Gottr' Runnin'

Well, we had a very successful weekend followed by some much needed rain. Today is just another moist Fall day in the South.





We got the beginner track flowing really well and had a whopping 40 or so people show up on Saturday to get the advanced pump track running as well. I now head to Chattanooga, TN to go to the National Trails Symposium to present with my buddy Scott Linnenburger on "recycling" public spaces and creating great trails in the urban environment. I come back Friday for two more days of dialing things in then the big "soft" opening on Sunday the 21st. Game On!!

Got to digg...

Well today the real work on the pumptracks in Roswell began. I forgot how much I love GA red clay!



Here is the Intermediate line's base, can't wait to start on this beast!



Oh, and check out the FLY ridez! This week is sure to have more photos than words, but it will be fun fo sho!

Snow.

Well, it has been a rowdy last couple weeks. We made good progress on Trailside Bike Park but momma nature had different plans. The final push will happen in Spring and a bunch of quality photos will come out of that. For now I am in front of the computer feeling a sudden surge of Winter stoke. The irony?

I have to go back to the SE for a little while. That will certainly be a change. I can't wait to be back here watching white stuff just dump out of the sky.

Tomorrow it is off to the NRPA congress for a second year in a row, still probably my favorite conference of the year. Then back here to Park City for Halloween, then a week in these mountains building, finally back to NC/GA/TN for a few weeks.

Until the next time, think snow for me.

Running through a tank of gas....

I am beat, we have been PINNED this whole season, this has certainly been B4's busiest year to date and it has been a life changing year in many ways too.

Right now I am trying my best to keep fuel in the tank for the next two weeks to finish the Trailsisde Bike Park. We have brought in little guns, big guns and snow guns...not really snowguns, but the photo worked HA...




Okay so why am I so exhausted? Well, I am off the road...I now am a resident of Park City, UT. It feels really good and suprisingly like home. This means a certain level of stress in trying to make the P...ayments on the house. I am also working on a very creative project right now which is requiring a huge amount of I...magination. N...ow I am on the computer working on this blog and about N...ine other things. Tomorrow is going to involve finishing the Flowstyle Line, starting on E...levated features and building a pumptrack D...amn! This is why life is so P.I.N.N.E.D. right now. Enjoy the pics and check out my facebook page for more up to date stuff.

The Dirty Bird With Alpine....

Trails, not Bike Parks, man this is going to confuse the Hell out of some folks. But, while waiting to get started on the Snyderville Bike Park project here in the Park City area, I took the opportunity to work with the local trail builder Troy Duffin with Alpine Trails Inc. where we were working on a new trail for Snowbird Resort in Little Cottonwood Canyon. The view from the mini is above and below...it doesn't get much better than this for a place to sit on a machine. Now I am headed out the door to go work on the design and build of the Trailside Bike Park here in Snyderville, with Progressive Trail Designs. This is turning into one of the greatest years I could ever imagine, and I feel like things are only going to get better!

Park City Is Effin Awesome!

from outdoorparkcity.com

This town is the best, great fall mountain bike trails all over the place and amazing scenery. Right now there is a sense of anticipation in the area, as well, that is darn near electric, everyone is getting ready for the big four letter word, in a good way, SNOW! We got into town on Friday and have been running around trying to get in as much play as possible, because tomorrow it is back to the grind...ha, it is like a good grind, you know like a 50-50 or something, maybe a sprocket grind...kinda sketchy at times, but controlled chaos at it BEST!

We rode some trails and jumped some jumps, they have that here too. Tomorrow into the yellow Aspens and helping Alpine-Trails finish up a little project. Life is Effin AWESOME!

Finito

Well we have left the lost coast behind and are now in Moraga visiting family and finding a little time to ride bikes and relax. I know you all have been missing the updates while we were obviously on the trip of a lifetime, but I needed the break and technology doesn't really exist in Shelter Cove. For some info on the project check out IMBA's write up and photos.

I still don't know how to give an ample description to the two months we spent in a setting that included the world's tallest trees, lush green surroundings, 4000 foot high peaks diving into the ocean, and trail production running all out. So I decided I'm not even going to try. The people that know me and buy me a beer will hear enough entertaining stories to take up a full night.

Now that we are back in civilization we will be heading to Park City and starting a bit of work with Alpine-Trails and Progressive Trail Design to build trails and parks for a month in the mountains of Utah. We will keep a much more detailed account of these experiences after the refreshing break I took from the blog.

