off camber

Cresent Moon Night Ride

54°, clear, calm. Much warmer today than the past few. Summer's last stand. A good crew for trailwork this evening - six of us. Some trail narrowing and design work for a very, very cool little reroute. Give 'em something better that is environmentally sustainable. I'm happy with the design, and stoked to see the final project. Afterwards, took a little singletrack jaunt in the dark, a Nightrider headlamp guiding the way. A single beam of light, lighting the way through the pine forests, while the cresent moon cast a ghostly hew illuminating the gaps. Eeriely cool. On the way home, there was another beam of light, high up on the mountain across the valley. Reminded me a little of 'zumas, when you can see the people hiking up the mountain at 2 am, headlights slowly working their way up the hill. I wondered what adventure this single beam was on, as I completed my own mini adventure. Back home to the cocoon, dogs, puppies, birthdays, candles and cake. A lot of work yet to be done on the trail – same time next week – 6:15 pm at the high school, followed by a little night ride of Habit. Work than play.

August 30 - Trailwork

It's Wednesday (well, tomorrow it is) and that means it's time for West Mag trail work. 6:15 pm at the Nederland High School. We work till dark, and in time for the Boulder folk to take the bus home. If you've got tools, bring 'em. For those who were there last week - same project...new technical trail...yeah!

Changes on the way at Off Camber

I got this letter from a reader yesterday:

I would like to apologize for the comment that was sent ragging on the attitude and I suppose in this case misunderstood intentions of your crew. I originally made a comment which I was understandably ragged on in a later post. I allowed the thoughts of harsh words that I often associate with some of the writings on offcamber to cause me to lash out and do the very thing that really brings me down. For that I am sorry as I do not even know you and should not pass such judgment. I would like to further explain. I used to enjoy reading your site back in the day. The documenting of great adventures and rides that made one wish they were not sitting behind a desk. I always ignored the constant negative attitude towards anyone that did not live in the mtns. Towards the last couple of years or so, it seems there was a shift towards ranting on many things. I became sick of reading the negative view that your site has towards people that live outside of your town and stopped checking your site out. Maybe checking in twice a year when I used to check in weekly. I could be wrong and some of the stories may be hearsay but I have heard of certain people up there making threats towards bikers if they ride on "their" trails. Negative talk seems to just trickle down the mtn and it just wears on me. I ride my bike for fun and have always protected the trails that I do know about up there. I do not bring riders to the west mag trails that have not been there before. I do not trespass and I am a courteous rider and trail user. I rarely even ride there anymore but when I do, I appreciate what mother nature has to offer and respect it to the fullest. I should have tried to understand your attentions before making a derogatory comment towards anyone. The whole anti flatlander message still comes off rather strong but the fact that people are open to working together made me realize I was the one that was wrong in this case and should have given offcamber the benefit of the doubt. Sorry and good luck with the trail work. Hopefully it is a positive experience with positive results.

I really appreciate this letter. I've never actually gotten an apology from someone on this site before, so I suppose that was kind of cool, since I've long held the belief that we are not all a bunch of ranting idiots. But more than that, it shed a little light on what's been going on with this site for the past year.

One of my big influences in writing is Edward Abbey. Abbey challenged the norm and more often than not wrote in an irreverant manner about issues he disagreed with. His writing was inflamatory and I didn't always agree with everything he put on paper. That was part of the fun of it all.

Then there was the other side of Abbey. He had this amazing ability to create sheer beauty with his words. Read the book Desert Solitaire. It's a wonderful roller-coaster ride: a portrayal of the beauty of the desert, blended with various eloquent rants. The two sides of his writing compliment each other. Without the anger he'd just be another bleeding heart psuedo environmentalist. Yet without the beauty, he's a tired, angry old politico. By melding the two, he – and his words – become real.

Not to compare our drivel to that of a great writer, but that's a little like O.C. We've always written about adventure...it's the hub that makes this thing work. Yet, from time-to-time - usually in correspondance with some event - we rant about flatlanders, motos, Alaska pipelines, etc.

