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Slowing Reopening to Better Days Ahead . . . Photo file Rockville 2017 Gala RidePassing of the Tire Pump
By Mike Ukdow After serving as President of the BTCEB for the past 6 years I will be stepping down. I'd like to announce Jerott King has been elected as our new President. Welcome Jerott and best of luck in your tenure.
Over the past 6 yrs. BTCEB has had many successes and proud accomplishments: | | - EBMUD, after outlawing bikes on their trails for the past 60 yrs has opened select service roads to bikers!
- We have persisted in lobbying the EBRPD to construct more bike friendly narrow-gauge trails. Fire roads are not trails! They have heard our message and seem willing to comply. We need to keep up this campaign.
- BTCEB trail maintenance work at Crockett Hills, along with park staff, has kept the park in prime riding condition.
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- Our excellent relationship with EBRPD staff will hopefully serve as a model for volunteerism in other parks.
- We stay in contact with the trail supervisor at Fernandez Ranch and have established a close relationship with the John Muir Land Trust.
- Our JMP tree removal crew is ready at a moments notice to clear trails from fallen trees. Let the crew know by emailing them at info@btceb.org.
- We have maintained our successful Gala Ride and Ride Like a Girl (RLaG) events.
I regret the loss of our Youth Mountain Biking Adventure (YMBA) program when the organizer stepped down. I am hopeful the new leadership team will see the value of retooling this vital outreach program. Adding more group rides has always been a desire for myself and the previous boards. I would like to see the club offer more POP-UP rides to facilitate smaller, skills matched, regular group ride activities. But to accomplish this, we need more volunteers LIKE YOU. Won’t you help? Send in your ride details to info@btceb.org and we will publish it on Meetup.
I may have retired from the presidency but I will continue to be a driving force within the club and advocate for expanded mountain biking opportunities to anyone that will listen. I will continue to organize our club Gala Rides and I will continue to serve on the Friends of Joaquin Miller Park board of directors. As always I will continue to push for more trail work duties in JMP.
The best way to thank me for my tenure is by becoming (and continuing to remain) a BTCEB member. Go to www.btceb.org to join or renew. For membership issues email us at membership@btceb.org.
See you on the trails (eventually),
Mike Udkow BTCEB Board of Directors Elections Results
by BTCEB Nomination Committee
The nominations committee announces the following board seats were filled at the club's first ever virtual general membership and executive board meeting held May 13, 2020:
Officers
President: Jerott King
Vice President: Yvette Skinner
Secretary: Tom Holub
Treasurer: Alan Enrici
Directors
Membership: Jon Running
Education and Promotions: Joshua Church
Trails: Ben Brunetti
Advocacy: Austin McInerny
Communications: Jamuel Starkey
At Large: Tom Gandesbery
At Large: Scott Bartlebaugh
With the reorganization of board positions there are a variety of both new and returning board members filling the roles. If you haven't had a chance to "send it" with them yet on a trail ride, here's a brief introduction from the board.
Jerott King, President
Greetings fellow riders! I am excited to be selected as the next President of the Bicycle Trails Council of the East Bay (BTCEB). I have been an avid mountain biker in the East Bay since 1998 and I spent much of my childhood mountain biking around Shell Ridge, Lime Ridge, the Diablo Foothills, and Joaquin Miller. I still call these my home trails today. Over the years, I have owned and serviced multiple bikes, raced cross country and downhill, and engaged with many members of the biking community. As a member and supporter of BTCEB since 2008, I have been an advocate for mountain biking access for trails. BTCEB is the oldest organization of its kind and has a long history of dedicated work in trail building, trail maintenance, and community outreach. As president, I am strongly committed to continuing this tradition. I want to continue supporting the current projects and future goals of the organization. In addition, I believe my experience with community outreach, event organization, and the work I did in completing my degree in Recreation Administration from Sacramento State will help me further advance the goals of our organization. I am also excited about ways to expand our work and funding as we facilitate meaningful outdoor experiences for all trail users.
Yvette Skinner, Vice-President (and Arnaud)Hello, mountain biking friends! This will be my second term as BTCEB Vice-President and I look forward to working with the new Board to advocate for the rights of mountain bikers in the Bay Area. I moved to the Bay three years ago and I was shocked at the unprecedented restrictions placed on mountain bikers in this area which is out of line with the other 12 states in which I’ve ridden.
I believe it’s important to “give back” to the MTB community which why I’ve served on the Board, advocated for the rights of mountain bikers at public meetings, and invested sweat equity with a Rogue hoe doing trail maintenance. Since becoming a certified Search and Rescue K9 handler I don’t have as much time for riding as I used to but I continue to make the time to serve the needs of East Bay mountain bikers.
