Winter Storm Woes!!

The recent winter storm did a real number on Chief Logan State Park. Rangers estimate that nearly 100 tree have fallen in the park and we think that's just near the main roads of the park, not the trails.

The park was closed for a couple weeks while AEP crews cleared and repared power lines. During this time LMBA was able to begin assessing the damage to the trails. We can see alot from the main road, counting around 50 downed trees on the trails and this does not count the 2 longest trails (wilderness and backbone) along both ridges of the park.

All the extra work to clear these trees will make it more difficult to prepare for the April 11th WVMBA race but we are confident that all the work will be completed. We had started work on a new trail that we had hoped to complete and include in the race. This is now questionable and we'll update that possibility as the work progresses on all the clean up.

We have had a couple tree cutting days and have managed to clear 15-20 trees, a great start but a long way fron complete. As luck would have it there are alot of tree "toppers" onthe trails. When the canopy of the tree lands on the trail it takes much longer to clear opposed to just the trunk crossing the trail. So far we are seeing about half of the downed trees having the canopy on the trail.

Pictures below are from some of the work.

Work on our next trail has begun!!!

You've heard of epic trail rides, this is going to be an epic trail build. The red line on the map is a very rough projection of what we have in mind.

This trail will begin behind the wildlife exhibit and wrap all the way around the center ridge of the park and end up above the park pool connecting to the coal mine trail. Currently there are no trails on this ridge of the park.

We are estimating that this tail we be in the neighborhood of 10 miles and will probable take a couple winter seasons to complete.

We plan on breaking the work up into smaller sections with access points along the way so riders and hikers can utilize the trail in distance increments that suit there needs.

The first section that we will complete will be from the wildlife exhibit to the Guyandotte Beauty trail. If completed in time this section will be incorporated into the 2010 WVMBA points series race in April.

Check out a few pictures of the first days work, please note the perfect working conditions.

Jersey Time

LMBA has been busy lately with trail work and the building of our custom jersey. I think everyone has seen enough of our trail work for now so I thought it would be good to give you a glimps at our first proof. It's not perfect yet, one logo is wrong but will soon be corrected. Our main logos and a few key sponsers are show......hope you like!

Waterfall Trail now complete

Final work was done on the waterfall trail today. Its completly done and ready for some traffic to get it worked in. Hopefully this weekend we will be able to ride it. This trail has alittle bit of everything in it. Rocks, Roots, Narly Downhill and alot of fast single track. This trail will be an addition to the race course for the 2010 points race. Here are some pics of the trailwork today.

Raccoon Mountain Ride

Went this weekend to raccoon mountain in TN. Rode 16 miles of IMBA designed trails. I have to admit those were the best trails that i have ever rode. There were no large climbs and everything flowed beautiful. There was a little bit of everything from smooth single track to rocks and roots. I would recommend this trail system to the beginner and up to the the well rounded riders. This pic is of the trail that runs along the front side of the reservoir. From top to bottom the its about 250 feet high. If you look at the bottom of the reservoir you will see a trail and thats where we came out of the trail and it loops up and around to ride the middle trail which is an amazing amount of work to build.

Dennis Butcher

More trail work was completed this past weekend and thing are going well with the new section. Worked about 3 hours on a downhill that required allot of hard work to bench but turned out pretty sweet.
We are all in trail work mode but with the weather as nice as it has been this fall I'm not so sure we have our priorities right. We have managed to get in some good ride time but have also sacrificed some very nice ride days for trail work........this past Sunday being a good example of that. When you look at the big picture I guess we will have more and better trails to ride and that's what it's all about.
Check out pictures from our work!!

If you don't crash, you're not riding hard enough,
Chris

Some info about LMBA

Trail work, trail work, trail work………..that’s what the LMBA has been focusing on over the past 3-4 weeks. We are working on a section of trail that will complete a loop on the Waterfall trail. This will keep you from having to ride the Waterfall out and back and should add a pretty nice downhill and a highly visible section of trail to the single track at Chief Logan. Pics coming soon!!

We have picked up some help from a couple new volunteers for this portion of trail work. A special THANKS goes out to them for helping and we hope to keep your continued support. Anyone interested in helping can send an email to loganmountainbike@verizon.net and we will add you to the mailing list so you receive the alerts regarding rides and trial work.

Something else that has been keeping LMBA busy is the pursuit of custom cycling jerseys for anyone interested. We are currently working to get our logo on a custom jersey. As soon as we have a proof we will post it on the website/blog for everyone to see. We hope to order soon so we can start sporting them on local rides very soon.

Another thing of interest for us is the 2010 WVMBA race season, yeh is still pretty far away but we have all been talking about it quit a bit. For the 2009 season Dennis won the beginners overall title and the rest of us got our feet wet in race competition. For the 2010 season we all plan on racing more and hopefully challenging several of the top positions in several different classes, more on that to come.

Check back soon for more trail work updates, custom jersey pics and our bike specs for the 2010 race season.

If you don’t crash, you’re not riding hard enough
Chris