Volume 1 Number 2 April-May 2015 - Mid

April/May Edition
look for our
“ Please
tent and come by
and say hello. ”
Mid-South Trails Association
Directors and Officers
As you know, Mountain Bike racing
season kicked off in April, and MSTA
was on hand for 2 events, the 6 Hours
of Herb Parsons race, as well the Wolf
Man Duathlon at Shelby Farms Tour
De Wolf. It was about 32 degrees at
Herbs for the 6 Hour race, and spitting snow. I would like to
give a big salute to all the hardcore 6 hour racers. The
conditions were less than favorable. The Wolfman Duathlon
the next day was a little warmer, but very windy. This year it
featured a new course on the Tour De Wolf in Shelby Farms.
There have been some major reroutes and changes
to the trail and everyone seemed to enjoy the new course.
There was a great turnout for both races. MSTA also
participated in the Shelby Farms Eggstravaganza on Easter
Weekend. Please look for the MSTA tent at the Crank It Up
Race at Herbs on April 26th. We will be participating
in many events this summer.
Please look for our tent and come by and say hello. Chat
with us about the upcoming projects, or share ideas that
you may have. While you are at it, please become a member
of MSTA, and help us fund these projects that are going to
help the area trails. You can also buy one of our cool t- shirts
when you come by. We thank you for all of the support.
JOIN MSTA
Please consider a
family or individual
membership and
help us in supporting
and maintaining the
local trails.
Welcome new board member, Brad Hopper!
This is the story of the little boy named Bruce who wanted a new dog. The St. Patrick’s Day
parade that went through town had over 50 dogs from the local humane society in the parade.
Bruce’s parents were torn because Bruce was older and had matured some, but he hadn’t had a
great history with his pets. The list was long – the goldfish that he had neglected and only cared
about when trying to jump the tank with toy cars, the gerbil with all of its cages, toys, wheels,
only to lose interest in a week. Bruce was insistent that he wanted a new dog – but Bruce hadn’t
taken care of what he had before – why should he have anything that takes more responsibility
when he hadn’t cared for the things he had before?
The Midsouth is seeing a similar growth in our mountain bike trail projects – we are building
more trails before we love the ones that are already on the ground. We need to fix every rotten
bridge before we build a new bridge, reroute the 20-40 yard low spots on existing trails before
cutting in a mile of new trail, and use sustainable trail building guidelines when laying new
trail on the ground. We need to treat every inch of trail that exists today as it were a rare gem –
many places do not get mountain bike access like we have. We need to set ourselves towards
a unified goal of making the trails more sustainable, more usable, and more accessible. This
does not mean making the trail “easier” or “paved” rather making the trail self-sufficient. The
trail needs to be built in a way that it doesn’t need constant work. It has become increasingly
divided in the community and we have different groups working hard and towards dissimilar
goals. The trails need a master plan that is adhered to, that is the working bible for the trails. In
Memphis, different groups of mountain bikers are fighting with one another over whether or not
a trail going through a mud hole is good or not bad. Seems like we have the easiest problems
to overcome.Guidelines have been laid out for us – access was granted to the Wolf River in its
entirety, Herb Parsons at one point said all the “features” should not impede the main line of the
trail, Bartlett is open and appreciative of the work done to that trail. For the sake of having trails to
put tires on, as a group we should strive to:
• Outline the master plan for a trail
• Adhere to the guidelines of the trail plan with all trail projects
• Strive to leave no trace – all work should fit together seamlessly and without a discernable
difference to the trail user
• Trim, cut, fill, polish, or reroute every foot of existing trail before cutting any new trail
• Only cut new trail in a sustainable way so we can spend more time riding and less time
working
The mountain bike community has grown, evolved, and flourished in the last 8 years that I
have been riding mountain bikes in Memphis. We are at a point where we must put aside our
differences in riding style and unify as a group to ensure we still have access to all of our existing
trails 8 years from now.
IMBA’s rules of the trail: six easy steps to good multi-user trail relations:
Cohutta/Big Frog
April 25
Tiger Lane Crit #4
April 29
Syllamo’s Revenge
May2
Memphis in May Tri
May16
Mt View Epic
May16
Montgomery Bell Classic
June13-14
Clear Creek 6 Hour
June 14
Dragonfly Tri
June 16
Hamilton Creek XC
August 2
Old Hickory Classic
August 8-9
Legend of Stanky
August 15-16
Nox 50
Sept 6
You will see a new trail signage project at Herbs very soon.
MSTA will be working to put in signage on the entire Herbs Trail
System. This was made financially possible by a project-specific donation by an anonymous trail rider. We cannot express our
appreciation enough for this anonymous donor!
We woud also like to thank William and Rena Baker for their
very kind donation. We appreciate ALL donations no matter
how large or small. You can easily donate through a Paypal link
on the website.
www.midsouthtrails.com
NEWS
Mid-South Trails Association is considering
becoming an IMBA-SORBA chapter. This
is a big decision so we are keeping our
members fully informed. This article is an
overview of the chapter program. We invite
your questions and comments.
The chapter program is a partnership
between IMBA-SORBA and local mountain
bike clubs. All members of our chapter
would be members of both MSTA and
IMBA. The single price is lower than joining
each organization separately. Existing IMBA
members in our area who are not MSTA
members will become MSTA members. This
is a dues sharing arrangement between
IMBA and MSTA. Only membership dues
are divided. All donations made directly to
MSTA stay with us 100%. We keep our MSTA
identity and control our own funds locally.
