Two mountain bike news items from this weekend:

Beardance trail near Bigfork, MT. Photo by AK_Dan.

New MTB Trails Proposed – In Montana

In what might be considered a bit of a peace offering, the US Forest Service is proposing 33 miles of new mountain bike trails in the Helena National Forest, Montana. The proposal comes on the heels of a recent bike ban in Montana wilderness study areas (WSA) that came down this spring. Admittedly 33 miles of new trail doesn’t make up for the hundreds of miles of Montana trails closed to bikes in 2010 but hey, it’s a start…

Bend Woman Rescued After Bad Fall

We don’t normally report on stories of injured or lost mountain bikers just because there are at least 2-3 in the news every week but this one caught our interest. According to the Victoria Advocate, Shoshana Foxwell was riding on Ben’s Trail west of Bend, OR Friday evening when she went over the handlebars and sustained serious but non-life-threatening injuries. Shortly after her fall, a member of the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue (SAR) mountain bike team (!) happened to ride past and immediately began treating the woman. Now that’s a first class response!

In all seriousness, we’re impressed that the SAR mountain bike team even exists and that there are enough members (volunteers?) to ride the trail regularly. Of course riders should never count on SAR or even IMBA Bike Patrollers being around to provide assistance but man, what a difference it makes when these resources are available.

This also brings up the point about riding alone which is never a good idea, especially in the evening. If no one had come by the woman might have been stranded in the woods all night. Bring a friend if you can and tell someone else where you’re going and when you’ll be back. Cell phones are nice to have “just in case” but you can never count on getting a signal when you might need it the most.

That’s according to the May issue of Mountain Bike Action magazine which hits newsstands next month. The editors were stoked on access to lodging, weather, local breweries, and of course, the trails in Bend. No word on who is #2 – if you got your copy in the mail let us know which towns made the top 5…

Betasso Preserve photo by Rebus

Speaking of mountain biking towns, singletracks member nejmensi points out that the freeze on legal singletrack in Boulder, CO is starting to thaw. Here’s what he had to say:

Big news out of Boulder Colorado (my home) this week is that they are planning to enlarge the popular Betasso Preserve trail network by an additional 4.6 miles!  The existing trail is around roughly 3.2 miles and is the most frequented trial in the county/city according to Boulder County statistics.  This follows on the heels of countless new trials in the last few months including a completely new trail in South Boulder that includes the spanking new 3 mile +/- “Spring Brook” trail, “Vista…” loops, and “High Plains Trail”, effectively making the South end of town a full 15 mile +/- system. The Boulder Mountain Bike Alliance (BMA) is to credit for much of this…   Boulder is definitely entering 2009 with a great new expanded trail network!  About time…

Sweet. Now, if we could just establish a decent mountain bike town out here on the east coast!