This episode we hear from a panel of guests about the Southern Off-Road Bicycle Association, better known as SORBA. Guests include the SORBA Executive Director from Greenville, South Carolina: Tom Sauret, SORBA Executive Committee President and former President of the Northwest NC MTB Alliance Chapter, from Boone, South Carolina: Paul Stahlschmidt and finally, SORBA Associate Director for Elijay, Georgia: Terry Palmeri.
Continue reading “Ep 61 – Panel Discussion with the Southern Off-Road Bicycle Association (SORBA)”
Brennan Morrow is a Board Member of the Central Oregon Trail Alliance (COTA) and Madras Chapter Rep. Brennan is sharing COTA’s User Profiles; essentially characters they’ve created to help predict community engagement for programs, events or initiatives they roll out. Commonly used by Website and App Developers to ensure optimal User Interface (UI) experiences.
At the beginning of January 2019, the “Outside/In” Podcast released an episode called “Rake And Ride”. It tells the story of the impact of illegal or unsanctioned trails, and the interaction between the mountain bikers who created them, the officials who manage them and the users who find themselves on it by plan or misfortune. Host of the Outside/In Podcast, Sam Evans-Brown joins me to discuss the episode, the response he got and his thoughts as a mountain biker in New Hampshire.
We explore a community with both a multi-use Trail Association and a Mountain Bike Club. My guest is Daniel Cammiade of the Nature Trails Society in Victoria, British Columbia, located in the Southern end of Vancouver Island. We discuss whether an organization should identify as a Bike Club or a Trail Association, and how best to deal with a Land Manager that, simply put, isn’t interested in allowing mountain bike access.
We hear from Laura Puckett Daniels, Deputy Director at the Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association in Crested Butte, CO. Laura shares with us how her Bike Club added conservation to their mandate and created the Crested Butte Conservation Corps. In addition, Laura tells us about their Women’s Work Force (WWF), a female focused trail day program and the effects it has had on the community and organization.
Greig Gjerdalen is faculty with the school of Outdoor Recreation Management at Capilano University in North Vancouver, BC, Canada. Greig is currently studying how mountain bikers interact with nature and he’s asking: “Is nature merely scenery and therefore more of a backdrop for outdoor recreation pursuits than the center of our relational immersion?” Grieg shares his research and some ideas on what Trail Associations can do to increase a riders relationship with their natural surroundings.
The final episode of 2018 is hosted by Rocky Blondin, past guest and President of the Fraser Valley Mountain Bikers Association. Rocky has adapted his two part blog post called: “So You Want To Be a Trail Builder?”. He not only goes through his process of getting involved but also the many steps that someone new to trail building can take. For those of you who are already out there digging and advocating, I think you’ll enjoy a shared experience and perhaps this episode will be a “where to begin” for those looking to get more involved in their communities.
Membership is a crucial function of most trail associations, and there’s no shortage of services available on the internet. Dana Wacker is the Communications and Promotions Director at the Naniamo Mountain Bike Club and she breaks down a number of options out there, including the choice that her club has made, with TidyHQ. In addition we’ll hear from Thomas Schoen, Owner/Operator of First Journey Trails, and the chair of the Cariboo Mountain Bike Consortium. Thomas explains why his business is looking for female trail builders for 2019.
We hear from four different guests who each represented their Trail Association at a different event this fall. My guests are Laura Puckett Daniels of the Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association, Steve Sheldon of the Tri-Cities Off Road Cycling Association, Andy Cox of the HydroCut Trail Committee and Gunnar Carlson with the Minnesota Off-Road Cyclists. Each of my guests attended one of the following events, in order: THE Trail Summit in Fruita, CO, the Western Mountain Bike Advocacy Symposium in North Vancouver, BC, the Ontario Mountain Bike Summit in Brantford, ON and the 2018 MTB State Summit in Grand Rapids, MI.