The part of the dues that stay with IMBA
goes to support regional and national
representation for mountain bikers. IMBA has
a network of region directors and staff who
work for the chapters. The region directors have
the resources to assist chapters when dealing
with state or national government departments.
The chapters receive other benefits as well.
IMBA relieves chapters of the time and expense
of running membership operations. Chapters get
priority access for IMBA Trail Care Crew visits and
to the Trail Solutions group. There is a custom
jersey program that is only available to chapters.
An additional benefit available only in the
southeast region is that IMBA-SORBA pays the
liability insurance cost for their chapters. Liability
insurance is the most expensive item in the
MSTA budget. This year’s insurance is a $1,798
expense to MSTA.
A web based survey will be sent to all members
asking for your opinion on the chapter question
and other aspects of MSTA. Before a final decision
is made on becoming a chapter there will be a
general membership meeting to answer any
remaining questions. We can request an IMBASORBA representative attend this meeting.
We had a great meeting with Shelby Farms back
on April 7th. The park has asked that MST A help
them with a huge task of creating signage, maps,
and GPS Waypoints for the Wolf River Trail System. This is not only for trail users, but for first responders as well. The park turned to MSTA when
they realized that they needed help mapping the
entire trail system. We took the first step in providing them with some detailed maps of the trail
system. Next is to provide them with a complete
mileage map taken from GPS maps that we have.
Once that is complete, we will help them to mark
and identify where the waypoints need to go and
where the signage needs to go. More to come on
this projects as it progresses.
We were also able to get the park to commit to
providing MSTA with crushed concrete for use in
repairing problematic spots on the Wolf River Trail
System. Stay tuned for an announced work day
soon. We also haven’t forgotten about some reroutes that need to happen on the yellow, where
the trail is eroding into the river.
Also, the $40,000 in grant money is finally here
for the Tour De Wolf Improvements. This will be
a 2 year project. We had a great conversation
with Larry Pickens and Ranger Drew of Shelby
Farms about this project. Work has already
started with some major reroutes of problematic
areas of the trail. Those who have ridden it lately
have seen the reroutes, and have seen the
work that Ranger Drew is doing out there. They
will also be fixing many of the safety issues out
there as well. I know that Ranger Drew is hoping
for drier weather so that he can continue the
improvements. Drew really has a nice vision for
what he wants to do out there and he bent our
ears for a long time bouncing the ideas around.
He is hoping to eventually to do some new
features out there such as needed bridges, etc..
If you see him out on the trail stop and talk to him
and you will see his enthusiasm for the project.
On April 10th and 11th, a few local trail advocates worked hard to make needed
repairs and improvements at Herb Parsons to the area around the archery section
(North Side of the Lake). During these two days, muddy low lying areas were
drained, culverts that were blocked with debris cleared, gravel (MANY bucks and truck
loads) moved and tamped down into areas where the trail had either washed away
or were overly muddy. General trail maintenance was also performed. Some areas due
to the normal wet winter weather triple track had formed due to the mud holes and
slow drainage. These areas were drained, gravel place and the trail restored to the
natural single track. Make sure you give a large THANK YOU (beer and bourbon
also accepted to those over 21) to these trail advocates who gave up a day of
riding to repair and maintain our local trail system. (written by Brad Hopper)
Matthew Slavick
David Le
John Trent
Matt Lynch
Jim Logan
Larry Kuhtz
Adam Eisan
Brad Hopper
Logan Karr
Crank it up schedule change!
Memphis Velo Racing is very excited to put on our 3rd
annual Crank It Up MTB race Sunday April 26, at Herb
Parsons in Collierville. The events include a time trial
on Saturday afternoon at 9:00 am and an XC race on
12:00 noon. All time trial riders will be riding the same
2.5 mile loop. XC riders will do the 10 mile race loop,
with Cat 3’s doing 1 lap, Cat 2’s and Singlespeed’s
doing 2 laps, and Cat 1’s doing 3 laps. Our team has
been hard at work prepping the trail for the race, including but not limited to a work weekend this past
weekend where we spread gravel and did other race
prep. We will be out there after the race making sure
the trail is in tip top shape as well. We hope that you’ll
come out and join us this weekend - to cheer on the
racers or race yourself!
Mountain Biking now permitted in Lucius Burch!
Shelby Farms Park which includes the Lucius Burch SNA is a municipal-owned park
where biking has been expressly permitted in the park prior to the natural area’s designation. Therefore, the Lucius Burch SNA meets the criteria for permitted biking granted
in the Rules. The state will grant an exception for biking in the Lucius Burch SNA for
the following reasons:
1. The criteria for exception have been met,
2. There is a demand by park users to continue biking in the natural area
3. The SFPC has expressed a clear interest in continuing biking in the natural area,
4. Past biking has not shown to cause any detrimental effects to the natural resources
of the area
The DNA and the SFPC may limit biking in the natural area if biking is found to have
any detrimental effects.
---This is not a license for the MTB community to do whatever we want. Trail work must
continue to be discussed with and approved by the land manager (IMBA guidelines).
Approval for trail work for general maintenance and hazard mitigation is easily obtained. Modifications or additions to the trail network take more discussion and may
require TDEC approval.
It took 19 years for the MTB community to prove we are good trail citizens and to get
the LBNA bike ban lifted. Let’s keep up the good work.”