My favorite bike (I have four of them, of course) is my Niner RIP and my usual riding style is cross-country although I freely admit, “I loves me some downhill!” Keep an eye out for a chick on a green Niner with a German Shepherd dog running with her – that just might be me.
Tom Holub, SecretaryIf you have been involved with cycling in the Bay Area, you may have found my Bay Area Bike Rides web site, seen one of my BARTable By Bike articles, or read my commentary at the Bike Lab, but on the trails, you're most likely to have seen me with a group of the Berkeley Unicyclists. I've been involved with BTCEB since they helped us get approval to run the mountain unicycling events for the U Games (unicycle national championships) in Joaquin Miller Park in 2010, and I've been on the board since 2017, first as IT Guy and now as Secretary.
I'm interested in modernizing BTCEB's technology platforms to better support our work. I also would like to apply my facilitation experience working to help us have more productive conversations with land managers and other stakeholders. 
Alan Enrici, Treasurer
Greetings fellow cyclists! My name is Alan Enrici and I am the new BTCEB treasurer. I am a converted roadie who started riding more decades ago than I care to admit. I was born in the East Bay and have been a lifetime user of our wonderful variety of open spaces. After a career of corporate accounting and finance roles, I have been able to semi-retire and aim to get out on the trails as much as possible. As treasurer, I hope to use my experience to keep track of the donations from our generous members and ensure the money is spent towards BTCEB goals. See you on the trails!
Jon Running, Membership
The Membership Director seeks to recruit and retain dues-paying BTCEB members, through communications, group activities, and promotions.
Josh Church, Education and Promotion
I’m an East Bay native and a long time BTCEB member. Like many of us, I both enjoy and rely on the opportunities to get away on a bicycle. It’s always recreational, usually social, and quite often therapeutic. And it’s always about the journey. I’ve joined the BTCEB Board to help our club reach new riders, new potential members, and new partnerships with other local organizations.
Jamuel Starkey, CommunicationsI've been riding my entire life but never having really ridden the hills and trails of the Bay Area until the last 5 years. Originally from the Mid-West I've been an East Bay resident for over 20 years. I owe much of my local trail knowledge to the riding friends and fellow BTCEB club members I've met along the way. As you may know I've been the editor of the club's e-newsletter The Buzz for the past year so the opportunity to continue in that role as well as volunteer in a broader capacity as the club's Communication Director was intriguing. In my new role I hope to better integrate our outreach platforms (the website, social media, Meet Up, and Member Planet) into a more easier, useful set of tools to enable our members to share our club's advocacy, projects, and events to better inform the public at large.
Ben Brunetti, Trails DirectorI’m an East Bay native that learned to ride a bike here over 30 years ago. Mountain biking is my favorite type of biking and if you ask me, riding around on 2 wheels is the best mode of transportation. I’m a dad and one of my favorite pastimes has been teaching my kids to bike and sharing my love of biking with them. I’m stoked to be working with BTCEB as a way to give back to the trails I love to ride and to help support the mountain bike community in the bay. I’ve ridden with a bunch of great people from the club and seen the positive effect it has had on our trail system. As Trails Director, I hope to help develop and build more MTB trails, maintain the ones we got and advocate to get more people on bikes and out on the trails.
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Austin McInerny, AdvocacySince moving to Oakland in 1990, hardly a day has passed during which I have not been engaged with cycling in some way. Whether commuting, exploring, reading about, coaching, racing, recovering from, advocating for, or wrenching, bikes have and continue to play a central role in defining who I am. During the past 30-years, I have been fortunate to be part of varied efforts that have both helped expand opportunities for responsible trail users as well as introduce young people to the benefits and enjoyment of cycling. Drawing on my varied experiences including an eleven-year stint on the board of the Bay Area Ridge Trail, serving as the president of the National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) for seven years, coaching the Berkeley High School Mountain Bike Team, representing cyclists on the initial Joaquin Miller Park Working Group and having ridden extensively in the East Bay and many other areas both across the United States and internationally, I believe immensely in the power of cycling to transform the lives of individuals and the culture of entire communities.
I am excited to put my past to use as the newly elected BTCEB Advocacy Director and to help our membership effectively engage the staff and elected leadership of the various local public land agencies and private land owners in an attempt to improve and add to the existing trail networks on which we all ride and occasionally volunteer. I ask that everyone who reads the newsletter or visits our website, will step-up to help improve access and conditions for all cyclists.
