IMBA Canada BC Rep Blog

We now have some dates for the public sessions to hear about the Trails Strategy for BC. There will be ten regional meetings throughout BC where you will have the opportunity to see the final draft of the Trails Strategy Committee. Along with that you’ll have the opportunity to meet stakeholders and government officials who are behind the plan.

I’m hoping you’ll attend to provide feedback for government to develop a comprehensive strategy that reflects real mountain bicycling issues and concerns. Get your voice heard.

For the dates and places pdf go here.

To read the draft strategy go here.

To download the feedback form (MS Word) go here.

Here is a brief list of the public dates and locations:

Nanaimo - 6:30 pm to 9 pm, 18th November 2008
Vancouver Island Conference Centre, River Rooms A and B,
101 Gordon Street, Nanaimo

Penticton - 6:30 pm to 9 pm, 26th November 2008
Penticton Lakeside Resort, Lakeside Ball Room
21 Lakeshore Drive West, Penticton

Castlegar - 6:30 pm to 9 pm, 28th November 2008
Sandman Hotel, Castlegar
1944 Columbia Ave, Castlegar

Prince George - 6:30 pm to 9 pm, 2nd December 2008
University of Northern British Columbia, Bentley Centre
3333 University Way, Prince George

Smithers - 6:30 pm to 9 pm, 4th December 2008
Hudson Bay Lodge
3251 East Highway 16, Smithers

Langley - 6:30 pm to 9 pm, 13th January 2009
Holiday Inn Express, Langley
8750 204th Street, Langley

Cranbrook - 6:30 pm to 9 pm, 15th January 2009
Prestige Rocky Mountain Resort
209 Van Horne Street South, Cranbrook

Kamloops - 6:30 pm to 9 pm, 20th January 2009
Thompson Rivers University
900 McGill Road, Kamloops

Williams Lake - 6:30 pm to 9 pm, 22nd January 2009
Blue Spoon Cafe
1527 S. Cariboo Highway, Williams Lake

Fort St. John - 6:30 pm to 9 pm, 27th January 2009
Quality Inn Northern Grand Hotel
9830 100th Avenue, Fort St. John

IMBA Canada has just launched a new web site, IMBA Canada Events, where our Affiliate Clubs can post their upcoming events. It is in the rough stage now and there will be some tweaks to how the information is displayed but you can post events and see what’s coming up in your area. Feel free to promote this site to your members so they can see what’s going on too.

If you have suggestions on how we can improve this site please let me know.

For more details click here

Tourism Symposium
Oct. 26-28, 2008 at Talking Rock Resort, Chase, BC

Adventure tourism operators, community leaders, land managers, park planners, bicycle industry representatives and trail advocates will gather October 26-28, 2008 at the Talking Rock Resort near Chase, BC (approximately 1 hour east of Kamloops on Highway 1) to discuss topics associated with mountain bike tourism. Topics include market research, economic impact, liability and risk management as well as developing bike friendly communities and services, partnerships and funding for trails, mountain biking tourism business opportunities and marketing community based mountain biking experiences.

For more details click here

The IMBA TCC visit to Duncan is October 25-26. Please contact Tara Altimas at tealtimas@hotmail.com or register online if you want to participate in the classroom and trail building sessions. There’s going to be a pub night on the Saturday too so sign up early for this fantastic event. Trail work will happen on Cobble Hill.

For the details click here.

The insurance climate in Canada is, shall we say, somewhat resistant to providing affordable general liability insurance to mountain bike clubs. I’m sure they feel the risk of a claim is too high or they don’t fully understand what clubs are undertaking. Either way, it has been a real concern for many clubs across Canada.

IMBA Canada has been working very hard at finding a national insurer that clubs can afford and that don’t make it so difficult to comply with their terms that they risk being uninsurable. The search has finally come good with Oasis Insurance out of North Battleford, Saskatchewan.

Ken Anderson who is no rookie to insuring mountain bike clubs, heads up Oasis. As long as your club is an affiliate member of IMBA Canada you can take advantage of the group premiums which are a substantial savings over single policies. There are a few policies clubs can take advantage of; general liability, directors and officers errors and omissions and group accidental death and dismemberment. For example, the rates are $10 per club member plus $4 per kilometre of managed trail for general liability.

All of the forms are available at the Oasis Insurance site, click on the IMBA Canada logo or click here. For specific questions about these policies contact Ken at Oasis Insurance.

I know some of you have seen this document since its inception of October 2006 but many of you haven’t. Trying to find it otherwise on the hinternet will prove frustrating so here it is and I have posted on my Links page.

Mark your calendar as Duncan, BC will be the next provincial visit of the Subaru/IMBA Trail Care Crew October 23-26, 2008. Trail specialists will be IMBA’s Anna Laxague, Jason Wells and Moxy.

