My how the time has flown.

So what the heck have I been doing for the last week and a half?

If there’s two things that consume my time right now, it’s being an engineer and being a cyclist. The big thing that’s been taking up my time kinda combines both of them I guess you could say that I’ve been ‘engineering’ a little bike ride coming up in about a week and a half. The official ‘full’ course is up, so check out the fun and excitement and come have a beverage and a bike ride.

The other thing that I’ve been engineering is a new fence and gate to keep the little dingo who’s been terrorizing our house from running out of the backyard.

They said ‘Shepard mix’ when we got her. I’m convinced it was a Shepard-Dingo mix. Really, do a google image search for dingo, the resemblance is uncanny……

I wanted a nice big double swing gate so I could still get the truck into the side yard, so I ordered a 4 foot gate and a 6 foot gate from the guys down at buffalo fence. They called me back and said ‘a 6 ft gate is pretty long, that’s gonna sag, are you sure you don’t want two 5-footers?’

As you can imagine, I took that as a challenge. I promptly went to home depot and started piecing together a nice little cable tensioning system for the gate posts.

You can stand on the end of the 6 footer and it doesn’t move. I don’t think it’s gonna sag anytime soon.

Boo-yah.

Lets see, what else…..

I did get some new toys, although they’ve been out of necessity more than desire. My helmet finally has a couple visible cracks in it, so I pulled the trigger on the new Bell Volt. I’m probably a bit overdue for it, since I can’t count the number of times I’ve come down square on my head in my current helmet. It’s had a good run of it, and I definitely don’t ever complain about spending the money on head protection.

I also had a bit of an ‘incident’ last week involving my car and the front wheel to my road bike…. The car won, and thus necessitated me ordering a new set of wheels for the road bike. The old front wheel has a distinct potato chip shape to it……

I got a set of the Easton EA90sl wheels. Not super-light, but a good training wheel, and a few grams lighter than the Ksyrium Equipes I was running (but no bladed spokes, so is it a wash on speed? whatever).

As a side note, since I only borked the front wheel, if anyone is in need of a used rear ksyrium equipe, drop me a line, I’ll sell it cheap. It’s in decent condition, and it looks all blingy with them fancy bladed spokes on it.

The only other thing to report is that I’ve got another 10 gallons of beer in the fermenters, but that should be pretty standard now. Rob (Radford), the guy responsible for getting me into brewing 4+ years ago is in town, and so we brewed up an irish red. I split the batch and we’re trying 2 different yeasts to compare and contrast. Should be tasty.

Beer, bikes, and blockades…… that about sums it up.

I hope that the ‘aftermath of the fire’ pics that keep coming across my inbox aren’t too depressing for all of you. I’m a big fan of ‘more information is better’ and I hope that you all agree. Anywho, on with the show…..

Hey Nathan,
Since there has been obvious interest on your blog about the events of the Schultz fire, I thought I would contribute these photos. I have been the contract administrator for the heli-mulching project that is going on right now. Basically the Forest Service has hired a company to spread 1 ton of wheat straw per acre over 2,750 acres of the most severely burned areas on the fire. Here are some pictures of that project. I also put in some pictures of the flood that happened today..
The first 5 pictures are of the heli-mulching operation
The one picture is of a huge dust devil in the burn area
Then the last two pictures are of the flood that happened today on the Schultz pass road FR 420. The one with flowing water is a minor drainage. The second is the aftermath in a major drainage across the road. (The forest service had already pulled out all the culverts in anticipation of these floods happening.)
Feel free to post, or enjoy for yourself.
-Andy

Holy shit. That’s crazy stuff. 2750 tons of straw. In case you were out of the loop, I believe the total tally of acerage burned was close to 16,000. So that means they are spreading straw over 17% of the fire.

