January 2009 #101 www.nemba.org SSingleingleTTrackS NEMBA, the New England Mountain Bike November 2008, Number 100 Association, is a non-profit 501 (c) (3) organi- zation dedicated to promoting trail access, maintaining trails open for mountain bicyclists, and educating mountain bicyclists to use these trails sensitively and responsibly. Rumble in the SingleTracks is published six times a year by the New England Mountain Bike Association for the trail community. Jungle ©SingleTracks La Ruta de los Conquistadores is an epic 4-day race in Editor & Publisher: Philip Keyes Costa Rica. River crossings, trestle bridge crossings, volcano crossings, this race has everything! By Greg Contributing Writer: Jeff Cutler Brown Copy Editor: Nanyee Keyes 10 Executive Director: Philip Keyes [email protected] NEMBA PO Box 2221 18 Acton MA 01720 Voice 800.57.NEMBA Winterize your Fax: 717-326-8243 [email protected] Bike Board of Directors Don’t hang up your bike until next spring -- there’s Harold Green, President plenty of riding fun in the snow. Here are some hot Peter DeSantis, Vice-President tips for cold days so you can keep on riding in the Anne Shepard, Treasurer Tom Grimble, Secretary white stuff. By Ryan Deroche. Rob Adair, White Mountains NEMBA Bart Angelo, RI NEMBA Norman Blanchette, MV NEMBA Matt Bowser, SCNH NEMBA Todd Bumen, Mt. Agamenticus NEMBA Steve Cobble, SE MA NEMBA Hey, get creative! We wel- Jon Conti, White Mountains NEMBA SingleTracks Eammon Carleton, BV NEMBA come submissions, photos and artwork. This is Kevin Davis, Midcoast Maine NEMBA your forum and your magazine. Be nice, and Peter DeSantis, Southern NH NEMBA share! Bob Giunta, Merrimack Valley NEMBA Paper Trail Rich Kordell, Blackstone Valley NEMBA On the Cover: Tina Gagnon clowning around Steve LaFlame, Central NH NEMBA Treadlines — 5 at the Wicked Ride of th e East. Photo by Philip Frank Lane, NS NEMBA Keyes Casey Leonard, Midcoast Maine NEMBA Riding with Teens — 20 Heather Linscott, Berkshire NEMBA Have a pic that would make a good cover shot? Eric Mayhew, CT NEMBA SideTracks — 21 Email it to [email protected] Liam O’Brien, PV NEMBA Tim Post, GB NEMBA Places to Ride — 21 Want to Underwrite in ST? Matt Schulde, RI NEMBA SingleTracks offers inexpensive and targeted Tren Spence, CT NEMBA Basic Biking — 22 Dan Streeter, North Shore NEMBA underwriting which helps us defray the cost of Mike Tabaczynski, Greater Boston NEMBA Chapter News —23 producing this cool ‘zine. Call 800-57-NEMBA Kerry Tull, Southern NH NEMBA NEMBA Rides —31 or email [email protected] for our media kit. John Vosburg, Blackstone Valley NEMBA Calvin Weeks, Maine NEMBA Support our Sponsors —39 Moving? Jim Wrightson, Wachusett NEMBA Don’t miss an issue! Change your address online at nemba.org or mail it into SingleTracks, PO Box WWW.NEMBA.ORG 2221, Acton MA 01720 SingleTrackS No. 101 | 3 TREADLINES CT NEMBA's Paula Burton Speaks at the New England Parks Association's Annual Meeting Paula Burton was invited to present a workshop on Designing and Building Sustainable Trails at the annual conference of the New England Parks Association on September 8 in Dennis, MA. Twenty four land managers were in attendance. The attendees designed a vir- Photo by Joe Sloane tual trail, incorporating the features and recreational groups found in SE MA NEMBA’s Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day A bright but cool sunny day greeted NEMBA, FOW, and TrailWatch Wompatuck volunteers as we setup for our first ever 'Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day' at the park. Steve Cobble spearheaded the event and set up two 10 X10 tents for registration and a space for a volunteer from the Ski Market to wrench and perform bike safety checks for the kids. From 9:30 to 12 noon we offered bike safety checks, skill development lessons, and guided rides in the park. Custom tours of the park were created to accommodate kids with different riding abilities and to ensure everyone had a great time. By noon, we had approximately 25 kids and parents participate in the festivities. The Friends of Wompatuck are excited to grow this event in the future to promote an interest in off road riding and to CT NEMBA’s Paula Burton and Dyana Martin, President of the New England broaden the public's understanding of the sport and our contribu- Parks Association tions to the community. their parks. Other topics included communicating with volunteers to facilitate high quality trail work. Another topic of interest to the land managers was mountain biking as recreation, which included the full spectrum of mountain biking from casual dirt road type riding, to single track cross country, and to freeriding with constructed obsta- NEMBA’s Jersey cles. The Holidays are Here! Join