What Can We do?

[Ben Kaetzel]

I e-mailed Ron P. and got the combination to the lock...I think. Well, I have the numbers, but he's not sure in what order. Can't be that hard, right?
I'll give Chastity a call and see how to proceed with the kiosk.

[indytrailbuilder]

I am on vacation in Tsaili, NC and have limited internet access, so I am just catching up.

Background: in 2008 HMBA was given $250k from the Governor's State Trail Grant to build trails. We sat down with the DNR and compared lists of parks. They has some Park I hadn't heard of called "Harmonie State Park" It took me a while to learn how to spell in correctly.

The idea was to use the grant trails as a seed to grow a local mtb community that would build more trails.

HMBA and IMBA held an IMBA Trail Care Crew, HMBA hired Alex Stewart to build trails with the grant, and Alex and I came down this past winter to design the next trail and kick off construction.

So now the ball is in your court. Please keep in mind that half of Brown County State Park and Versailles where built by hand by volunteers. So if you want a trail system with 10+ miles of trail, the hard work is done (approval to build). We just need some trail builders to get the ball rolling.

From the sounds of it, we need a committee type leadership at Harmonie. I would suggest we get 3 to 5 individuals who can take on leading trail building sessions.

As mentioned, we have another IMBA Trail Care Visit at O'Bannon. This would be a great chance to get some more trail builders trained and work out a game plan to move forward.

I strongly suggest that you schedule at least one weekly work session so that people can plan to come out and learn. In addition individual who have been trained can work on their own.

Please make use of the HMBA forum. I am swamped this year and struggle to stay on top of the HMBA site, my email, facebook, and other mtb forums.

Paul Arlinghaus

[ricdix]

@ Kyle, I wasn't trying to call you out. My apologies if it seemed that way. I wasn't sure if you were still involved or not. "Oligarchy's" - I had to look that one up. Ha.

@ Alex, You'll enjoy the IMBA class. Good times with good people with common interest.

@ Tim Barnes, you mentioned "only one "gap" through a bunch of briars that I couldn't easily follow."
At one point Alex and I scouted up a ravine shooting grades attempting to find a good spot to cross the ditch/creek. It was going to be a challenging, labor intensive crossing to construct. This area had a thicket of briars and poison ivy on both sides of the ditch. It would have been a maintenance nightmare so we abandoned the idea. Paul identified a re-route that eliminated this section. If we are talking about the same area, it would explain the gap.

@ Paul, I'm jealous.

Its sounds like a team is forming. That's exactly what it takes. Good for you guys!

[timbarnes]

Ricdix, yeah, sounds like the spot. It's about 1/4 mile from the beginning of the Loop (end of the connector). May be better to wait until Fall to work on this section when the underbrush has died out some. Plenty to work on now.

[indytrailbuilder]

Let me provide some back ground.

HMBA formed about 10 years ago in Indianapolis, after several trails were closed to mountain biking or lost to development. An MTB club, Indy Spokebreakers, realized that if they wanted to have places to ride, that someone needed to do something. So Indy Spoke Breakers switched from being a club to becoming an advocacy organization. And since the mtb opportunities in Indianapolis were limited, they started to look elsewhere in the state. With early advocates like Mike Hufhand, Rich Ries, Jonathan Juillerate, talking to park managers around the state, it became clear that success in State Forests and State Parks, required a strong state wide organization that could work both with park managers and the DNR leadership in Indianapolis.

So the early mtb advocates and the Spoke breakers formed HMBA, which took on a state wide mission for advocating for mountain biking in Indiana. Early projects at Town Run Trail Park and Westwood, combined with years of advocacy work, set the stage for HMBA to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the DNR and to start trail construction at Versailles State Park and Brown County State Parks. Both of these projects started around 2003, with the first trails built by hand with volunteers. In these days we build about 2 miles of trail at each property per year.

In 2005 HMBA applied for an RTP grant at Brown County State Park. This grant took a great deal of effort to apply for and manage, but starting in 2007 it allowed for professional trail building to begin. By then, volunteers had build the Fire Tower, North Connector, Aynes, and HP trails. The RTP grant project required a 20% match from HMBA, which was primarily done with volunteer labor. So having a grant didn't mean that we just wrote checks and got more trail. We still put in a a huge volunteer effort to support the trail construction.

Now park managers around the state saw the attendance at BCSP due to the mtb trails and they started asking for trails. When the Governor gave a 19million dollar state trail grant in 2008, HMBA got $250,000 to build trails. This fund was administered by the DNR and we were asked to use the money to build trails at Versailles (to make that trail system on par with BCSP as a destinatino), and to kick off trail systems at O'Bannon Woods and Harmonie State Parks. Both O'Bannon Woods and Harmonie posed challenges to HMBA because they are too far away from Indianapolis for many of HMBA's core trail builder to travel to regularly. And we have very few members from those areas of the state.

So our plan was to build about 6 miles of trail at each park, then hope those trails would get local riders excited enough to get organized and build more trails.

So that is where we are. Harmonie has a great start to a 15+ mile trail system. Now its up to the local community to do what local riders did at Town Run, Westwood, Brown County, Versailles, etc... Get organized and build trails.

Funding is tight with the current economy and even if HMBA gets more funding in the coming years, it will likely go to parks without any trails to seed trails around the state. So, building more trails at Harmonie is up to local riders.

One thing to remember is that HMBA is the organization with the MOU with the DNR, so you will have to work with us as you build trails. One key thing is that we must build trails to IMBA standards in State Parks. No park system is more concerned with the long term sustainability than State Parks. I saw a post somewhere in this thread about using old hiking trails. Absolutely NOT an option. We must build trails in State Parks to sustainable standards. If you think this means the trails will be too easy, then you haven't ridden walnut and schooner at BCSP.

The hard part is done, HMBA has approval to build more trails and has a trail concept approved and part of it flagged. We already have tools on site and can provide more tools as needed.

With the IMBA trail Care visit in 2008 and the session Alex Stewart and I led this winter, we have enough trained trail builders in the area. And with the upcoming IMBA visit at O'Bannon, anyone else interested can come and get trained. So now we just need to start building trails.

I would suggest starting where the current trail ends. While this means going through a tough briar patch, this will help build support. When riders start seeing new trail, they will get excited and be more likely to start helping.

The key is just to start building new trail. It may just be a few people at first, but as you build you will pick up momentum and then things will take off.

I already have memorial day weekend booked for the IMBA visit. If there are enough people interested, I would consider coming over on Sunday night to lead a trail building session on Monday.

Let me know,

Paul

[ricdix]

Very generous of you to offer your time Paul. If there's enough local interest.... I may consider coming up and joining you guys as well.