I was up on Elden today for a little mountain bike shred after work and was actually wondering if there was something going on, because there was a helicopter overhead about every 10 minutes, I’ve gotta believe they have a lot of choppers up there if they’re moving 2750 tons of straw. Thanks a ton to Andy for sharing with us, and if anyone else has any other pics they would like to share, shoot ‘em on over and I’ll get them up.

On a much brighter note, in case you missed it, there’s an IMBA trailbuilding clinic tomorrow. Should be pretty good, and since I missed the last one, I’ll definitely be attending this one. There’s a classroom session on saturday morning, and then a hands-on session on schultz creek trail that afternoon. I actually think I saw where they’ve already flagged the section we’ll be working on. I admit, it needs to be re-routed, unfortunately this would be the second re-route of that section. Lets hope this one sticks…..

Just in case that isn’t what floats your boat this weekend, there’s also the option of the Arizona Highland Celtic Festival. I didn’t make it last year, but two years ago it was a ton of fun. Doesn’t sound interesting? Two words:

Caber
Toss

That doesn’t do it for you? Fine, I’ll give you two more:

Whiskey
Tasting

That’s what I thought, I’ll see you there.

What should I be doing on August 7th?

These are of waterline road, not sure exactly when they were taken (the exif data on the photos says 11:59 pm on 6/28/10, which is pretty impossible).

This should give you a good idea why waterline is considered a completely off-limits zone currently. Lots of deadfall waiting to happen, and a road that looks like it has absolutely no anchoring anymore. I only hope the monsoons which have started to roll in are merciful….

If you’re interested in what damage was done to Little Bear, Flagstaff Biking had a couple photos up on their facebook page which were taken by Sean Murphy of the Forest Service. Sorry I can’t direct link to them, but if you visit FBOs facebook page here, you can see them a few posts down.

I sat down to respond to it, and as my response grew, i thought I might make it a little more visible, because it’s a really interesting discussion point.

I hope everyone knows that I read every comment to this blog, and appreciate all the discussion that gets spurred from them. Keep it up, it keeps me motivated to post more.

Michelle – If you’re reading this, I hope you don’t mind that I reproduced your comment here, along with my response. I thought your comment was very well written and deserved some attention.

Michelle’s Comment

The Forest Service would put more effort into the local trail system if they had more funding and man power. They have to use grant money to pay for trail maintenance and construction and the Arizona Trail provides grant money.

When the Forest Service builds trails they follow established guidelines which includes NEPA, archeology studies, flora and fauna studies, Game and Fish, local property owners, tribal concerns, and the list goes on. So it takes a while to get to the actual trail building, but you can see the results of what they can do when you ride the Aspen Corner to 418 segment of the AZ trail and Little Bear (funded by equestrians).

Also, in the past, as in when there was funding available to work on local trails, the locals fought the Forest Service saying they were neutering the trails and making them too easy. This happened when Rocky Ridge and Lower Oldham were due for maintenance.

Another problem is trying to keep up with all of the social trails, free ride trails and other illegal trails popping up all over the forest. The trail crew will try to naturalize a section which takes time away from routine maintenance. The next day their work is destroyed. Local riders have actually blogged about how they like these social trails and complain when they are naturalized.

The volunteer days are a small step in keeping the trails in good shape, but the locals need to listen and learn more from the Forest Service who have the experience and skills to build fantastic trails like the AZ Trail. Super Motor is an examples of a trail that could have been superb if the Forest Service could have built the trail to their specs. Instead, with local input, the trail turned it into an unusable trail that a only few free riders and skilled trial riders use. The terrain was there to make some challenging yet rider friendly routes through some spectacular topography. What a missed opportunity!

I can totally understand that the forest service is hard up for manpower and for funding to build trails. As most government agencies, they’re always a bit short on resources and I sympathize with their plight. I, too, wish that we could have more official trails that were built in a sensible and sustainable way.

