Speaker will bring Minnesota’s mountain-biking know-how to PDX

LebHills-BermTime

A berm on the Intermediate Trail at Lebanon Hills in
Eagan, Minn.
(Photo: Dakota County Parks)

As Portland works on its Off-Road Cycling Master Plan, an expert from maybe the country’s best state for urban mountain biking is coming to town.

Joshua Rebennack, a professional environmental engineer and mountain biking trail volunteer based in central Minnesota, will discuss “Knobbies in the Neighborhood” from 6:30-8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 16 at the Multnomah Athletic Club, 1849 SW Salmon Street.

It’ll be free and open to the public. Sorry for the confusion. RSVP to Kelsey Cardwell of NW Trail Alliance at kelseyc@nw-trail.org.

According to the Northwest Trail Alliance, Rebennack will use “the experiences of off-­road cycling trail systems built and in other cities to distill out lessons that any municipality, including Portland, can apply to their own off­road cycling trail plans.”

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“Joshua brings a unique perspective, seeing as Minnesota is the leader in the nation as regards to urban mountain biking, with 33 separate urban mountain biking trail systems comprising nearly 320 miles of singletrack trail,” the Northwest Trail Alliance writes in its event description. “Including the only 2 completely urban mountain biking trail systems recognized by the International Mountain Biking Association as being Ride Centers.”

We published a guest post from Rebennack three years ago and it’s great that he’ll continue to bring on-the-ground knowledge and ideas to town. Hopefully his talk will draw in some skeptics of urban mountain biking as well as some believers.

— Michael Andersen, (503) 333-7824 – michael@bikeportland.org

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Michael Andersen (Contributor)

Michael Andersen (Contributor)

Michael Andersen was news editor of BikePortland.org from 2013 to 2016 and still pops up occasionally.

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Jordan
Jordan
8 years ago

Is this event open to the public? And is there an admission?

Kelsey
Kelsey
8 years ago
Reply to  Jordan

Hi Jordan,

This is a free event, open to the public, but we are asking for RSVPs. Please RSVP to me, kelseyc@nw-trail.org.

spencer
spencer
8 years ago

Great venue to have the disbelievers in attendance. Will it be open to the public, or just MAC members? I’d gladly attend.

37Dennis
37Dennis
8 years ago
Reply to  spencer

M. Andersen…. People have posed the question of whether this is a free public meeting. Can you address that please? It seems to me it would be open to the public. In addition, I am a bit surprised there is very few comments about this post.

Kelsey
Kelsey
8 years ago
Reply to  spencer

Hi Spencer,

This is a free event, open to the public, but we are asking for RSVPs. Please RSVP to me, kelseyc@nw-trail.org.

GlowBoy
GlowBoy
8 years ago

Sounds like a good event. There’s some amazing mountain biking here in MN: 13 trail systems in the Twin Cities metro alone, including Lebanon Hills which is truly phenomenal, and the Minnesota River Bottoms which is as natural (and more vast) as Forest Park.

Duluth is even better, with several trail systems of its own serving the city of just 85,000 – including some really amazing Canadian Shield slickrock and an 80 (?) mile traverse of the ridgeline above the city.

And I haven’t even been to Cuyuna yet, which is supposedly the cake-topper.

Brian
Brian
8 years ago

Great news. No need to reinvent the wheel. We can learn from those who have been doing this for many, many years.

ean
ean
8 years ago

If Portland wants to be a top tier biking city it makes sense to listen to someone from a top tier biking city.

Tad
8 years ago
Reply to  ean

Totally agreed. In discussing the bike conundrums in Portland, there are so many hypothetical what-ifs that have already been played-out successfully in other cities. Knoxville, TN is another example of a city that has a TON of urban MTB’ing all accessible within 15 mins of the city center.