NEMBA / IMBA Trail School 2008

Forty mountain bikers from around New England —including ten riders from the Berkshires and seven from the Saratoga Mountain Bike Association in New York — attended our two-day training at Wendell State Forest. The course focused on the fundamentals of building new trails and fixing bad ones, as well as how to construct sold boardwalks and use rock to armor and stabilize wet trails.

The MTB weather deities were smiling, keeping us dry for a classic work hard / play hard weekend. After a Saturday morning session of trail theory and a hearty lunch attendees spent the afternoon at hands-on clinics. Yet, in typical fashion, everyone was eager to ride, and Wendell offers a wide assortment of wonderful singletrack to satisfy the heartiest of mountain bike appetites. Speaking of appetites, the crew certainly worked up a hunger and gorged on a nice catered meal under the moonlight.

There's nothing like the camaraderie of mountain bikers who have spent a day together talking about trails, building trails and then riding them. As Scott Linnenburger commented the following morning, mountain bikers are doers. We have a lot of energy and a huge amount of passion for both the sport and the land we enjoy. We're confident that this weekend inspired everyone to return to their neck of the dirt to do great things for the sport and our public lands.
This event was part of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation & Recreation's ParkServe, a program designed to spruce up our parks for the beginning of summer. We thank Wendell State Park's supervisor, Bryant Stewart, for letting us partner with him for ParkServe day at his park.

We also thank the NEMBA and IMBA trail gurus for sharing their expertise and helping to grow our knowledge base and capacity to do more for New England trails. Tom Grimble, Mike Tabaczynski, Scott Linnenburger, Bill Boles, Paula Burton, Harold Green and Tim Post did a great job as instructors, and we thank them for their service to the trail community.

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