The issue of social trails is a very difficult one that most riders here in flagstaff struggle with every day. I will admit, I ride many of the social trails, and enjoy many of them. However, I understand where the forest service has issues with these trails, their construction, and their routing. I’m sure many of them run through areas that would not pass muster due to varying impact issues. This is a very real problem and a difficult one to get around.

I often wonder if there is some way to make the data more accessible showing current archeological sites, protected wildlife habitats, religious sites and other ‘restricted areas’. If this information was more prominently and publicly available, might less of these social trails pop up in undesirable areas? I don’t know, but I do believe that transparency of information and communication between the forest service and users is key to working through the quagmire of trail access issues.

I understand the frustration of navigating through these various land issues, as it absolutely blew my mind how many of the system trails run through areas that have usage restrictions due to these land designations. We ride on them on a daily basis, but when it comes to trying to use some of them for a race or other event, the maze of restrictions becomes mind numbing.

As a side note, if anyone reading this raced the MBAA final last year (2009) and noted the couple sections of little elden and schultz which had to be re-routed to the road (and then promptly back) you have experienced this patchwork of land restrictions. It truly is a wonder that any trails get built under forest service sanction with this mess of a land usage battle that covers every acre of forest service land (and you thought is was as simple as ‘wilderness or not’ didn’t you?)

I will state, however, that I disagree with you on the ‘missed opportunity’ of Upper Moto (which is what I’m assuming you refer to as “Super Motor”). I frequented the old ‘upper moto’ before it was re-routed (when it was still a ‘social trail’), and although it was more difficult in sections than the new trail, it was a horribly built trail, which made it a pretty miserable trail to ride (or hike, or ride a horse on). The trail went straight down a fall line, which led to terrible erosion problems and a mind-numbing amount of different lines which fanned out in every direction. It was ugly, unsustainable, and not the funnest to ride.

However, through the efforts of local and regional groups, the trail has been re-routed into something that is truly fun AND sustainable. It’s 1000% more sustainable now that the trail doesn’t follow fall lines and utilizes surfaces less prone to wash out and erosion. The trail now has very distinct ‘lines’ through the technical sections, keeping people from widening the trial by bushwacking ‘alternative routes’. And finally, it is built in such a way that hikers can enjoy the trail and cyclists can challenge themselves on a technical piece of singletrack.

I would disagree that it is a trail is an “unusable trail that a only few free riders and skilled trial riders use”. I believe this statement discounts people who qualify themselves as ‘technically skilled’ on a mountain bike as not being trail users. In fact, I would argue that these people are usually the ones who are out there 3, 4, 5 or even 7 days a week utilizing these trails. Being somebody who spends a vast majority of my days in town on these very trails, I can tell you that a large majority of the people I see riding them are the ones who enjoy a well-built, techincal trail like Upper Moto (or upper sunset, or upper brookbank….).

I would actually like to see more trails like upper moto built, because I believe the reason that a large number of the more technical ‘freeride’ social trails are built is due to the lack of official system trails that fill that niche. There are examples all over the country of the land management agencies working together with local cyclists to create a trail system that is sustainable and technically challenging and interesting. It IS possible, and I would love to see it done more here. Cyclists are a huge trail user group (probably one of the biggest, in terms of sheer mileage), and a very ambitious one when it comes to challenging themselves on technical terrain.

I have absolutely no data to back it up (although I would love to see a study done), but I wonder if the areas which have more technical “sanctioned” trails have less of a problem with social trails? It would certainly be an interesting data set, don’t you think?

I agree with your statement that “locals need to listen and learn more from the Forest Service who have the experience and skills to build fantastic trails”. However, I would also respond with the statement of “the forest service needs to listen and learn from the trail users what style of trail the system is lacking, in order to meet the needs of its users”.

