Mountain Biking in Ohio
Neb Okla, MS-MCP/InterDev
in Ohio. We have this really cool group of riders called COMBO (you can
learn more about them at www.joincombo.org) and we've been working hard to
open up more trail across Ohio. Since the president of COMBO really said it
best, I'll include the contents of his most recent email here:
============
Fellow Mountain Bikers,
I just got back from representing the Ohio Mountain bikers at the ODNR State
Park Managers Convention: Trail Design and Building Presentation with the
other Ohio Trails Partnership members (ie. three Ohio Horsemen Council
members and the Buckeye Trail Association president) and it went GREAT!! We
were one of the four sessions available for the state park managers at the
time and ours was FULL (50+ people!)
Special thanks to Mims Mobley for the use of his power point projector! The
power point presentation that Buratti put together blew their socks off!
I had park managers from John Bryan and Tar Hollow approach me afterwards
which will lead to meetings in the near future to discuss access!!!
I cannot overemphasize how our involvement in the Ohio Trails Partnership
has
helped in gaining respect for mountain bikers among all users and land
managers. This is the ONLY partnership of its kind in the NATION!! I truly
believe it will give mountain bikers more access to other land and trails
(ie. Cleveland, Mohican, Malabar.)
Herb Hull, Buckeye Trail Association, came out to AEP last Sunday to help us
out but wasn't able to find us. How many mtb. clubs in the US have the
president of one of the largest hiking associations willing to do this?
Larry
Mathews, Ohio Horsemen past president, stated he would love to come out and
celebrate the opening of the trail at AEP in July with us! How many
mtb.clubs
in the US can have this relationship with a leader of a 4000 member horsemen
assocation?
It is due to the efforts of James Buratti, Ohio IMBA rep., that we have
these
relationships.
Also spoke with Victor Ricks, Alum Creek State Park Manager, whose stated to
me that he wants to give us more land! We just need to make the trails we
have now sustainable. I know Brian Adams, COMBO vice president, has told
everyone before that the park will close some trails that are
environmentally
unstable or a liability, but just wanted to remind everyone of the BIG
PICTURE again which is MORE ACCESS TO LAND FOR MORE TRAILS once the existing
trail system is sustainable.
I have come back from the conference with three main ingredients it will
take
for COMBO and Ohio Mountain Bikers to get to the next level:
1. INCREASING MEMBERSHIP: Seeing the chief of Ohio State Parks, stop what he
is doing just to say hi to the BTA president and OHC leaders made me realize
the importance of increasing our numbers in order to be a recognized
"player."
2. EDUCATING RIDERS: From pushing for an IMBA trail building school in
October for ALL mountain bikers, to promoting IMBA's rules of the trail
including educating riders not to ride on muddy trails and finally promoting
the use of the IMBA WEBSITE and LIST SERVE as a way of educating mountain
bikers throughout the state (ie. Cleveland, Mohican etc.) to communicate
with
other users and land managers based upon environmental and social impact
studies published on the IMBA WEBSITE and LIST SERVE to effectively prove
our
point for more access.
http://www.imba.com IMBA - International Mountain Bicycling
Association
3. INCREASING DOCUMENTED TRAIL WORK: I know there are a lot of volunteers
doing work on their own, but if an OTP club (ie. COMBO, ABC, CORA) doesn't
know about it then we can't show ODNR that we are doing it!!!!
(The OTP presents ODNR with a symbolic check each year, June, with the total
amount of work hours mulitiplied by $8)
If you need any more information how you can help us achieve these
ingredients, please let me know.
Matt Ogle
COMBO president
Answer: You better believe it!!
Question: Is: 776 miles on my car, 3 tanks of gas, one hotel room charge, 2
vacation days, 10 hours of trail building, 10 hours of driving and 6 hours
of
networking over the last four days worth it?
============
If you want to help us out, I'm doing my best to make every trail
maintenence day at my local neighborhood trail (Alum Creek), but we need
help all over the state. More importantly, if you just want to help out,
nobody will stop out of state folks from becoming members as well.
I've heard that similar groups in Michigan are doing a really good job as
well and I expect that as this project moves forward we will start working
more with organizations in surrounding states to achieve more goodwill
between land owners and trail users.
Later,
Neb
Rod Lowe
time on business. I'm a MTB'r and I would love to take my MTB there from KS
from wince' I hail. Up until reading your post I didn't realize how much
involvement there was from local people trying to make a difference. I
spend my time in the Ashland, OH area when I'm there on business. Where can
I go ride or should I say where can I get some maps of where to ride in this
area? Finally, I'd be willing to help support your local efforts since I
get to Ashland, OH on a regular basis.
Thanks,
Rod Lowe
"Neb Okla, MS-MCP/InterDev" <n_o...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:98o3dp$36p$1...@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu...