News

​For a good section of the country, winter time brings out the hardiest of the hardy: winter bikers.  It takes a special type of person to ride their bike in the winter.  But it also takes special work to make the trails fun for riders.  That special work is known as grooming.
Grooming for winter use is becoming more regular and normal across the snowy north, but still can fall into the “black art” territory.  Why groom?  What types of grooming are there? 

We have all been there.  You open up your local paper or a weblink to an article and read about a mountain biking trail you have some knowledge about.  Somewhere around paragraph three your jaw drops at how much the reporter got wrong.  How did this happen?  How can a simple (seeming) story about mountain bike trails go so off the rails and come out looking like it’s a story in Pravda about capitalist pigs?

So how does this happen?

​Before some heavy articles come up, let’s all take a moment to have a little fun and talk about some great bike wear that is either high quality or more ‘blue collar’ in pricing or both.

While an article is forthcoming regarding IMBA and some things that are going  on, IMBA has a new survey for mountain bikers, members and non-members alike.   Its important to take the 10-15 minutes to fill this survey because:

• It helps IMBA define who is who and what they are interested in
• For the first time in a long time, this survey asks for priorities for IMBA, which seems to indicate they are looking at some re-focusing; including...
• A fair amount of questions regarding Wilderness, back-country access 
• So real questions about eMTBs that could help IMBA redefine their stance on eMTBs

All in all, there are a lot of questions in the survey that need answering by all of us if we are to help steer IMBA. 

The survey can be found here:   https://ohio.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e8ugn6H4uebaBRH

​We’ve all heard it, “I’m not an anti-mountain biker, I just think that…”  Or maybe you have heard “calling me an anti-mountain biker is a pejorative”.
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That raises some questions, of course.  What is an anti-mountain biker and anti-mountain biking?  Is it a pejorative to say a person or group is anti-mountain bike?  If it is not a pejorative, why should anti-mountain biking persons and groups be correctly identified?

“Be a team player.”  You probably have heard that phrase from the first years of your schooling.  It’s almost always used in conjunction with the idea that doing a project or activity with others will produce a better result.  Whether that is always true is debatable.

But the one area where collaboration can produce positive results is in the field of urban mountain biking public meetings and in trail layout.  And there is one method that manages to take both those disparate parts of the process and combine them.  That method is known as Collaborative Ecological Layout.
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Why should we consider this method?  What is Collaborative Ecological Layout?  How does it solve many of the issues common to mountain biking trail proposals in urban areas?

Signs and symbols are a specific part of graphic arts, called iconography.  Merriam-Webster defines iconography as:

1. pictorial material relating to or illustrating a subject
2. the traditional or conventional images or symbols associated with a subject and especially a religious or legendary subject
3. the imagery or symbolism of a work of art, an artist, or a body of art

​Trails, just like any other infrastructure conveying human beings, need signage of some kind to help direct users and get them to be aware of various realities on the trail.  But bad signage can be as bad (or worse sometimes) then no signage.

So how can a trail system do trail signage right?  What can help direct users without overloading them?

Much thanks to Matthew B.  of the San Francisco Urban Riders for helping to fill out some great riding locations in and around San Francisco, CA to add to the Trails Inventory.

Much thanks to Matthew for the additional information.  If you have a trail system or  mountain biking park you think should be included, let us know about it and we will add it.

Because every update  needs an accompanying song, I think we only have one choice, Jude Garland singing "San Francisco".    Yeah,  a bit of stereotype there, but as stereotypes go, a pretty harmless one.

Sometimes, life gives you lemons.  Sometimes, it backs a truck up to your front door and dumps lemons till your house bursts.

CityMTB is not dead, it just took a back seat for a bit.  New content (and some spicey takes)  starting Monday.

Your bike, just like you, needs a wash after it plays in the dirt.

Yet, bike wash stations at local trails can be all too rare.  Why then are bike wash stations an important part of the infrastructure for urban trails?  What styles of bike wash stations are there?  How do you get one?
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Get your sponges out and suds up as we dive into bike wash stations!