December 22, 2011

WVMBA Ride Guide Photo Contest (part 2)

Well the LMBA had a great start and was in the lead for some time with picture #8. Then something happened.....voting jumped from the 200's to the 600 mark then the 900 vote mark in a very short time period.

I would like to think that was because all our blog anf facebook friends really love our picture but I'm guessing that's not the whole story. Anyway WVMBA has decided to start all over with a different voting tool to stop multiple votes.

So we need everyone to click here and vote for our phote. I still think we have a great shot at winning.

Thanks for all your help!!!!

December 19, 2011

Work Day 4

Date Worked: 12-18-2011
Weather: Clear
Temperature: 29
Workers Present: 5
Time Worked: 3 hours
Manhours Spent: 15 hours
Distance Completed: 85 yards
Total Trail Distance 210 yards
Total Manhours Spent 38.5

Another good day of work on the trail. 5 crew members and the most distance covered so far. Manpower sure makes a difference!!! Nothing to interesting on this section, just level benching till we reach the point that is about 20 yards from where we stopped for the day. Just around the corner is the first nice flat that we will reach that hopefully will require little work..........Great to have hope!

Our good friend Alan D. and Grand Master Ron S. Joined us today.......thanks and much appreciated.


Before

After

We worked a little longer this day, lasting about 3 hours of not stop digging. It was kinda funny seeing everyone run out of gas about the same time. At about 2.5 hours the pace really dropped off and the question of when we stopping was asked more than once. I had my dog along for the day and the picture below sums up how we all felt. This picture was taken literally 5 minutes after we got home.


 

December 16, 2011

WVMBA Ride Guide Photo Contest

Voting is open for the WVMBA Ride Guide Photo Contest and LMBA has and entry(below). We need your votes to move us to the top. Click here and select photo #8 to vote for our photo. If you have multiple devices (computer(s), phone, tabs, etc) you can vote once from each device.

On the KT

This picture was taken on the Kanawha Trace (KT) in 2010.  The KT is an old boyscout trail that runs 32 miles from Barboursville to Frazier's Bottom, WV. Click here to learn more.

December 12, 2011

Work Day 3

Date Worked: 12-11-2011
Weather: Clear/Sunny
Temperature: 25
Workers Present: 3
Time Worked: 2 hours
Manhours Spent: 6 hours
Distance Completed: 45 yards
Total Trail Distance 125 yards
Total Manhours Spent 23.5

Cold day of digging!! With temperatures around 25 for the beginning of our day the ground was a little frozen but still good for digging. The frozen ground just helps to keep down some of the mud.

We got another difficult section completed as you come up out of the first creak crossing. Lots of deep benching in this section, some places as much as 24"-36", as you can see in the pictures below.

The next section of trail looks to be a little easier and we hope to pick up the pace and cover some better ground over the next few Sundays.

Finished Creek Crossing

Before

After

December 5, 2011

Work Day Two






Date Worked: 12-4-2011
Weather: Clear/Sunny
Temperature: 58
Workers Present: 3
Time Worked: 2.5 hours
Manhours Spent: 7.5 hours
Distance Completed: 30 yards
Total Trail Distance 80 yards


 
 
 
 
Another pretty good day of trail work, weather was good and the ground was kind. What I mean by that is the digging was pretty easy, not allot of rocks or roots to bench thru. We have reached our first mini milestone on the trail. When laying out the design we new that getting to the first creek crossing would be one of the more difficult sections. The pics below will give you a little glimpse of the first switchback/creek crossing and how it turned out.
 
The next portion of trail will be another difficult dig up and out of the creek for the next 100 yard, after that hopefully a pretty long section that will need much less benching..........that means more ground covered on our work days.
 
Hope to see everyone at the trail next Sunday at 10am!!!!