Tom Gandesbery, Director-at-LargeI have been riding bicycles in and around the East Bay for decades, both on dirt and pavement. I also enjoy running the trails of Joaquin Miller and hiking with my wife Mary and our dog Lucy in Redwood Park. In the summer months my windsurfing compulsion kicks in and I can be found in the vicinity of Treasure Island with a small band of wind and wave fanatics. I first learned of BTCEB in 2014 when I joined Friends of Joaquin Miller Park to give back to the land and found out that our club was the only member of the “Friends” actually doing trail work. I think that BTCEB has a potential to make a real positive change in the number and quality of trails that we have access to at our local open spaces. For 2020-2021 I would like to see us create a few more partnerships with land managers around trail projects, both on the ground and at the planning level, and do some things to encourage kids to ride the trails.  Scott Bartlebaugh, Director-at-Large
I've been very active in the BTCEB for several years and am excited to enter into a role leading the organization. Since 2018 I've been the BTCEB lead for trail work at Crockett Hills and built a working relationship with park supervisor and members of the EBRPD Trail Development group. I've also been part of the team meeting with the EBRPD Trail Development group the last two years and coordinated the agenda for the last meeting. I work tirelessly to increase trail and advocacy knowledge by attending EBRPD Board & PAC meetings, MBSOC Trail Academy sessions, American Trails webinars, following the CAMTB Slack channels, and participated in the IMBA Bay Area Roundtable call. I'm a retired engineer and project manager and devote significant time to trail activities.
BTCEB via Facebook
Finally, if you want to hear about other last-minute news, such as demo rides, and volunteering opportunities, "like" and follow BTCEB's Facebook Notification Page, and also request to join BTCEB's Facebook Discussion Group.
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REPORTS
Tentative Gala Ride Dates and Locations
by Mike Udkow
Here are the expected ride dates and locations for the club gala rides for 2020:
- Aug 8 - Joaquin Miller Park (Oakland)
- Sep 26 - Fernandez Ranch (JMLT)
- Oct 11 - Crockett Hills EBRP
- Nov 14 - Rockville
- Dec 12 - Deer Park
As always look for them to appear on the BTCEB Meetup Events page and here in The Buzz as the dates approach and the ride details firm up.
BTCEB Membership Drive
by Mike Udkow While membership on our Meetup site continues to grow to over 3,900 followers, membership in the BTCEB, your mountain biking organization, has been lagging.
To grow, to survive, and to represent the mountain biking community, we need your support. Your membership dues support our Gala rides and our RLaG program, pays for our insurance, helps to support NorCal High School MTBing and supports trail work at China Camp, Rockville, Fernandez and Crockett. We are hard at work developing the JMP Pump Track. Our Board of Directors meets bi-monthly to discuss all topics relevant to local mountain biking.
Membership levels start at $30, with a $15 student/hardship level. Lifetime membership is $500.
Aside from the dues, we truly need and value your membership.
Please join or renew today at www.btceb.orgSee you on the trails!
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From the Dusty Trail . . .
Loving Your Trails
By John Roberts
Photo Credit: MTB Project The Sinawik trail at Joaquin Miller Park is my favorite. This says a lot as I have been mountain biking for 33 years. I like the beautiful and imposing Redwoods on the Big Trees trail, as well as the technical challenges offered by the Cinderella trail. The Sinawik trail brings all of this together in an ivy-covered canyon, and its for this reason that it is where 18 years ago I “fell in love” with mountain biking. It happened on a dry day. This is because for weeks after a rainfall, water puddles on this trail can accumulate making for jungle-like muddy conditions. This typically creates a horrible trail user experience, and undermines trail sustainability.
Credit: Mappery.com map by Karen Pausell, Friends of Sausal Creek
Something was happening to me over the recent years. I no longer took this trail system for granted. For weeks after each rain, as I rode Sinawik’s puddles, I would think to myself that I had to maintain its drainage. I repeatedly put that vision in my head. Finally, I showed on at the end of March. As much as I enjoy trail crews, out of respect for “social distancing” I did not send out a Meetup invite and proceeded to work on this project alone.  There were memorable moments. As I worked, hikers and riders alike, rewarded me with a thank you. I also saw a woman precariously tip-toeing in a thorny blackberry patch just to avoid walking in a puddle. It served as a reminder as I started work in that area of how my efforts benefit many park users.
  The drainage work on Sinawik was hard. It was after a rain and there were dozens of puddles. Further, the trail’s mud-over-rock combination is challenging to work on. I discovered that the trail has river rock under its 2-4 inches of mud and duff. This rock is armored-in, resembling cracked pavement on an old country highway. Although this mineral makes for a great tread, it also makes the removal of the muddy top layer challenging. In addition, it is a legacy trail with little slope in the areas where the water accumulates. This gives less help from gravity when crafting drainage dips. What remains now, is to see if my drainage work after seasoning in next year’s rains will facilitate the muddy sediment to flow downstream, or if conversely, the mushy top layer impedes water flow. If the latter, then I may be back next year with a tennis court squeegee to more easily remove the remaining mucky grease from the dips. ;-)
 
The best news is that the hard work is done, and the drainage for the Sinawik trail and some of its connectors is looking great. This work was done to the trails on both sides of the Palo Seco Creek from the stone bridge (near the meadow) down to the wooden bridge (near the burned Sinawik cabin). The trail on the west side of this creek is called Sinawik (Did you know that Sinawik is an anadrome?). In contrast, the trail on the East side of the creek is affectionately known as “Pipeline” by athletes in the local high school mountain bike teams. I hope my work assists you to better enjoy this beautiful piece of nature, and inspires you to love your trails too.
