colorado
carbondale Roaring Fork Mountain Bike Association founding member Charlie Eckart rides the Mansfield Ditch Trail in New Castle, Colo., a trail that would become wilderness under the proposed Hidden Gems wilderness campaign.
by Trina Ortega Brian Long
Five Roaring Fork Valley mountain bikers have been volunteering their spare time poring over pages of lengthy government documents, learning about the federal nonprofit system, meeting with land managers and mapping thousands of miles of public land. For these dedicated riding enthusiasts, the payoff for this tedious work comes down to one thing: access. In their journey to safeguard quality singletrack, comrades Mike Pritchard, Charlie Eckart, Al Beyer, Len Zanni and Kirk Hinderberger formed Roaring Fork Mountain Bike Association (RFMBA) in February 2008 with a mission to create and sustain the best possible mountain bike trail system and experience in the western Colorado valley. As racers, they have been involved with the Aspen Cycling Club, which holds a seasonal point series in and around the resort town 30 miles east 112
of Carbondale. But they felt it was imperative to take their passion for cycling beyond the racing arena. Hikers have good trails, and Forest Service roads have served mountain bikers, “but everyone wants quality singletrack; there’s no debate about that,” Pritchard said. With so many bicycling enthusiasts in the area, it’s an association that should have been formed years ago. But it wasn’t until access issues in the Roaring Fork River Valley came to a head that these five started worrying about trail closures. In 2007, the Carbondale-based Wilderness Workshop launched the aggressive Hidden Gems campaign to add several hundred thousand acres of new wilderness, permanently banning recreational bicycling in identified areas within central and western Colorado. Simultaneously, federal land managers were updating the travel [communitypages]
management plan for the 2.3-millionacre White River National Forest, which stretches across much of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. As part of that plan, the Forest Service identified 270 miles of trail to decommission. RFMBA members didn’t want to sit back while existing and future opportunities were closed to mountain biking. “We figured we needed to get organized if we were going to have any say in this,” said Pritchard, who serves as RFMBA’s chairperson. “It’s imperative that we do this work now or these opportunities will start slipping away.” RFMBA kicked into high gear and has petitioned to save 36 potentially decommissioned trails, totaling approximately 70 miles, in the surrounding White River National Forest. The Forest Service is expected to release its new White River travel management plan this summer.