Hope everyone is enjoying the first day of Fall and here is to the next adventure.

No words or pictures...

will describe this place. Shelter Cove, The King Range and the Lost Coast are the most amazing places in California, bar none. Black Sand Beaches, endless rock mountains and huge evergreen canopies that ensure a level of humility is found even in every six foot tall human. The photos I can post don't seem to capture it, when I have on that does I will be sure to get it on. I also will try and get some shots next week of the trail work as well.

A little backlog: We finished the cross country commute to Shelter Cove on Monday, the only issue we had on the whole drive was a wheel axle on the trailer pretty much eating itself. Otherwise, everything has been stellar. We ran a few errands on Tuesday, then started the project working for IMBA on the Paradise Royal Trail System. We are here for the next eight weeks, in heaven and working fourty hours a week.

The photos are the best attempt thus far at capturing what this place is.

Snyderville Basin Bike Park Scoping

We have been hard at work in meetings and on the ground in Utah getting our strategy together for a new bike park just outside of Park City. This area is one of my favorites in the country. Below is a photo of PTD and Scott Linny standing at the top of a fill pile contemplating the AMAZING view that is the job site. We will be coming back in the Fall for the Phase 1 build.




Tomorrow we head to the Lost Coast to begin an eight week build with IMBA. The next few months will be the highlight of my trail building and bike park building career. STOKED!!!

EPIC Park City Daze!

We are in Park City for the week, working hard, as you can see. We have been scoping the local scene and trying to guage what people have and what people in the area may want. Tomorrow is not going to be as much fun and games. We have meetings and to figure out what is next.

But, today we simply got to charge the trails at Deer Valley and had a lot of fun!
Here are some "not riding" pics.

Colorado

We are now in Park City, Utah for the week to begin the design process for a new bike park for the Snyderville Special Recreation District. This park will be a world class example that will stand at the top of the list for public bike park across the county. STOKED!

But first a recap of the last week. The photos below are of a great ride we did with a good sized group on the Magnolia trails outside of Nederland on Saturday. It was a great ride with an even better group. Before that we were just driving, so there really wasn't much to report.





The day after the ride we went to an awesome lake just a few miles from our friends house and did some cliff jumping, swimming and general goofing off. IT WAS EPIC!!!

Now it is back to buisness as usual for a week, then we make the final push to "The Lost Coast".

Road Trippin'

We just landed up next to the Gateway to the West, St. Louis. Tomorrow we drop through the looking glass headed to Kansas then to Colorado for the weekend. We spent yesterday in Chattanooga and got to talk to some old friends and meet some new ones while wandering around in the woods as well. Tonight seems a bit like a pause before a crazy hard push the next couple days to get us settled for a minute in the Rockies. Next week is in a bit of limbo. I hope to get some photos and some write up on Friday, but it will all depend on how efficient we are in the drive. Wish us luck and have fun in the wait.

Itchy...

We are down in Florida working on a design for a bike park in a new Florida State Recreation Area. Yeah, Florida is pretty much AWESOME !!!

So here is the plan - We take these:


And put them all over this area:


With regraded contours kind of like this:


Okay, so now where do we go eat lunch?



But, seriously, I did dip my toes in the lake and it was GREAT! Tomorrow is a meeting with the LA firm that is over seeing the new design. Computer time is very heavily in my future. I wish I could just make little mashed potato models and FedEx'm in to the potential client. Wouldn't that be COOL!

Axe Men Meet MTB...

We are back on the road and hanging out near Savannah for the night.






While in Asheville, we did get some great riding in too. We rode all over Bent Creek, even went up to Five Points and saw the "New View". We also went down to Brevard and took Jenn to...DaDunDaDun! PISGAH!!!! She had a blast. It was interesting being back in WNC getting in some Summer riding. There are a ton of "trails" in WNC, but Jenn managed to say they are all roads, which is so true. I have already spoiled the "beginner" rider on all of the great trails NOT in North Carolina. The woods are pretty, but looks like the FS has figured out how to screw that up too....OOPS !

Feeling Creepy, and back in WNC

The Virginia Creeper Trail is quite the experience, it really allowed some insight into what the "average" person enjoys on a bicycle ride, and let me tell you, this experience would be VERY hard to replicate.

We rolled into town on a Thursday afternoon to find a quaint little trail town of Damascus and then made our way up to the campground in a raging thunderstorm. The storm washed away our hopes of riding on the Iron mountain trail the next day so we decided to do a two part Creeper retreat.