Here's what I think has happened. Last Christmas a bunch of us decided to operate Off Camber as an open website. We would keep our own websites – DV8's Voice from the Crag, the Mongolia Chronicles, Timmy's Singlespeed Dream and Merweather's Rants to write about our own personal adventures. When there were important things to write about, we would post them on the Off Camber mainpage. The thing is, nobody – myself included – really ever posted anything. And worse yet, when something was posted, it was one of the more "political" rant type pieces. This gives the perspective that most of what we write here is angry rants.

This would be inaccurate. I tallied the "rants" written versus the adventure stories written on my own site, DV8, and the ratio is something like 40 to 1, adventure stories to angry pleas. Unfortunately, all the angry pieces get front page O.C. status, while stories about adventure might not even get read.

As such, starting September 1, I'm going to start hosting the blog DV8's Voice from the Crag on this site - basically what I did from 2001-2005. It's not that the other bloggers didn't care, but I think we put a lot of energy into our own sites and maybe we leave this site to flap in the wind. Off Camber is something I've enjoyed working on for the past eight years, and I don't want to see it become a bitter forum. Sure, there will be some angry rants, but they'll be more than balanced out with solid adventure stories.

Cool - keep on reading and I'll keep trying to stoke the passion through words and a few photos. And of course, keep reading the blogs of the other folks linked from the site. Cool!

On a side note, I'm also starting a new mountain biking organization called the Singletrack Foundation. The groups mission is simple: "Mountain Bikers Working to Protect Planet Earth." I have a lot of experience working in mountain biking advocacy, but I have found that the positions of the existing organizations don't always jive with what myself and a whole heck of a lot of other folks believe in. More than just fighting for OUR access, we'll be representing mountain bikers in the fight to INCREASE the amount of Wilderness areas out there, fight sprawl, get involved in important environmental and wildlife issues, get more kids on bikes and increase the amount of places to ride in urban parks. I guess the generalized position would be this: If the group MTB Access is on the right and IMBA smack dab in the middle, we'd be somewhere left of that. Definitely not for everyone, and we'll certainly have some opposition, but that's OK. Fortunately, there are some experienced former IMBA folks getting involved to make this a reality, and we think we know what we're doing. Anyway, that's a quick preview...much more info very soon.

Hear Ye....Hear Ye...Come One...Come all...

And they came from hither and tither...near and far...and the fairheaded sea faring man said: Come and do good...love our trails...and they will love you back.

UPDATE - 9:15 PM, Tuesday night. Wanna do some trailwork on the West Mag Trails? Sick! We're starting this Wednesday night, and going every Wednesday night until snowfall makes it impossible. Meet at the Nederland High School parking lot at 6:10 pm...perfect for all you folks taking the 5:40 bus home. We'll work for about two hours...until it gets dark. Bring your bike because you'll need it to access the points. For those of you coming from the flat lands - we'll finish just in time for you to catch the 8:17 pm bus back to Boulder. See ya there! DV.

Some Flatlanders Rock Cock

So my apologies for not getting an update of the much anticipated Wednesday meeting between the Flatlanders and the Highland NIMBYs on the web sooner. It's been a hectic couple of days. Anyhow, the meeting was a smashing success. About a dozen folks showed up for the discussion, including a couple folks from the Boulder Mountain Bike Patrol. We broke bread, we drank, we figured out who is who via internet aliases, we figured out who is an asshole and who is not...and then we came to a few conclusions.

We discussed a lot of issues, but for me the main point was this: the trails on West Mag we not originally designed for the amount of use they get today. The number of people using these trails is not going to go down...in fact it likely will go up. The trails are beat to hell, and are not particularly sustainable. The main immediate concern is trailwork - both minor band-aid stuff, as well as full re-routes in some places. The goal - to create an environmentally sustainable area that offers aesthetically pleasing trails for a wide range of ability levels.

Our first call to action will be trailwork on Wednesday nights this fall. More details as I get them. Thanks to all the flatlanders who showed up - twas a very solid first step.

