Giving Our Trails Some Respect

Some of you may already be aware that last Tuesday, May 19th, we had our first ‘Trail-specific’ meeting for Overland Mountain Bike Club/Diamond Peaks Mountain Bike Patrol for this season. For those of you who aren't aware, Diamond Peaks Mountain Bike Patrol, and now Overland Mountain Bike Club, has been working with local land agencies and looking after the trails in our area for more than a decade. In recent years, we have finished the Kimmons Trail and the Howard Trail over in Lory State Park. We have funded trail projects. Recently, we've given a grant to the USFS for a crucial re-route on Hewlett Gulch, a trail we helped maintain also. We helped build alternate lines on the Ginny Trail at Bobcat Ridge. The photo above is from last fall on our Bobcat Trail Day. And these are just to name a few.

That being said, it was nice to finally have a meeting dedicated to discussing our local trail networks and our long term vision for putting Fort Collins on the national map as a mountain bike destination. Although the turnout wasn’t as big as I’d hoped, the people who did show up brought plenty of passion and knowledge to the discussion.

Our first meeting was pretty laid back. We mostly just started the discussion about our trails -where we are today and where we want to be in the future. Some of the topics that were brought up:

1) The need to start a Trail Committee within Overland Mountain Bike Club with monthly meetings and social gatherings to build camaraderie.

2) Start a “Big Picture” plan for the greater Fort Collins/Northern Colorado area by mapping out where we would like to build trails in the future in an effort to make our area a world class mountain bike destination.

3) Applying for grant money to help fund our vision

4) A real need to perform routine maintenance to currently existing trail networks, Shoreline, Maxwell, Horsetooth Mountain, etc.

5) Building an experienced Trail Maintenance Team within the group

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday June 9th, location to be announced. If you're passionate about trails and are interested in furthering the role of mountain biking in Northern Colorado, please show up and bring a friend. We'd like to hear from all interested riders from XC to DH. Check the calendar at http://www.overlandmtb.org/ for more details about our gathering place.

Thanks again to all dedicated members, including our hometown hero, Georgia Gould and her husband Dusty, who took time out of their schedules to come meet with us.

~Rob Foster