Before

After


Creek Crossing Before

Creek Crossing After

November 29, 2011

Trail Work Has Begun



Date Worked: 12-27-2011 11-27-2011
Weather: Light Rain
Temperature: 61
Workers Present: 4
Time Worked: 2.5 hours
Manhours Spent: 10 hours
Distance Completed: 25 50 yards




This past Sunday was our official kickoff to the Wildcat extension and I will have to say things went pretty well. It rained a little the morning before we started but that didn't stop us. We had a crew of 4 show up and we managed to get some nice benching knocked out. Big shout out to Alan Doss for helping and logging his first ever trail benching. Hope to see you back soon, we need all the help we can get.

Anyone interested in helping, come on down.We'll be meeting this Sunday (12-4-2011) at the ranger station. If you can't make it right at 10, no problem, just show up when you can and come straight to the end of the Wildcat where it intersects the Guyandotte Beauty trail.......you can't miss us.

Before

After


November 21, 2011

Time for Trail Work

November 27th marks LMBA's official trail building season. We plan to begin the second leg of the Wildcat trail. This will extend the Wildcat past the Guyandotte Beauty to the museum. We plan to work every Sunday at 10am and can use any and all help. If you would like to join us just show up at the ranger station, we have all the tools needed.

I hope to post allot during the trail build with lots of before and after pics of our work. In the mean time here is William in a before and after pic while blowing leaves.............WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!!!!




November 14, 2011

New Web Site

I keep opening this blog post with the same sentence; "It's been a long time since I've posted". Since that is a true statement why break the streak.

It's been a long time since I've posted and there has been allot going on to catch you up, and like I've said before.......I'm going to start posting more frequently.

The first thing to discuss is our new Logan Mountain Bike web page. We have a new site with a new look and better content. Check out the link and let us know what you think(please keep in mind it is not complete yet). We hope to have profiles, up to date race course info, picture slide show and a section dedicated to places we like to ride (more on that later).

Next topic..............well we better save that for a new post so I'll have something to write about. Here is a little of what is to come.
  • New trail at the Chief Logan Recreation Center
  • Trail work season begins the Sunday after Thanksgiving.......extending the Wildcat!
  • Places we like to ride
  • Tentative date of Chief Logan race next season
Check back soon to here more about these exciting topics!!!!!

July 27, 2011

Davis Race

Not allot of race reporting lately, but I thought these pics were blog worthy...........everyone needs a good laugh from time to time. I gues there's nothing worse than wet feet.




With this slick move Dennis locked in 4th place in the sport vet class. As for William, a broken chain on the second lap left him with a DNF. I guess I have no room to talk..........this move is better than me setting on the cough and missing the race.

Hopefully I will be racing 5 of the last 6 races and blogging to go along with those.

Chris

May 19, 2011

Crying Wolf Challenge

This past weekend we made the trip to Bluefield for the "Crying Wolf Challenge" and encountered a wet, cold, muddy and rainy race day. There were about 61 riders that showed up that day and we were all greeted with a downpour as we lined up for the prologue. That in combination with the already wet conditions made for a very muddy race.


LMBA had 5 members present for the race; Dennis finished 1st in sport vet, William 2nd in expert masters,  Derek 3rd in sport vet, Me 5th in sport vet (I won"t mention that there were only 6 in my class, or the fact that the 6th rider was a DNF, I will however focus on the fact that I was only 10:45 off of the lead.) and  Alex was 4th in beginner class. A pretty good showing for the team at this early point in the year.

A big shout out to Josh Vance for finishing 1st in the clydesdale class. Check out this video from the Bluefield Daily Telegraph of his smooth move thru a creek crossing, be sure to listen close at the end for his excuse. http://bdtvideo.com/videos/183/crying-wolf-challenge

Next up, Tour de Lake at Spencer.........hope to see you there.
Chris

May 17, 2011

Twin Falls

Recently we took a trip to Twin Falls state park for a group ride with the "Tire On the Mountain" group, little did I know that we would be in for such an interesting ride.

Twin Falls is a WV state park with several nice attractions that make for a great ride. First up is their premier biking trail, "Moonshiner". This is one of the smoothest and best flowing trails around. The 3.5 mile loop is fast and fun in either direction and worth the the trip in it's self. Next you have a really spectacular rock cliff overlook located at the end of a trail named................. "Cliffside"

Next up, the name sake of the park......the falls. I nice double track decent and a sweet rock garden take you to a really cool photo opp.

