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For 2007, I’d be extremely interested in helping to start an annual Singletracks.com Gathering.
So right now, I want to begin getting suggestions on which time of year this should happen, which area of the country it should be held in, what trails should be ridden, and how many people would possibly be attending.Also of importance would be scouting out suitible camping/lodging areas once the Gathering’s location is decided. Also, I would begin to get group pricing quotes for said camping/lodging, and drum up any possible sponsorship for support of a race & swag during the Gathering.
Once the details are close to being ironed out, the Boss may want to send out a mass email about the event.
Participation will be a family affair, and for the most part free, but I think we should strongly entertain the idea of charging a couple dollars as the price of admission for the purpose of making a donation with the proceeds to a charity organization. I will also make a poll on this matter, but I need suggestions as to which charity we should consider. I think it should be cycling-related, a few being IMBA and Tread Lightly!.
EDIT: For some reason, the post didn’t include the poll option I made for the Southeast States…. (South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas)
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I’ve got to hand it to you bombardier, it is a super idea!
No doubt it would take a lot of work to pull off successfully but I believe it would be well worth the trouble. I think some of the details will have to be worked out as this thing develops, might even take a full year to complete planning.
Is there even enough support…
I’ll support the idea, anyone else interested?
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My first pick is Colorado, second pick is NC.
The reason I choose the mountain states, specifically CO:
1. There are more registered Singletracks users in CO, in fact more than both NC & GA combined. Colorado also has a denser geographical population spread than the next highest, California, which indicates the convention might be closer to more registered users than any other location.2. Colorado is central/equidistant to both West Coast and East Coast and offers a major airport in Denver with a transportation plan geared to get people west to the mountains ASAP (since they have HUGE volumes of inbound skiers through Denver Airport every year).
3. Colorado would be a great venue being close to the mountains surrounded by TONS of trails to ride. The whole front range is littered with trail destinations running parallel N-S with major interstates from Ft. Collins to Colorado Springs…and Denver is smack in the middle(Hmmm…is there an underlying location that keeps popping up here?!?)
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While I picked the Eastcoast because this year I don’t think I can get away from home for a weekend of MTB and drunken debauchery but IMHO I think this event should be held at some MTB mecca, Moab or Fruita.
Next year I could probably come.
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This event would definitely not be held any earlier than May/June, 2008. I intend on giving anybody that wishes to attend ample opportunity to make arrangements. A Federal holiday would be a good date to consider, as most of us here would not have to take additional time off from work to make it to the Gathering.
But until we get more respondents to this idea, I don’t think we can really lock in a date at this stage. Or could we?
Anybody with ideas, chime in! 😀
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Can I change my vote?
Fruita, some holiday weekend (or not). How about memorial day weekend? In fact, I’d rather it be in Colorado than Utah otherwise, one of my relatives might track me down and ask why I wasn’t being a good mormon.
Get some cheapo accommodations as close to the riding as possible. Beer, beer, beer. Ride, ride, ride. Repeat, over!
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I’m going to start putting word out about the Singletracks Gathering to all the LBS’s and clubs in Colorado Springs, Denver, Crested Butte, & Fruita/Grand Junction (basically all of Colorado) as soon we get the location and date settled. Hopefully, some of the LBS’s will participate with sponsorship and employees for bike maintenance classes and handling technique clinics, as well as swag for a raffle, as this would be an opportunity for them to advertise and support charities.
I’ll also contact IMBA and try to get a couple reps out to provide clinics on trail conservation, maintenance, and legal issues.Try to get as many people involved and willing to attend as possible guys! If somebody wants to design a flyer for all of us to print out and distribute, that’d be a big help in getting the word out. Attendance doesn’t have to be restricted to just Singletracks.com users! Hopefully, we can get a lot more people to register and begin contributing to the trail database regardless if they show up to the Gathering or not.