There are many people out there who are avid users of the trails, and they come from all different skill levels. I do enjoy the Arizona trail from Snowbowl to 418, and I (did) enjoy Little Bear. But, I will also say that if Little Bear and that section of the AZT are the most technical trails the Forest Service is willing to sanction and build, there is no doubt in my mind that social trails will keep popping up which fill that unmet need. A great many cyclists (ESPECIALLY in this town) are skilled to the point that Little Bear and the AZT would be considered a warm-up from a technical standpoint. It’s not a wonder that more “social” technical trails crop up, when the technical level of the AZT is the status quo of a typical forest service sanctioned trail.

As I mentioned before, I am a strong supporter of trails being built in a sustainable fashion and in accordance with the land usage restrictions of the forest service. But, in the end, the forest service is a taxpayer funded organization, and the effectiveness of the trails within their jurisdiction is measured by the usage of those trails. If trails are being built outside of their prescribed system trails, maybe that is a sign that the current needs of the users are not being met by the sanctioned trails.

I would like to close by also saying that I agree with you that the trail days are a good start towards helping with this trail maintenance and construction issue. I understand that we probably can’t all donate a huge sum of money to the forest service for trail building, but we CAN donate the manpower (which, as you mentioned, is one of the two things preventing the forest service from doing more maintenance). I feel as though users of the trails should be out there doing what they can to make them our own, and if that means putting our sweat into their construction, then we should all be out there doing it.

I can’t tell you that I’m pleased at the root cause of this newfound interest in different trails, but in an effort to look at the silver lining in the situation, I am glad that my mountain biking routes were somewhat forced off the beaten path.

One of the trails that has seen a lot of use lately just happens to be the section of the arizona trail which goes north from snowbowl road along the west side of the peaks wilderness. This section of trail has been under construction for the last few years, and every time I ride it, it gets better and better.

I absolutely love the concept of these ‘long trails’ that are littered around the country. The whole idea of a long continuous stretch of marked and maintained trail which cuts across vast distances is a really amazing concept.

The first one that I ever had any experience with was the Knobstone Trail while I was growing up in indiana. Although it isn’t a full length through the whole state of indiana, it still falls into the category of ‘long trail’ in my book. It’s one of the first places I went mountain biking on a regular basis, and the Nebo Ridge section of it still holds a special place in my list of mountain bike trails.

Since then I’ve been captivated by the hiking on the Long Trail in vermont while I was at school in northern new york. Weekend trips have taken me to numerous sections of the colorado trail in southwestern colorado. And of course, the arizona trail runs less than 5 miles from my house.

It never ceases to amaze me at how well these trails are marked and maintained. I often wonder if there’s some sort of pride that makes these long trails high on the list of maintenance projects for local groups? It seems that often times trails near these epics will be neglected, while their trailheads are kept pristine, erosion bars are set, and signs are up-to-date.

The local trail maintenance groups around here certainly put the arizona trail high on the priority list, as a good percentage of the recent trail days (as well as the upcoming ones) are centered around maintaining sections of existing arizona trail as well as punching through the few remaining sections that are still not connected.

I wholeheartedly support this effort, and not just because races like the AZT300 or the CTR hold a special place in my heart. I think it really gives people a sense of adventure and inspiration to know that they could jump on a trail near their house with the potential of ending up across an entire state, if time and support weren’t an issue.

This inspiration has long been proven out on the Appalachian Trail, where hordes of ‘section hikers’ will break the trail up into manageable chunks to fit into a schedule that wouldn’t normally allow a one-time push.

With the more widespread construction of these sorts of trails, that same enthusiasm can be seen on a more local level. I’m aware of several events in and around flagstaff that use sections of the AZT, and that’s just in this town alone. I can probably name several more in the tucson area, and at least a couple north of the grand canyon.

Along with the Arizona Trail, we’re also fortunate to have the Black Canyon Trail near Phoenix, which provides a similar experience.

I love hearing (and seeing) these long interconnected trails pop up, and I hope the enthusiasm and support continues for their construction and maintenance into the future. If we keep moving along this track, there may be a day in the future where you could go anywhere you want through a giant system of trails all across the country.

How’s that for utopia on a mountain bike?