*Updated 24/09/08: The trail work will be on Cobble Hill so if you are interested in attending contact Tara Altimas at tealtimas@hotmail.com in Duncan.

Here’s their bio:

Anna Laxague and Jason Wells

Anna Laxague and Jason Wells hail from the Pacific Northwest (Laxague is from Truckee, CA and Wells is from Port Angeles, WA). They bring a unique combination of professional experience to the program — both have worked as school teachers and as guides in a variety of outdoor endeavors including mountain biking, climbing, kayaking and rafting. They’re also committed volunteers who have logged hundreds of hours building trails and performing outreach work with a host of public agencies. They worked as a team running a kayaking school in Hood River, OR, and will hopefully find some time to paddle a few rivers on their way around the country, in addition to riding as many trails as possible.

A long-term planning effort for Mt Fromme reached conclusion this week when the district council voted unanimously in favour of moving ahead with a new management plan. Mt Fromme is one of the Shore’s most famous riding locations and is located right on the edge of the city. Many of the trails are world famous and extremely difficult.

In general the results are positive for mountain biking could be considered a milestone globally. The Fromme trail system has long been very lightly managed and nearly all the trails unauthorized. This helps brings their management to a new level.

An important document is part of the plan. It is called the Fromme Mountain Trail Classification Study (170 pages). It was written by a consulting team including Keystone Environmental and Bear Environmental and included some people we know like Dave Diplock and Stewart Spooner. This document contains trail construction and management recommendations for every trail in the area. It has a custom trail difficulty rating system, trail guidelines, guidelines for wooden TTFs, and more. It is very detailed and will become one of the key reports that informs the body of knowledge known generically as Best Practices. It is especially detailed in the area of TTF construction guidelines. It draws heavily from Troy Scott Parker’s book and Trail Solutions. Like any document or book, it isn’t perfect, but it is well done and probally the most detailed document to date on wooden TTFs.

Download it here: http://www.dnv.org/article.asp?c=988

Pretty much every newspaper and TV news is running stories about the subject.

NSMB.com

http://dev.nsmb.com/page/s/2542/nv-council-has-a-plan

North Shore Outlook

http://www.bclocalnews.com/greater_vancouver/northshoreoutlook/news/24273379.html

The Straight 

http://www.straight.com/article-152794/bureaucrat-suggests-new-way-maintain-mountainbike-trails-mt-fromme

North Shore News

http://www.canada.com/northshorenews/news/story.html?id=bbf5d1dd-48d3-493f-a75b-dac20dd92564

June 17-22 marked my trip to Park City Utah to attend IMBA’s World Summit and of course do some riding. It was great to see some old friends again and meet some new ones as well as work with the great people at IMBA.

As in the past, the Summit days started off with a plenary session for all delegates with a few guest speakers. I must say the quality of theses sessions were the best I’ve seen and very motivating and inspiring. Then the day continued with break out sessions for the remainder of the morning then lunch and more break outs in the afternoon wrapping up around 4 pm for the guided rides.

Checkout out this view and that can only mean some really sweet downhill is in store, woo hoo!

Now considering Park City’s elevation starts at @ 6800 ft (2,072 m) the air is already thin for us west coasters who live at sea level, then we had to climb to get to the good stuff. The trails were hard pack buff dirt in most cases with the odd rock thrown in, not west coast technical but fast and flowy. Daytime temperatures were in the 30 C/86 F range but very dry however, nights cooled off nicely to 8 C/46 F.

Did I mention, the trails were dry and dusty, I look like “Zebra Man”!

The last day was the big 20-25 mile (32-42 k) ride on some of the IMBA Epic trails around Park City ending off with lunch and Polygamy Porter by local Wasatch Brewery, Why have just one!

The area is filled with over 300 miles of trail, some old school contour trails. Lots of sage brush and I’m sure the odd rattler to keep you on trail.

Park City, site of the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics ski jumping does have lift access but, with trails like this and Whistler in my back yard, why bother. My armour stayed neatly tucked away in my kit bag.

In June, Parks Canada Agency Chief Executive Officer Alan Latourelle announced that Parks Canada signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) agreement with IMBA Canada. This MOU will enable the agency to benefit from the expertise of IMBA Canada in the field of multiple-use trail planning, development and management. “Parks Canada aims to facilitate stimulating, sustainable and educational trail experiences, and as such, shares common values with IMBA Canada,” said Mr. Latourelle. “I’m confident that the agreement announced today will help pursue and expand the successful relationship between our two organizations in order to offer exceptional experiences to Canadians.”

imba_parks_canada_mou.pdf