Anyways, the basic activity schedule that I’ve come up with for a two/three day event would be, and this is a very rough draft:
[u:3ntl2hpi]Day One[/u:3ntl2hpi]
Registration, group breakfast, trail conservation & management clinic, bike maintenance clinic, short group ride, lunch, bike handling clinic, individual rides, dinner, and then it’s beer-thirty![u:3ntl2hpi]Day Two[/u:3ntl2hpi]
Breakfast, flex time, an Average-Joe XC race, lunch, physical fitness clinic, individual rides, big grill-out & party[u:3ntl2hpi]Day Three[/u:3ntl2hpi]
Breakfast, trail maintenance & cleanup, lunch, group ride, raffle, dinner site cleanup.The grill-out & afterparty will have a donation box to be passed around. This, and the initial registration fee will be added up and sent to our designated charity. All other expenses for setting up this event will have to come out of our pockets. The good thing about that is then the whole thing will be tax-deductible for us.
We’ll also have a couple small trophies made up for the winners of the Average-Joe XC race. -
It’d be cool if we could have a little jump/trials expo. Dunno if I can rol for this one tho, dont have much as far as transportation.
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It’d be cool if we could have a little jump/trials expo. Dunno if I can rol for this one tho, dont have much as far as transportation.
For a jump/trials expo, we’d need some DJ or trials riders. I’m not too good at that, but depending on where we have this thing, I’m sure we can put the word out to the local dirt-jump/street crews.
And as far as transportation….. there’s always Greyhound. 😃
I’m sure if you made it out to the Gathering location, one of us local riders would be more than willing to help get you from point to point, or even a place to crash. If we do this in Colorado, I have a spare bedroom that’d be available.
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Hey Bomb,
I’m a caterer here in Denver. If I could help in some way let me know. -
I wholeheartedly support this endeavor, bomb. 😃 😃
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Sounds like a great idea. Having it through a Federal holiday would be great for an extra day. I vote for the MTN states. CO front range or west slope sound ideal, but it would be nice to get away from the Front Range madness. It might be worth getting the location decided before the date since there can still be some snowy, wet trails in the mountains over Memorial Weekend, and Labor Day might be too hot in Fruita, etc. Probably not that big of deal either way, but something to consider.
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[quote:2e2l7dsk]It’d be cool if we could have a little jump/trials expo. Dunno if I can rol for this one tho, dont have much as far as transportation.
For a jump/trials expo, we’d need some DJ or trials riders. I’m not too good at that, but depending on where we have this thing, I’m sure we can put the word out to the local dirt-jump/street crews.
And as far as transportation….. there’s always Greyhound. 😃
I’m sure if you made it out to the Gathering location, one of us local riders would be more than willing to help get you from point to point, or even a place to crash. If we do this in Colorado, I have a spare bedroom that’d be available.[/quote:2e2l7dsk]
I’d be down.. but my parrents wouldnt haha. I was gonna say that I’d help with the DJ and trial stuff and throw down some stuff…
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I had no idea that this post was out. I support this whole heartedly. I have met the friendliest people while Mountain Biking and on this forum. I would really like to get together with everyone and do some riding. I did not even think of all the other things that we could do. You seem to have a real good plan started Bombardier. I will try and get a flyer put together and Send it to you for review. This week is sort of a busy week with me being out of town on business but maybe this week end I’ll have some time. I will also pass the word in the local MTB clud that I joined and see if they may be interested. They have take trips before so maybe some of the members will be. I will also let them know about this site.
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It’s probably too late to do anything like this in Colorado this year, but I’m totally in if something is planned for next year, late Spring/early-mid Summer. In fact, I was planning a Crested Butte roadtrip there around that time anyway. If something is planned out, I’ll arrange my vacation around the ST gathering. Man, this’d be GREAT!
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I say either Fruita or Loma. I guess it would not matter as they are only about a 30 minute drive apart. For times I would say before June or in September. During the summer it gets hotter than the devils ass. 😼
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Since it looks like we’ve got a proper 50/50 split in where our active posters live (east/west coast), we could do two smaller gatherings at the same time. I know how hard it is to plan a trip around work & family, so starting small may be the way to go?
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BTT…..
I was telling Steve-o that I likely won’t be in the Colorado area after I’m done with the Army, and it looks like the choices of location is between here and the East Coast.
