MTBco

The International Mountain Bike Association (IMBA) Trail Care Crew visited Kelowna from June 18th to 21st as one of their 70 stops throughout North America. IMBA and MTBco helped local riders, experienced and aspiring trail builders, club members, government staff and clubs from the Shuswap to the South Okanagan learn more about sustainable trail maintenance and construction.

The visit started on Thursday, June 18th with a government employee specific trail school were staff from the City of Kelowna, District of West Kelowna, Regional District of The Central Okanagan, BC Parks and the Ministry of Tourism Culture and The Arts learned about sustainable trail building techniques. 17 government staff members participated in the session showing their commitment to the Regional Mountain Bike Stategy.

On Friday, June 19th directors from MTBco, Friends of The South Slopes, The Central Okanagan Hiking Club, The North Okanagan Cycling Society, The Shuswap Trail Alliance and The Pentictona and Area Cycling Association and the South Okanagan Bike Club all participated in a club building workshop. The groups learned techniques to keep their clubs strong, motivated and effective. The session also laid the ground work for future regional club meetings. The clubs will pursue ways to further work together on issues such as sign standards and design, regional trail opportunities and joint promotion.

The main event was of course the Trail School held on Saturday, June 20th. The 32 participants spent half a day in class on the shores of Okanagan Lake at the Mission Activity Center. This in class session provided the back ground needed to participate in the afternoon field session held on Knox Mountain. The in class session taught participants how to ensure their future trails will not only be sustainable, but also fun. We all now know you can have both! After the in class session participants were treated to an amazing lunch at the Bike Shop Cafe located on Ellis St. right across from the library. What a meal! Darren and Kim went all out ensuring our crew was ready for an afternoon of trail work. Once up at Knox the crew went through an initial safety meeting to discuss tool use and work site safety then it was up to the top of the mountain just above the ranger station to do a trail decommission and re route. The group was divided into two teams, one team, lead by Jason Van Horn of IMBA, was to begin the decommission of the old unsustainable (aka erroded) trail section and begin the re route while the other team learned about trail design from Inga Beck of IMBA. The crews applied their new found knowledge to create an awesome new trail section with tons of flow. Everyone worked really hard and had a ton of fun in the process. We all learned that having access to a water tank trailer and hoses to soak down the trail makes life wayyyyy easier….hmmm, I think MTBco could use a water tank!

After a hard day of trail work what could be better than showing up at the bike shop to a smoking bbq, two kegs and music. Cyclepath and Tree Brewing had it all lined up…burgers and veggie burgers for all, salads and Tree Brewing Thristy Beaver! Awesome. The gang took a much deserved seat, socialized, ate drank and raced…yeah raced. You see we decided that giving out prizes with your basic raffel ticket draw was good at first but when it came to the final two best prizes you just had to earn it. A Camel Bak pack donated by Cyclepath and Outdoor Gear Canada and a shuttle for 10 to Vapour trail in Myra Bellevue Park by Monashee Adventure Tours were up for grabs and the slowest rider wins. The good ol slow as you can go race on kids bikes. Perfect for really tired, slightly intoxicated mountain bikers.

Sunday. Finally the day to ride. Everyone started to arrive at the base of Knox Mountain about 10am as a light rain fell. A rider from Revelstoke reminded us that it was not raining out, but was rather only sprinkling. I guess some of us are Okanagan soft now. There were downhillers, all mountain riders and cross country riders. The groups were formed and destinations were chosen. The downhill contingent would be off to Gillard while the others headed to Smith Creek. Lesson one, don’t hold up a bunch of DHers that are stoked to ride. It can get ugly, just let them go. Lesson two…cross country riders must be let off the leash. Don’t even try to keep on them with your 6 inch bike…there’s no shame being outclimbed by these animals. Lesson three, don’t be mean and tell out of towners (aka, the IMBA rep) that its ok to bring your DH bike to go climb Smith Creek. Thats just mean. Dave, you are mean! We all took our time and sure enough we got to the top and had a blast ripping down the Smith Creek DH line. What a trail…we are so lucky here in the Okanagan to have such awesome trail builders. Thank your local builders, better yet, give them money for tools, nails and fuel and buy them beer when you see them at the pub.

