Your Neck of the Woods Updates from IMBA Canada’s Regional Coordinators ALBERTA | David Mills It’s autumn in Southern Alberta, and arguably the best time of the year to ride trails. Most of the rain has finished, the weather is mild and dry, plus trail crews, hikers and bikers have buffed the trails. Singletrack at high elevations may get a dusting of snow, but it will be a while before there’s any accumulation. With a decent helmet light, you can get out for some great after-work rides, and the weekends are perfect for longer backcountry jaunts. Best of all, the time spent in the saddle earlier in the season is paying off now with technical skill improvement and awesome fitness. There are many things afoot in Alberta. The Moose Mountain Bicycle Trail Society and Calgary Mountain Bike Alliance are going strong and hosting trail days in both the Moose Mountain area and Calgary. Progress on approval for the Calgary Mountain Bike Skills Park is slow but steady. Fingers crossed for a late-season build. The Greater Bragg Creek Trail Association continues to build singletrack in the West Bragg Creek area, and has an ongoing need for volunteers to help clear corridor in advance of the main workforce. It’s very encouraging to see so many trails built so fast. By the end of next summer, they will have created somewhere around 45 km of new singletrack! Now, many riders are asking if a connection to Dawson trailhead could be next? In Banff, the Bow Valley Mountain Bike Alliance continues to do great work. The buffed Lake Minnewanka trail opened to cyclists on Sept. 16 following the seasonal closure, which led to miles of smiles. Hinton, Edmonton, Red Deer and Cochrane are moving and shaking as well. Good times for good rides! Alberta clubs and riders, stay in touch with David at: david.mills@imba.com
ONTARIO | Jason Murray Over the past year I’ve noticed an increased interest in club formation in different areas across Ontario. Some are motivated by a lack of riding close to home, some have trails under direct threat of closure, and still others are responding to the request of the local land manager to speak with “the mountain bikers”. Forming a club is hard work; and keeping it going is also hard work. It’s a bit like herding cats. I’ve heard some say that mountain biking is existentially opposed to becoming anything more formal than a bunch of riding buddies. But this does not put us in a good position to address threats to land access, user conflicts, or slander from other user groups. I take my helmet off to everyone who tries. When the mountain bike community is not organized, there is a very real risk to trail access. If we wait for a threat to emerge and the worst to occur, it is too late. In a place like Greenwood Conservation Area, near Ajax, for example, mountain biking was eliminated as a permitted use because there was no local club to react during the 2004 management planning process. Due to the lack of foresight and organization, it’s going to take 10+ years of fighting to roll back the losses – and that’s only if funding cutbacks don’t delay the ten-year management plan revision cycle. Much better to be proactive: get organized, connect with existing land managers and stewards, find out what their challenges are, and most importantly, offer to be part of the solution. There are areas in the province of Ontario where there are little to no organized efforts to advocate for mountain biking. These communities have places to ride (some legit, some not); some even have local bike shops and clubs, but no one is “at the table” on our behalf. If we are going to be successful in our struggle to maintain, improve, and expand riding opportunities provincially, the only viable way to do it is by banding together: into local clubs, then into inter-club partnerships, and provincial councils under the larger IMBA Canada umbrella. Individuals and small groups don’t result in a successful lobby group, but together we can make real change happen. The next time you roll up to a trailhead ask yourself, ‘Who represents mountain biking on this property?’ Go find out, and thank them for their efforts. If the answer is ‘no one’, start asking, ‘why not?’ Perhaps it’s time to get organized.
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IMBA Canada’s Regional Leadership Advisory Council program is made possible by generous funding from MEC.