However, I was also pondering a half-way point…. And the Badlands of N. Dakota would be a sweet spot. It’s like Moab, full of mesas, buttes, washes, etc…. but a bit cooler. 😀
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I would like to point out somthing that is standing out in my mind for the location of this gathering.I might be a little biased because it’s such a cool trip for me to make because i have friends that live very close to moab.and the summer of 2007 is my first full season of trail riding and excursions.MOAB,bike shops,restaurants,camp grounds,grocery stores,hotels,the biggest 24 hour race(if it is held at the same time of the race),heck you could even take a road trip down through hw 128,dinosaur diamond prehistoric hwy.soooooo much to see here.not to mention the spiritual feeling you get when rolling through town with mountain bikes as far as the eye can see,makes ya feel like a rock star.So,as far as gatherings go,i like the idea of having so much right at the finger tips.everything has its downfalls,like the trails pretty much only come in rock surface,and the people from the east will have to travel.It’s a hell of a place right in our back yard here in colorado,so as far as my experience can tell moab would be the 4 corners of gatherings to have the most fun and a really festive experience for everyone.i would imagine that with the amount of mountain bikes in moab(especially at 24 hr of moab)single tracks web site could really benefit with all us single track members spreading the word around like wild fire.dropping bumper stickers,flyers,and we could tell everyone to wear there single tracks t-shirts.my buddy that lives up in fruita could squeeze his mountain bike people(bosses,bike shop owners,etc…)to maby get them involved in however they could help.I’m sure ya all could add to this vision,so if ya feel good about it,please add to it.
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It’s a hell of a place right in our back yard here in colorado
Yeah, all well and good for you guys in CO, but quite a trip for us east-coasters, and there are a LOT of east-coasters here.
But, aside from that, I’m in. If we ever pull this off, and Moab is the destination, I’m totally in. 😄 😄 😄
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your the man rebus,i was actually hoping for somwhere inbetween cause i want to travel for this.getting out and riding around different places is what im after.i wanted everyone to know what i thought of moab and the experience i had there.it’s kinda tuff cause i know its a tough trip for you guys from the east and i know how extremely cool moab is.i want you to know though,that i wouldnt want moab to be the gathering spot unless everyone votes on it.I actually like bombardiers idea of badlands north dakota.maby bombardier should narrow it down to exactlly what states should be in the running and get everyones vote on some selected states we all pretty much know will work with who we have really serious about going.im one of those guys thats really serious about going,although money and time could become a factor for me.so i fall short of being toatally serious.I am all for a betweener site,that falls in the middle of what we have to work with.
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I agree with bombardier (or however you spell that). The badlands would be great new place for both east and west coasters if we want to do one big group one. But what date are we thinking this would be for, are we planning this for this summer, fall, next spring? This could greatly determine where we need to go (and if i have my license yet 😃 )
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I’m in where ever it is! Anytime is good with me. Never been to Moab but hear it’s a blast. Would love to make a trip there and hit the gathering too. I can rally people on the East coast. Hope to get enough to get a bus and a bunch of bikes out to where ever the final location is. If I can help from the East coast in anyway, let me know, i.e. flyers @ trails or the like.
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just curious as to what amount of interested partys are considered enough to move forward with the gathering.also,are you getting enough help,support,interest right now?i would really like to do what i can to support this national gathering.
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What needs to happen is a roll-call of the active members here, and a mass-emailing to all the registered users on Singletracks once the details as to where and when the Gathering is relatively set in stone. That last part will be up to Jeff.
As it stands right now, I think that unless we cut loose with a serious awareness campaign, and line up a couple LBS/corporate sponsors, this thing will most likely only result in possibly a dozen or so members actually attending.
We gotta sweeten the pot, and get members chomping at the bit to show up; and the way to do that is have a race/free swag/raffle in the mix.I’m gonna whip up a letter of intent and send it out to any LBS’s and MTB bike & gear manufacturers to guage interest from them.
As for location, I’m going to tentatively say either Fruita or Moab. Lodging in Fruita can be/is fairly expensive and hard to get, especially during peak riding season. So unless we schedule this for early Spring or late Fall next year, attending members will probably have to resort to camping.
There are a couple campgrounds in & around Fruita/G. Junction/Loma, as well as a bunch up in Mesa, which isn’t too far away. During the summer, camping anywhere but Mesa would be way too hot. When we made the trip out there in July with the intention of camping, it was still over 80 degrees at 3am, with morning temps hitting 100 at 9am. That’s just plain miserable. But up on Mesa it was a lot more reasonable.
I was also thinking about Gunnison. There’s a bunch of trails there, and Crested Butte is just up the road. And then there’s Telluride….Poll time!
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See the forum Announcement!
It’s on! 😃
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