Agenda Items for Tonite's Meeting

After careful consideration, here some considerations for possible considerations for agenda items for consideration this evening:

1. 6:15: Introductions, description and lcoation of favorite double super secret trail (please bring 200 copies, high res, waterproof, suitable for posting around front range bikeshops)
2. 6:15:02: Gulp down cold, frothy, beer.
3. 6:15:56: Heckle Ned Locals
4. 6:18:22: Chug, refill, Eat pickle.
5. 6:28:06: Heckle Flatlanders
6. 6:33:09: uh - huh - bottoms up!
7. 6:39:09: Heckle 29'er's nad anyone that has one
8. 6:42:07: Heckle each other
9. 6:51:06: Take a moment of reflection for shots of something that will induce sickness later.
10. 7:02:06: Heckle singlespeeders and the luddites that ride them
11. 7:07:09: Heckle Rider'X' who not only doesn't have the balls to use his real name, but has nothing better to do at 8am on a wednesday that take a potshot at a group of folks who are trying to work some good shit out for the benfit of all
12. 7:07:10: Drink to the fantasy we live in!!!! (according to Rider X)
13. 7:09:12: Burn effigy of Rider X
14. 7:12:11: Pee on said fire to extinguish it fully
15. 7:18:27: Heckle blind midget fixed gear unicyclists from Bavaria who ride on alternate thursday's
16. 7:19:22: Toast all foreign 'vertically challenged' athletes of any type
17. 7:23:06: Drink bavarian beer!!!!!
18. 7:29:09: Haul out bongo's form drum circle and realize we are all one, all this humanity and love, it's all so ......weep, beautiful
19. 7:30 - 11:20: Watch Ghandi in it's entirety, and weep.
20. 11:21:09: Form group hug, console each other. Bond.
21. 11:30:00: Barf while climbing BS
22. 7:22:03 AM: wake up with no idea what happened at the meeting
23. 8:53:07 am: Schedule another one.

342 A, 355 C, 925 F, WTF? (x-post from DV8's blog)

58°, thunderstorms, drizzle, calm. The thunderboomers are stellar this evening, echoing off the valley walls and the divide to the west. Like a seranade, deep, booming, every ten seconds or so. A magical evening in Happy Valley.

A very nice ride with the kids today. While the team kids are a known entity at this point in time – and always a joy to ride with – we cycle through camps on a weekly basis. The camp kids are generally less experienced and have varying degrees of outdoor experience. As one might imagine, some kids handle adversity a bit better than others. It's not uncommon to have kids complain about the length of a climb, about being tired, etc. I try to be sympathetic, and I am, but there are times where it definitely tests the patience a little.

This weeks group is terrific. We did a hard ride today – I actually thought the kids were signed up for a higher level camp than they were – with lots of climbing and less "idle" time than normal. Up to the mines, on some steep climbs that even the best riders had to hike-a-bike. But with this group, there was never a peep of whining. No need to hand out the cheese. They were tired, no doubt about it, but they were happy troopers. I like that attitude, and it means we can step up the adventures a little this week.

I had to check out one of the West Mag trailhead maps, just to see what these were all about. I must say...they are a little confusing. For example, if I were to decribe today's ride to someone, it would go something like this: Hooked a left on 926, onto 926 B, onto unnamed dashed trail, back onto 926 A, onto 342 A, then down 925 F, onto 355 D (alternately known as Habit, or Hobbit, or Twisty, or Trestle), hit intersections 9, 15, 12, 13, 22, 19 and 20, onto 355 I, hop 355 C, down 926 E, cross over to 926 F, and onto a lunch spot at 355 A. And that just covers the morning. Uhh, yeah. It is a bit of a quagmire. Of course, then there are the alternate names - the Latitude 40 names – which are just as confusing. (By the way it is Habit Trail NOT Hobbit Trail - more on that later). It's kind of amazing anyone rides in this place, but it's even more unusual that the USFS actual decided it was necessary to sign all these 200 yard spurs. And what the hell does 926 mean, and why is is so close to 355?

Confusing stuff. Good thing I don't suffer from memory loss and can get by without using the map. Unfortunately, such a confusing network blurs the division between what is legit and what's not, and could easily encourage people to trespass. Wait is this 355 I, or are we now trespassing on the Toll's land. Oblidi-oblidah, who knows, let's keep going till someone see's us and says no.

No easy answers, but something to chew on.

Final Results: Should Flatlanders Be Banned from Nederland Trails?

The polls have been closed, and the results are in. The matter at hand - should Flatlanders be banned from West Mag Trails. NOTE: these are official results, with a plus or minus error of 100%. Sick.