Mountain Biking at Rockwood State Park in Morrison...help?

[ew_perry]

Try and get some of your interested people to attend the Midwest Mountain Bike Festival here in the Quad Cities. This is not a shameless plug! It will really benefit you. Friday is full of interesting and useful advocacy training. Then of course just being around people and asking the type of questions you are here but doing it in person.

http://www.qcforc.org/content.php?143

Also touch base with the Illinois Valley Cycling Association. http://www.bikeiv.org/ I mention them because they maintain a trail system that is in a State Park so they should have lots of experience to share.

[DH001]

Step 1: get yourself a copy of "Trail Solutions - IMBAs Guide to Building Sweet Singletrack"
Step 2: Read this book cover to cover.
Step 3: Read it again.

After that, start by talking to the agency that oversees management of the land in question (the park ranger is a good start). The land managers will probably want some type of organized group that can share the maintenance workload if you will be building a significant amount of trail. Start a local MTB club. If you can show them that there is a large demand for mtb trails and a long term commitment to maintaining the trail system you will be much more successful in gaining access. You may want to contact the folks at PAMBA and the Illinois Valley Cycling Association as well. They maintain MTB trails at Jubilee College and Matthiessen State Parks and may have more insight into the details of getting access to a state park.

FORC volunteers have done an overwhelming majority of the work on local trails in terms of building and maintenance.

Many of the management agencies for our local parks have provided funding for signage, but FORC usually fronts the bill for tools and materials for trail construction. We recently received a grant from a local non-profit conservation organization (www.riveraction.org) to cover trail building expenses for an extension of trail at one of the local systems.

Depending on the type of trails already at the park, you may want to propose a different trail layout. Many state park hiking only trails I have seen in the area are not well suited for MTB use and do not follow sustainable building practices (ie. very steep trail grades >~10% or trails through very flat areas). Trail maintenance will be a loosing battle on these types of trails and significant erosion/rutting is highly probable if it hasn't already occurred on the steeper sections. Very steep trails also contribute to higher risk to all users by increasing MTB user speeds and reducing bike controllability. This may be why bikes are currently not allowed on the trails. This is really a problem with the design of the trails not MTB users.

Our experiences on sharing local trails with equestrians has been rather negative. The high clay content of our soils does not hold up well to horse traffic when wet. The equestrians in your area may be better about not using the trails when wet or the park managers may be more vigilant in enforcement trail closures to prevent damage.

Good luck on this project, I really hope you are successful because the park looks like a great place for MTB trails.