Friday morning we dropped back down the mountain to ride from Damascus to the Holston River Trestle, WOW what a cool bridge. The ride was gently rolling and swept through some beautiful farms, with trail side attractions like some rapids and a few cattle right on the trail. We wrapped up our day and then headed back to the mountain to get ready for the next day of the shuttled "upper" portion of the creeper.

17 miles all pretty much downhill at a 1% - 2% grade. That is criteria number one for getting the average American having fun on a bicycle. Beautiful cascading mountain trout stream as your riding companion most of the way, that would be punch number two. Finally, a few amazing bridges and quaint little whistle stops complete the package. All in all there is more thought about this trail than I will be able to put on this blog, so be sure to ask for stories the next time you see us.

We finished the day happy and then I went and fished that same river and managed to catch two beautiful trout before getting back up to camp. Now, we are back in Asheville for a week while getting everything organized to make the great trip South, then West.

Blog posts to come will probably involve lots of riding and general good times. Enjoy the week!

Douthat...is all that !

The last couple days at Douthat was just what the doctor ordered. We have gotten to do some spectacular riding. The photos in this post are from a loop we did with Mountain Side Trail, the MUST RIDE at the park. We spent the week riding and I did quite a bit of fishing to help pass time as well. It hasn't been all fun and games, just mostly. We have been working on getting bids organized and getting ready for some design work in Florida, then a big drive out to Cali to work on the Paradise Royal system for two months....yeah STOKED !!!



Beautiful bench cut by the CCC, those boys must have ridden mountain bikes!

Wrapped....NEXT !

We is be dun y'all. This was a great project. We got to work in a beautiful area of the country while building really fun trail, that was really boring old road bed. We now head South to get things wrapped up in the South East before making the journey to the Lost Coast of Cali to work on a project with IMBA and the BLM, STOKED !! So where are we headed and what all do we need to do? First, is the race here in Harrisonburg for the HooHa, they will be doing the Super D and a really cool looking Short Track today, then XC tomorrow. Next, we head to Douthat and Mount Rogers to do some riding and to work on some proposals and maps, office days with fishing and riding involved...good life. Then, we head down to NC to get the truck dialed and ride in Pisgah a bit, before it gets changed for the "who knows" forever. Then, we head down to Florida to work on a design for a bike park in a new Florida State Recreation area. After that we will probably head over to St. Augustine to go from coast to coast during our drive. Where will we stop on the journey across the country? Don't know yet...have a project you want us to look at and you are within striking distance of a route between FL and CA, hollar at me. Email is on the right up there and phone number is on the Facebook page. Until then, Summer is upon us...get out there and enjoy it !

RT(squared)

A road to trail conversion, unlike a trail to road conversion...like the soon to be Squirrel Gap (YIKES !!!). So here are some photos, finally, of the work we have been doing. Below is a before picture of the old road corridor, then a photo of the serpintine redo of that straight and narrow trail. Below that is another "sexy" trail picture of some flow and below that, well the top of an awesome mountain climb in the beautiful woods near the campsite. Yeah, things are great!

Pictures...

would be nice, but I have the camera in my camelback from all the great rides we did last week and it can't seem to migrate to the truck. So a little update for now, then photos when we get the chance.

We are in Stokesville VA for some work on the Narrowbakc trail system. We are performing two road to trail conversions and had our first production day yesterday. All in all things are good. We will be on this project for about ten days, then headsouth to NC for a couple weeks to wrap up a few loose ends and get the Fall scheduled.

That's it for now, just plugging away, we don't have cell reception ecept at the jobsite and when we are here we really need to be on it, so it may be a while before I can get a good post up, but watch for it, the photos are sure to be great.

Coon Tree

Well, we are on the big ol' Vacay...but Otie, apparently, is still on duty. A raccoon was busy snooping around the campground and he went NUTZ !!! Treed the poor creature. Oops.

In the other spare minutes we have had, we have been going for great rides on great trails and I have found my hand at fishing, quite an enjoyable passtime; and it does just that really well.

Tomorrow I need to wrap up a few actual work items, then we head to VA for the next round of work. Oh well, the job is still like everyone elses vacations...so we got that going for us.

Have Fun ! Ride Bikes !

An awesome day (period)

Today was my favorite part. Dialing it all in to that last bit, now we just wait for mother nature and father time to take it to 100%. Great day. Thanks to the Redbull guys for helping keep the vibe alive.