After the ride we all headed back to see if we could put a bit of dent in the remainder of the keg of Tree Thirsty Beaver then it was time to say goodbye to our IMBA crew, Jason and Inga. The event had been a huge success with everyone learning a lot and having a ton of fun. Events such as this are only possible by the hard work and dedication of volunteers and the support of our sponsors. I want to thank the crew that helped to make this event possible and our sponsors that stepped up to make sure the event was top knotch.

A big thanks goes out to:

• Lori Evans for taking care of the entire invite, registration and communications end of the event. This is the stuff that takes a great deal of time, a lot of skill and far more organizational know how than I will ever have…

• Lee McKay and Studio A Graphic Design. Lee not only sponsored the event by providing the awesome promo poster and maps but he took on site logistics at the various venues (with help from Steph of course…!)

• Stu Evans, Darren Pugh and Scott Lars for volunteering your time to take on site prep work, logistics at each venue, sign in and of course the set up of the water tank. It started as a  crazy idea that just happened to work like a champ.

• Dave Petrik and Kinga Gortel. Dave and Kinga welcomed Jason and Inga from IMBA into their home providing them with an amazing place to sleep, rest, work and enjoy the veiw overlooking Kelowna from the door step of Knox Mountain.

• Don Moore, the beer man. Don didn’t even let me finish my sentence when I was asking him about how to get free beer for the event. ‘No worries, I got it covered….’ thanks Don! Tell the gang at Tree how much we enjoyed the Thirsty Beaver.

• Jim Maybee and the Shuswap Trail Alliance for providing us with insight on choosing a field work site and for bringing a ton of tools. We couldn’t have done it without your support. Thanks Jim, and thanks to whole Shuswap Trail Alliance team.

• Friends of The South Slopes (FOSS) for providing us with tools and for always supporting MTBco and our events.

• A big thanks to the City of Kelowna Parks Department, Recreation Department and Outdoor Events Committee for providing us with the venues for this event, for trusting us to work on Knox Mountain, assisting us with funding the event and ensuring we would be free to work in the park without running into an angry bride to be whose wedding was ruined by a bunch of mountain bikers (long story). Cheers to Barb Davidson, Jim Gabriel, Claudia Buhler and Ian Wilson for your support.

• Our title sponsors, Cyclepath Bike Shop and The Bike Shop Cafe really stepped up to help turn this event into an experience to be remembered for all. An amazing lunch in an oh so cool resturant (you really have to go see this place) by the Bike Shop Cafe and a dialed BBQ and social at Cyclepath Bike Shop took this from a good event to great one.

• Nato of Okanagan Sign Design produced killer trail maintenance signs for us that the club can now use at all our our trail days. Cheers, Nato.

• Winn Rentals provided us with water hoses to run our water tank. Most of these guys ride too so they were stoked to help us out.

• Thank you also to our prizing sponsors, Monashee Adventure Tours, IMBA, Bush Pilot Biking, Outdoor Gear Canada and Giant Bikes. Mountain bikers love swag and these companies came through.

To everyone who participated, thank you for coming out and making this event rock. And to IMBA and Subaru, thank you for running such a great program and for choosing to make a stop in Kelowna. This event has helped us to keep the momentum gained from the Regional Mountain Bike Strategy alive and has given MTBco an opportunity to host people from all over our region. Good times, new friends, more trails.

Feel Shame if you missed this event…

Heres a link to a summary of the event by Jason from IMBA:

http://www.ihatebikes.net/wordpress/spots/kelowna-bc-imba-tour-de-canada-part-i/

Cheers,

Mike Kittmer

Director

MTBco

Filed under:Club Events, Club News

By MikeDK