Parks Trails Coordinator Rocky Houston
— used the Summit to get some answers about
a trail building project he’s involved in.
(Photos © J. Maus)
One of the most important functions of the Oregon Bike Summit is an opportunity for advocates to meet with key partners and decision makers face-to-face.
Between workshop sessions, I noticed a lively discussion going on and I stuck around to see what it was about.
The meeting was between several mountain bike advocacy groups and Oregon State Parks’ trails czar Rocky Houston. The group was discussing their ongoing collaboration to build a mountain bike trail system in Stub Stewart State Park — the newly opened, 1,600 acre state park located 31 miles west of Portland.
for Oregon State Parks.
Around the table were Houston, Portland United Mountain Pedalers (PUMP) member Roger Louton, Joe Rykowski from the Westside Trail Federation, Steve Kruger with Stub Stewart State Park, and representatives from the Black Rock Mountain Bike Association.
Westside Trail Federation
PUMP’s Louton said that the ad hoc group has been exchanging emails for months, but they had some complicated issues that were tough to work out electronically.
After the meeting he told me, “It was great to get together, in person. In 20 minutes we got everbody on the same page, and I was able to get information straight from the source [State Parks’ Houston].”
Houston says the group is working out some permitting and trail construction issues as they embark on an ambitious plan to build a network of bike-only singletrack trails and a freeride/stunt biking park within Stub Stewart.
It’s these kind of moments, when advocates and decision-makers can connect and work through issues, that are the core mission of the Oregon Bike Summit.
Thanks for reading.
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holy prolific blogging! thanks for all you do, johnathan
I\’ve been working on a trail system for 4 years now. We started with IMBA coming in and providing the training and initial trail layout.
Do the work upfront with design and layout and your reduce the amount of work going forward. In 4 years the biggest maintenance problem has been trimming back the undergrowth so you can see the trail. This has allowed us to concentrate on new trails rather than fixing washouts and erosion.
Because we\’ve built trails for all levels everyone is happy to stay on the trails and not go off bushwhacking. This level of rider respect for the trails has helped the most in keeping things working and everyone using the area happy.
Nice reporting Jonathan!
There\’s a level of collaboration that has to take place when multiple organizations are involved with planning process…
Plus we\’ve got one group (our group – W.T.F.) focused on building some advanced single-track mountain biking trails which raised some sketchy issues, but we wanted to be sure all involved knew that even though there\’s multiple single-track mountain biking trails interconnecting… That our permitting issues weren\’t going to hold up the planning/design process for the other (XC) trails.
IMBA Trail Solutions team was involved at the beginning of this project.
We\’ve had additional trail managers go through IMBA trail care crew training last October at the Black Rock / Falls City event.
Westside Trail Federation is following the model of Black Rock Mountain Bike Association… tweeking as necessary to fit issues surrounding land / other trail systems in area / land manager priorities, etc.
\”Doing more. Whining less.\” That\’s my/our motto. Our mission is building sustainable single-track for FR/DH mountain bike users, and educating the public about this segment of the sport/activity.
Thanks Joe and Roger!
I\’m glad someone is out there pulling for moutain biking. I always feel so left out here in portland. With such a HUGE bike scene, there seems to be so little energy focused on our off-road bretheren.
keep up the great work PUMP and WTF!
It\’s good to see the Stub Stewart mountain bike plans are moving along. More power to the builders and everyone involved (I\’m temporarily out of state so I can\’t help unfortunately) but it would be nice to see some trails closer to Portland. I believe it is about a 45 minute drive to those trails from central Portland. Don\’t get me wrong, once I get back to Portland I will gladly drive the 45 minutes to go and ride the trails (as they will be the closest trails outside of Scapoose), but we really need some good singletrack closer to town. Thanks for all the work everyone is putting into Stub Stewart mountain biking trails.