Cleveland Area Mountain Bike Association
Promoting off-road cycling in Northeast Ohio!
Working with park management, we’ve collectively agreed to move ahead with opening the trails at West Branch this coming weekend (coinciding with our trail closure policy). Weather looks good too…..so make plans to get out and ride WB this weekend!
Thanks to Doug Lyons and all WB park resources for their annual support and enforcement of our trail closure policy, all intended to protect our trails for many years of extended enjoyment!
Cleveland Metroparks is celebrating a hugely successful year at Royalview Trails for mountain bikers, runners and hikers! On Sunday, June 2nd, there will be a group ride at Royalview, and then post-ride celebration at Fathead’s Brewery and Tasting Room in Middleburg Hts.
In honor of all the new-trail success stories, Matt Cole, brew master at Fathead’s and avid mountain biker, has created a beer called Trail Head Pale Ale. All summer, a portion of the proceeds from the sale of this product will go the Cleveland Metroparks Trails Fund. Matt will tap the first keg at the Fathead’s party and give it away free. He’s also working on getting raffle donations to make extra money for the Fund.
See the details of the day’s events below:
One-Year Anniversary Celebration of Royalview Trails
Sunday, June 2, 2013
1:00 p.m.
Trails Development Manager Ralph Protano will lead a walk on the Royalview trails while discussing the philosophy of sustainable trail building and “Leave No Trace”. If you are interested in building or maintaining trails, this is a great introduction! Meet at bottom trail head (near yellow trail start).
Directions
1:45 p.m.
Let’s ride! Or run or hike! Take time to enjoy the trail. Group rides of varying abilities will depart the bottom trail head.
3:15 p.m.
Meet at Fathead’s Tasting Room & Brewery for free tours of their local, sustainable business practices.
18741 Sheldon Road
Middleburg Heights, OH
Directions
3:45 p.m.
Stick around with trail friends for refreshments and celebrate a great future for sustainable trails in Cleveland Metroparks!
This Saturday’s trail day has been moved from Bedford to Royalview, since we really need to finish some prep work on the new out-n-back section, and also fix some ruts caused by early-season riders. We’ll meet in the parking area at the top of Royalview Lane at 9AM….but come out anytime you can.
Check this LINK for more info on our trail days. Send me an e-mail if you have any further questions (trails ‘at’ camba.us).
At last week’s meeting, Ralph and Nancy from Cleveland Metroparks joined us to speak about current status and plans for new trails at the Bedford Reservation. They also provided more details on how to get registered as a volunteer with the Metroparks, including info on the orientation classes.
No doubt, this is a new process for CAMBA volunteers. In the past, we’ve basically done our own safety and skills training on either trail days, or with one of many IMBA Trail Care Crew visits. But this is a CMP requirement for all volunteers working in any Cleveland reservation, no matter what group you represent or experience you may already have. So please be patient with this ‘new’ process, and read this DOCUMENT for more details about registering, and then following through with the training. Participation in this program is hugely important for CMP, and we strongly encourage everyone to get involved and represent CAMBA!
Please send me an e-mail if you have any questions about upcoming plans at Bedford (trails ‘at’ camba ‘dot’ us). But please use the e-mails in the attached document from CMP if you have any questions about registering or orientation with CMP.
Check this recently-updated LINK for general info on our trail days and the new Bedford trail dates.
Interested in learning more about trail design and construction? Wondering how to get more involved and contribute to the future of CAMBA and trails in our area? If so, we’re looking for some motivated volunteers to step up and get involved as Trail Stewards for West Branch and Quail HollowState Park.
Volunteering can be a very rewarding experience, by giving back to the trail that has served us so well over the years, and also helping others share in that same experience. This opportunity with CAMBA is great for anyone who has interest to learn more about what’s involved with proper trail management, and what makes a good trail better. Based on our experiences over the past 12 years, below is a description of what’s required for the new trail steward position.
Roles & Responsibilities:
Ideally, it would be very helpful if candidates also lived local to the trails at West Branch and Quail Hollow, in order to respond to any issues, as well as keep a close eye on trail conditions (updating our forum, etc).
If you don’t have the skills, that’s ok, because CAMBA will help provide training and education for this position. As long as you can commit 5-15 hours a month (varies, depending on the season), and have the dedication to abide by designated standards for trailbuilding and maintenance, then this may be an good opportunity for you.
Sure, most of us all have full-time gigs somewhere else, but if you have some spare time to commit and get involved, and make a difference in thefuture of trails in our region, we’d like to talk to you. Please send me an e-mail with a brief outline about your interest (trails ‘at’ camba.us).
To further improve timely updates about trail status at Royalview and other trails, Cleveland Metroparks has enhanced their website and RSS feed capability…….just check this CMP LINK for news and trail status. For timely updates to your phone or PC browser, register for RSS feeds by just clicking any park/category combination…then follow the subscription steps from there. For the Royalview trail, just follow this path: Recreation->Biking->Mill Stream Run Reservation->Royalview Trail.
Just a heads up…..this weekend is Youth Gun season for deer (11/17-11/18)….and regular deer season is also coming up; 11/26-12/2, and 12/15-12/16. So please steer clear of West Branch MTB trails during those times.
Check HERE 
for more info on ODNR’s hunting season schedule.
Definitely some good PR in this ARTICLE!
Way to go CAMBA!…..major thanks again 
to all the dedicated volunteers who contributed!
A major toast to all the dedicated volunteers who helped Royalview become a reality for 2012! What an amazing trail, and an ultra-dry season of primo riding to boot…..right? But surprisingly, we’re not done out there yet…..and we’re starting off the fall trailbuilding season a little earlier this year, with plans to focus on specific projects at Royalview only (for now).
Working alongside our partners with Cleveland Metroparks (CMP), we plan to finish building the out-and-back loop, fixing/realigning some drifting lines and benches, and also help decommission some old unsustainable hiking trails that are getting long in the tooth! Wrapping up these open projects is a priority for us and CMP, with the goal to finish everything by the end of the year. This will free up CMP resources to focus on evaluating other reservations for possible trail access for next year!!!
So what’s the key for us??……that we’ll need everyone to show up and represent this fall! That means anyone who has used this trail has no excuse this time around….hikers, bikers, runners, etc. If you can show up for 1 hour or 5 hours, doesn’t matter….just show up and learn, appreciate/respect what goes into proper trail construction, and contribute back! We’ll work the weekend dates (see this LINK), and CMP will have some staff working on bridging and trail during the weekdays. But the big effort to wrap things up will need to come from us, the volunteers! So spread the word….that we need all hands on deck this time……keeping in mind that Royalview is just the beginning — and not the end of new trails in our area!
Please check this new PAGE on how to contribute something back to the trails we all love to ride!
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