Bark Eater Trail Alliance BETA!

nice edit...cool step up to the boulder...
i'm probably heading to Sedona in Nov , i will try to head up the road and check out the riding in Flag too..

Check this out at local gin mills in LP, SL, Wilmington and Elizabethtown!  

Big Slide’s latest brew.  A session beer @ 4.7. Perfect for post ride refreshment!  Release party this Wednesday at Big Slide.  

Big Slide is donating to Beta a portion of every crowler and keg sold!  

Drink beer so we can build more trails!

that's awesome!

This sunday 9/16 is the last Wilmington Town shuttle pmd run of the season

Five bucks for as many laps as you can get.  shuttle runs between 1-4pm

Three miles and 1200 vertical.   With two new trails built this season there are now multiple options to descend!

Come on up and have some fun in the Big Wink before the leaves fly.

Let me know. I’ll go shred around with ya.

Thanks for the excellent trail building guys and gals!

I hope to get up to ride them again this year before the snow flies.

P.S.  I read somewhere that the Moose River Plains trail system was approved.  Does anyone know who will be building the trails?  DEC said they would be hiring someone to do the work.  Not sure where that money is coming from, but there are really no clubs in that area for building.

A young buck named Eli is now building at McCuley mtn in old forge.  He created a group called the Adirondack Foothills Trail Builders.  Hopefully they grow in membership.  

Unless its motorized, the state seems to not like funding trail work.   Given the return on investment of mtn biking, and its increase due to climate change, you would think the planners would allocated funding to the recreational activities whose season is growing not shrinking....

Man, that's great news!  There's been several attempts at building trail in that area.  I rode the remnants of one of the more recent failures about 4 years ago.

There's some nice, small, but capable hills right in that area.  It could be fun with the right contouring.

The DEC is in their own world.  Haven't they noticed the thousands of miles of volunteer-built trail in the last 10 or so years by mountain bike clubs?

I don’t know about NY but here in AZ every purchase of a recreational motorized toy sale there’s a tax that goes to building trail. It’s the main reason we see so much more building right now for them over non-motorized trail. Like anything it comes down to who’s got the money.

Cunningstunts wrote

I read somewhere that the Moose River Plains trail system was approved.  Does anyone know who will be building the trails?  DEC said they would be hiring someone to do the work.  Not sure where that money is coming from, but there are really no clubs in that area for building.

If anyone sees an RFP on this please post in the forum or let me know.

Steve Ovitt, the guy who did our trails, North Creek Ski Bowl and others, would be great for this.

Similar chit here. So far we’ve been able to keep ATVs out of the Adirondack Park for the most part with exceptions for some reasonable access for persons living with disabilities.  

On average it costs 100k to build one mile of snowmobile trail at 8 feet wide and 9-12 feet wide on corners.

It costs 15k to build one mile of singletrack.  

Two years ago, Inlet reported three to four viable weekends of snowmobiling

With fat biked mtn bike season is an easy 9 months....

Harvey wrote

Cunningstunts wrote

I read somewhere that the Moose River Plains trail system was approved.  Does anyone know who will be building the trails?  DEC said they would be hiring someone to do the work.  Not sure where that money is coming from, but there are really no clubs in that area for building.

If anyone sees an RFP on this please post in the forum or let me know.

Steve Ovitt, the guy who did our trails, North Creek Ski Bowl and others, would be great for this.

Here's the accepted UMP amendment.  Perhaps there is some more info here:

http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/lands_forests_pdf/mrpwfamend.pdf

I'll read through it later and see if I see anything.

OK, I read it.  It doesn't mention anything about who or how they are going to build it, but it does mention that you can volunteer your time through their volunteer stewardship program, whatever that is.

I don't know how the state manages this type of stuff, but maybe IMBA has recommended a contractor or number of them to do the work or they will be taking bids for the job.  I asked an IMBA rep about this and got nowhere.  Perhaps Mr. Ovitt should contact the department directly and see what the deal is.  I'd like to see this project get moving.

This will def be a good thing for Syracuse, Utica and Rome.  There ain't jack to ride around there.  There are lots of riders from that area that come to WNY to ride.

