the opportunity to visit
and ride with our friends in Austin. We did a
Church
of the Knobby Tyre ride at the Barton Creek
Greenbelt and it was just like old times!
We
wrapped up the month by spending Thanksgiving
Day in Houston and then working from home and
leading some Paydirt work parties at Bluff Creek
Ranch in Warda. Damon Nolan continues the Doc
Nolan tradition of feeding volunteers a big ranch
breakfast before they set out to work, and it
is definitely a great idea, much appreciated by
the volunteers. We did a lot of vegetation trimming,
built a short reroute, and removed some chain
link geotextile and numerous root stobs in the
“Oh Shoot!” section of trail. All
in all a productive weekend, and it’s good
to be getting things ready for our January race.
Next
up in December: we head to the Belton/Temple/Nolanville
area to work with the Central Texas Trails Network
folks and teach some more trail schools and lead
work parties. Then we’re off to North Carolina
for some continuing education training with IMBA.
We’re going to learn some more advanced
armoring techniques and how to run several mechanized
trail building machines. Ryan will become even
more proficient with a chainsaw, and Susan just
knows that her psychology mentors will be so proud
of her for learning how to drive a small bulldozer!
(just kidding)
**Public
Service Announcement**
Don’t throw away all those tubes you keep
intending to patch but never get around to. After
gathering a couple of tubes that no longer hold
air, you can recycle them with a very forward-thinking
company named Pedro’s.
The Pedro’s Recycling Program asks that
you send only un-Slimed MTB tubes to their office
at Pedro’s USA, 600 Research Drive, Wilmington,
MA 01887. You’ll feel better about yourself
when you do! Take care, and we’ll talk to
you in January.