All in all about 15-20 miles for the day and some really nice trails and beautiful scenery. I highly recomend a trip to this location.

April 21, 2011

2011 Race Season

The WVMBA 2011 race season has kicked off and the LMBA race team has jumped in with 3 members competing in the 2nd race at Big Bear Lake this past Sunday. This year the team consists of Dennis, William, Derek and myself.

I decided to sit this race out given it's long distance from Logan. The team left out real early Sunday morning and arrived in time for a good warm up before the race start. William is riding Expert Masters this year and this will be his first race after moving up from the sport distance. Starting out with the prologue and seeing several riders wrecking in the technical sections he decided to dial it back and take it easy. This proved to be a bad idea as he settled into the layed back pace for the entire race and failed to push himself to his full potential, finishing 9th in his class. Look for a much better finish next race.

Dennis and Derek are both riding sport class, vet and open respectively. Riding much of the race together they traded positions back and forth, Derek leading on climbs and Dennis regaining on the downhills and flats. With a few miles to go Derek crashed and broke his rear shifter and was forced to complete the race stuck in a single gear on the rear cassette. Dennis finished 2nd in sport vet and is setting the ground work for a great season. Derek ended up 9th in a very competitive sport open. With no mechanicals and a climbing course, Derek is likely to improve on that finish at the next race.

Looks like the entire team will be at WVMBA race #3 at Bluefield, with lots of climbing and my first race at the sport distance I'm not expecting great things but I'm sure it will be painfully fun.

Just because a blog post just doesn't feel right with out pictures, here are a couple for your viewing pleasure.


Overly staged picture of my bike on a recent training ride

Surprise visitor in my garbage can a few days ago

March 5, 2011

Thursday Fun Rides

April is quickly approaching and everyone has been busy training for the the start of race season. We are all ahead of pace compared to last year, some a little more than others. I won't go into any more detail, wouldn't want to give out any info that could be used against us (yes I agree, everyone in WVMBA is probably scouting this blog as they prepare their race season strategies).

We all love to race but that is not what I wanted to talk about today. We all also love to fun ride. Riding with a large group of people that are out to enjoy the trails is also very enjoyable. Last year we typically rode every Wednesday and toward the end of riding season we had a few rides where 5-10 people would show up. sometimes everyone seamed reluctant to ride with us, thinking that we were out to train and ride fast. This is not the case, we enjoy riding with others and sharing our enthusiasm for the sport of mountain biking.

So this year we are going to have a weekly fun ride at Chief Logan State Park geared to draw a large number of riders of all skill levels. This ride will be every Thursday at 5pm, starting the first Thursday after the time change. The pace and route selection will be geared toward everyone having a good time and enjoying a ride with friends. We hope that this regular set day will allow people to plan on riding and show up for a great time on the trails with out having to call around and try to coordinate people to ride with.

Here is a video and a few pictures from recent rides for your viewing pleaseure............hope to see you on Thursdays!!!........Chris



January 31, 2011

Winter Road Ride

The weather was pretty good this past weekend and I needed to ride. I only had about 2 hours to play with, not quite enough time to load up and go to the park for a mountain bike ride, so I decided to get out on the road bike and log a few miles. Rolling out from my front door I road to the Logan County Airport and back. This is about a 10 mile ride, not much on a road bike but given the winter weather, lack of riding, Cat 2 climb and 12% grades this is a pretty challenging little ride. Check out the pics and MapMyRIDE data.






January 9, 2011

Long Time No Post

Well it's been a while since I last posted but that doesn't mean we haven't been busy. This winter we decided to focus our trail work on improving some of the existing trails rather than creating new ones. So far the work is coming along pretty well with some repairs and re-routing of trails in some area, though I have to say I do miss the excitement of building (riding this summer) a new trail. We have benched in some areas that needed it and chosen some better lines to improve the flow and increase the speed on a few trails.

If any of you are familiar with this blog or our trail working habits you know that the weather rarely stops us from working and today was no exception..........19 degrees and snow on the ground. Below are a few pictures from the last few weeks work.