It’s crazy how many county/city officials don’t see the value in a well developed non- motorized trail system. The biggest part of advocacy may be the salesman/education part.

ScottyJack wrote

Similar chit here. So far we’ve been able to keep ATVs out of the Adirondack Park for the most part with exceptions for some reasonable access for persons living with disabilities.  

On average it costs 100k to build one mile of snowmobile trail at 8 feet wide and 9-12 feet wide on corners.

It costs 15k to build one mile of singletrack.  

Two years ago, Inlet reported three to four viable weekends of snowmobiling

With fat biked mtn bike season is an easy 9 months....

http://nysnowmobiler.com/about/economic-impact/

"Broken down by region, snowmobiling has an economic impact of $245 million in the Adirondacks, $165 million in the Tug Hill and $163 million in Central New York. The study showed that snowmobilers spend an average of 22 days on the trails each season, with 8.5 days being spent in another region of the state from where they reside."

My friends that own several businesses in Speculator are very thankful for snowmobilers.

I'm sure they are as well for bikers, I'm just not sure how much revenue is generated from biking.

campgottagopee wrote

I'm sure they are as well for bikers, I'm just not sure how much revenue is generated from biking.

In Speculator, zero.  No one travels to Speculator for destination biking.  Sure there are some trails that are legal to ride, but nothing that would attract mountain bikers.

Wilmington is the only place in the Adirondacks that has something even close to destination biking.  That is, people will make a long drive to ride them.  Really to get the most WF needs to make their bike park more "bike parky" and there needs to be more long rides.  Having an IMBA epic really puts you on the map.  Ellicottville is light years ahead in terms of this and has a really good bike atmosphere.

WTBS, I think BETA has done a great job putting Wilmington on the map.  If it keeps growing in the next 5 years they'll be bringing in real, sustainable revenue to the economy.

I am planning a ride up north on the 22nd..Is Wilmington worth a 4hr drive ? Deciding on Green Mountain Trails or make the trek to Kingdom..

JasonWx wrote

I am planning a ride up north on the 22nd..Is Wilmington worth a 4hr drive ? Deciding on Green Mountain Trails or make the trek to Kingdom..

It's 6+ for me.

I think it's worth it because the scenery is amazing, the trails are totally different than anything in this part of NY, and they have a nice town nearby.

I'll be honest though, I have a hard time getting other people to make that trip with me.

I know a lot of people who would go to WF if it was more varied in its bike terrain.

Those numbers are anicent.  Those numbers include purchases like trailers and trucks and other equipment from outside the Park.

Three of the last four years were abysmal.  

The season is getting substancially shorter.  

Good feedback.  We, Beta, are fully on board with what ur saying.  Our destignation is not just Wilmington but Wilmington, LP and SL plus Etown.  We have crews in all these towns and our goal has always been to become a destignation by building the density needed incorporating all our towns

We’ve also been lobbying ORDA since 2008 to build flow trails from Facelift down so WF could serve as our DH option.  We are getting closer with them.

The majority of our builds are done through volunteer efforts.  However the last two years we scored some grants and gifts to fund two seasons of a pro crew.  Made a huge difference.  

We def want to get an IMBA epic.  We have approval to reroute two miles of hike a bike on the cooperkiln trail in the northern zone of the wilmington wild forest. Once complete this 9+ mile trail which tops out at 3100 feet asl will be above the Poornams downhill and flume network so we’re hoping it could qualify.   It would be on the order of 30 plus miles, a chit ton of climb and descend and im not aware of any non lift service trails on the east coast that traverse elevations above 3000 feet.

The Saranac Lake Wild Forest (covers LP and SL) will get approved end of this year and it will include 30 more miles of mtn bike trails.

This will bring us to over 100 miles of single track between SL, LP and Wilmington.  

Our next step is to lobby the state to dedicate 1 million dollars from the 250 million dollar enviromental protection fund to hire organizations like Adk Mtn Club, BETA, the Steve Ovits to build mtn bike trails.

Our success in Wilmngton already had garnered local gov and business support.  

You can help by joining Beta.  It’s only 35 bucks a year or 100 for family membership.  

Once will build out the SL LP Big Wink destingation zone we could turn our attention to places like Inlet and North Hudson