Category: Uncategorized

It made me sad to see this construction out on the Grotpeter Trail at Castlewood. I thought about how many lunches the materials used for it might buy for workdays spent repairing and maintaining the deteriorating trails there.

The DeClue reroute at Greensfelder is finished, so 7 of us decided to ride it on Sunday. We started at the Roundhouse parking lot and began by riding Dogwood counterclockwise. Dogwood is in great shape, even after taking a pounding during the Spring freeze-thaw cycle. The climb out of the valley back up to the Roundhouse has a few rough spots where it crosses drainages, but is entirely rideable. Next, the awesomely fun section of DeClue down to Allenton Rd.

We’re going to try and finish the re-route this weekend, but there are several somewhat complicated sections left to build, so we’ll need help from all the experienced GORC trailbuilding experts we can get out there.
The map shows what’s been done to this point, and what we hope to finish is shown in red.

Here’s a detail of the newly constructed connector trail between Trails 1 & 3 at SIUE. Previously, you went to the first intersection with the cross-country trail and followed it down to the bottom of the hill, made a left, then a right on the asphalt. Now, the connector branches off to the right just before the cross-country trail, and takes you around to a short section of asphalt which leads to New Poag Rd. and on to the trailhead of #3.

Not everybody gets the Ozark Trail Association’s weekly email updates so I’ll post this up here. John Roth of the OTA (and GORC, but he keeps that on the DL) just had a really big weekend with the Middle Fork / 200 mile grand opening celebration. Here’s a great five-minute interview with him from last week on the KMOV-4 TV morning show. Click this link and then click Part 3. He even plugs mountain biking on the OT in it. Go OTA.

We’ll be cutting a short connector trail between the 1st and 3rd sections of trail out there, and doing some maintenance leftover from the construction of the 3rd section last fall. You might even learn the (im)proper way to carry tools. The fun starts at 8:45 am.

Yes folks, the 2006 Midwest Mountain Bike Festival is history, and it appears to have been a rousing success. If this photo doesn’t convince you that EVERYONE had a good time, then it probably isn’t going to be possible. More to follow…

If you’re a fan of the whacked-out traditional music, don’t show up late on Saturday. The band lineup is looking great. Big thanks to Mesa Cycles for footing the bill for us to get so many good bands.

There will be no monthly meeting on Wednesday, April 5th due to final preparations for the Midwest Mountain Bike Festival this weekend. Kirby says it’s ok to go drink beer and talk about bikes if you like. See you this weekend!

A few of us helped out with the DRJ sponsored Bike Clinc at Castlewood State Park on Saturday. We gave a little talk explaining what GORC does and a little about proper bike etiquette on the trail. We had a lot of interest in GORC and the Festival. Rich Love and the rest of the presenters gave GORC huge props for the work we do, very nice of them.