NEMBA's Headcap Leadership Society Display your above and beyond support of NEMBA with a cus- tom NEMBA headset cap for your bike. Donors of $100 or more will receive a black and silver CNC'd headset cap with the NEMBA logo and become part of our Headcap Leadership Society. Donate $100 to NEMBA’s Annual Appeal and ride with pride! NEMBA Training Imagine vivid blues, luscious greens and bril- Once again NEMBA participated in the annual trail school for Massachusetts staff of the Department of Recreation and liant oranges and red — this is classic New Conservation. NEMBA Instructors, Tom Grimble and Mike Tabaczynski, provided detailed information on sustainable trail design England. Ride with Pride, Ride Hard! and construction. MA DCR has a renewed commitment to trails, sig- nage and the quality of user experiences. Philip Keyes also present- Available Online @ www.NEMBA.org ed the group with the partnership opportunities involving NEMBA. SingleTrackS No. 101 | 5 TREADLINES Vietnam Rocks with the Sinister Trail Care Tour The Sinister Bike Vietnam Trail Care Appreciation Event on Sunday, Tour 2008 has come to a close. In October 26th. The event was for 2008, we had over 55 volunteers who volunteers who worked in Vietnam, attended 27 official trail days, dedi- and it included a ride, post-ride cating over 700 hours working on the BBQ, and drawing for the Sinister trails this year. This brings the total Bikes Gruitr frame. Volunteers volunteer hours over the last 4 years received an entry for the frame for in Vietnam to over 3000 hours. This each trail event attended. I am is a testament to the quality and pop- pleased to announce that Dave ularity of the trails. I'd like to give a Riding is the winner of the Gruitr shout out to Don Johnson, who frame. Congratulations DR! logged the most trail days attended: We look forward to continuing the 25 of the 27 trail days. trail work next season. Tuesday The trails built in Vietnam area start- Night Trail crew (TNT) will start in ed with the Milford access trail on the the late winter/spring. Sinister has west side of the Upper Charles graciously stepped up to support Headwaters Area, the infamous DLS Dave Mitchell, Mike DeCristofaro, and Eammon Carleton on Rubber the trail work in Vietnam by donat- (Dirty Little Secret), Rubber Stamp Stamp. Photo by Robert Taylor ing a frame for the 2009 trail build- (formerly known as TNT), and now ing season. If you enjoy the new Lincoln Logs at the bottom of Rubber Stamp. The trails range from trails in Nam, please try to find one Tuesday evening or weekend day XC to fast-flowing freeriding. The technical trail features include to help continue the tradition of building and maintaining high qual- drops, step ups, rock gardens, kickers, and now skinnies. The work ity trails in the Upper Charles Headwaters Area (aka Vietnam). this year wrapped up with the building of a 85' log ride, which is chal- The New England Mountain Bike Association thanks you for your lenging and committing with a fair bit of exposure. support. —John Vosburg, Chair of the Vietnam Land Management Dynamic Bicycles and Blackstone NEMBA hosted the Volunteer Committee 6 | January 2009 TREADLINES Wicked Ride, Wicked Fun It was a great way to end a wicked great season of the Kona MTB dogs, kilbasa and brats, and the now infamous Lee Hollenbeck Adventure Series. Three hundred riders came to check out the won- scorched the crowd with his homemade chili. This was definitely derful trails at Harold Parker State Forest cared for by North Shore one of those rides where you leave with more calories than you left NEMBA, raising over $2,300 in the process. Once again Seth and on the trail!. Our thanks to North Shore NEMBA, and especially the crew at New England Bicycle brought out some Kona Bicycles, Steve Charrette, for hosting such a wonderful fixture of the moun- and it was good to have Sinister Bikes, Cycle Loft, the Luna Chix tain bike scene! We thank you all, as well as all the sponsors that and Team Vitamin Water in the house. make the Kona Bicycles MTB Series possible. Anthony of Cycle Loft cooked up over 250 hot- Bruce the Firefighter, Sinister Bikes Steve Charrette, Wicked Promoter Joe DiZazzo, Wicked Trailbuilder Photos by PK SingleTrackS No. 101 | 7 TREADLINES NEMBA Raffle Winners NEMBA’s annual raffle was one of the most successful in recent history, raising more than $7,000 for NEMBA’s Trails Grant and advocacy programs. All this is made possible by you, as well as the generosity of our vendors. Harold Green was the lucky winner of the Giant Trance XO. John Siener won the trip with Western Spirit Cycling. Frank Lane won the Exposure Lights Enduro Maxx and Joystick. Tim Cosgrave won the Fox Shox. Matt Schulde won the Mavic CrossMax wheelset.