More East Bay Girls on Bikes!
by Katie Binder
 Oakland Composite High School Racing Team and Oakland Devo Middle School Adventure Club have been awarded a matching grant by the Outride Foundation - created by Specialized Bikes. All donations are tax deductible, all funds go directly to the team. Grant writing teams answer the call to action to describe their organization's mission to expand youth bicycle access. Outride will then sponsor a fund raising campaign with the promise to match donations raised to in effect double the money going to the team.
After we were notified that our grant was chosen for funding, our goal now is to raise $5,500 from the Oakland/East Bay Community so that Outride will match with another $5,500. We are very grateful for BTCEB's support of Oakland Composite and Devo teams and this fundraiser.
The way the grant works we have to raise $5,500 using Outrider's Youth Rider Development page (it's like a GoFundMe-style appeal) . To date we have already raised over $3,500. We are hopeful that BTCEB members will find our programs worthy and invest in our success. Will you help us raise the remaining $2,000? Once we have raised $5,500, then Outride will match the funds providing us a total of $11,000 to support the Oakland Devo and Composite programs.
Our plan is to purchase 8 new bikes and helmets then using the remaining funds to promote MTB clinics for middle and high school girls. The bikes will be used for clinics so girls who want to tryout mountain biking for the first time will have a bike to use during the clinic. We have found girls like to ride with other girls. So when one of our team riders invites a new friend out to the trail, she may not have a mountain bike to ride. We don’t want that to be a barrier to trying out our sport.
We will also be using some of the bikes for our high school girls team as part of our "loaner bike for the season" program. We have found that parents of girl riders are less likely to purchase a mountain bike for a girl during her first year of being on our mountain bike team. This loaner program will also give families a full year to save up to purchase a bike for their second season. Also this year we are going to do a heavy push to get more girls on bikes so we want gear up now to have bikes available for new riders in need.
Thank you again BTCEB for your help in administering the grant! We'd be grateful for any individual BTCEBmember contributions to help us complete our goal. Help us to get more girls on bikes! MBOSC Offering More Trail Academy Sessions
by Scott Bartlebaugh  Mountain Bikes of Santa Cruz is offering more online training sessions and has scheduled their Intro to Trails 101 course for June 10 from 5:30 to 7:30. Intro to Trails 101 will discuss some of the process and consideration that goes into creating a trail along with their approach to promoting a trail stewardship culture among the broad spectrum of user groups.BTCEB Tree Removal Team Back At It Again
By Mike Udkow 
Our intrepid tree removal team at Joaquin Miller Park headed by Henry Mitchell, Stan Dotson, and Dan McAvoy were back at it again in May.  This time they answered the call for a 6-8" tree that was found downed on Big Trees trail. The guys made swift work of the removal while maintaining social distance and masking up! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
------ Reminder: As a BTCEB member, you can receive a 10 percent or higher discount for parts at many of the bike shops in the East Bay. You just have to ask. Thank you to the many bike shop sponsors for your support!
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ABOUT BTCEB
BTCEB is a one-stop shop. We defend access rights. We lead volunteers to build sustainable trails and repair historic trails. We host social rides. We teach underprivileged kids to ride. We fund youth mountain bike race teams. The list goes on because as riders we can do more together than individually. If you have not already, please consider joining us as a member. Many bike shops in the East Bay grant a 10% discount on bike parts to BTCEB Membership Card holders. It is just another benefit of joining BTCEB. Thank you to all the East Bay bike shops that support our efforts both on and off the trails!
CONTACT US
Do you have a good ride story, trailwork report, or other bike trail news? Tell us about it. Please send a paragraph with 150 words or less with a pic (under 10MB please) and/or link telling us about trailwork, rides, events, or any good mountain bike effort to bring our community together, etc. Please send via email to our editor Jamuel Starkey (with pictures if possible) at: buzz@btceb.org
BTCEB BOARD MEMBERS Jerott King, Presidentinfo@btceb.orgJon Running, Membership Directormembership@btceb.orgYvette Skinner, Vice President
Tom Holub, Secretary
Alan Enrici, Treasurer
Austin McInerny, Advocacy Director
Ben Brunetti, Trails Director
Josh Church, Education and Promotion Director
Jamuel Starkey, Communications DirectorTom Gandesbery, Director-at-Large
Scott Bartlebaugh, Director-at-Large |
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