Festivals and Trail Work

by Bill Rogers

May 1999

As hard as it is to believe, another year has gone by and with it, another Fat Tire Festival. This one seemed a little more difficult (at least to me) to get organized. I guess the reason is that last year I was on vacation the week before the festival so I had plenty of time to get everything together, but this year I was on vacation two weeks before. Still, thanks to a huge hand from Morgan & Hilda Fraley, and all their recruits (you know who you are), we managed to pull it together. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to try to do something like this, or the 3-State, or any other undertaking for that matter, without the efforts of people like these who volunteer their time and toil to help make our events a success. While I’m in a thankful mood, I’d like to say a thanks also to Cindy Rice for a great job on the games (again) and to John Beverly for a well-thought-out and executed plan for all the guided rides. John had some very original ideas for this year’s festival, and I think they all worked without a hitch.

It’s too soon (as I write this) to tell how much money we made this year, but it looks as if it will be at least as much as last year. As you all know, all profits will be donated to the trail fund to help build new trails and maintain old ones.

Speaking of trail maintenance, the bike club was fortunate enough to receive a visit from the IMBA trail-care crew this past week. If you’ve never had the chance to work with theses terrific people , you really don’t know what you’ve missed. Mike and Jan Riter, the original crew, were training a new crew, Joey & Cathy, so we actually had two crews helping us with our projects. I think the biggest benefit to working with the IMBA crew is that, not only are you getting some help with problem areas, but you get to learn the proper way to repair things so they stay fixed. We actually worked on two different projects this time with the IMBA crews splitting into two groups. One group went to the Whitewater Center to work on the Chestunt Mtn. Loop. If you’ve ridden there, you know there was a section where the trail got so narrow that it was unrideable. Thanks to the hard work by everybody involved, a crib wall of rocks was built and the trail raised and widened. Some of the rocks used were so big that it took four people to lift them. The end result is a section of trail that is smooth and fast and much more enjoyable to ride.

The other project we worked on was on Chilhowee Mountain on the Clear Creek Trail. If you’ve been reading this column the past few months, then you know we wanted to build a bypass around the hike-a-bike section on Clear Creek. We had originally planned on going to the top of the bluff and by-passing the entire section, but this turned out to be an unworkable solution. It would’ve meant building a huge switch-back turn and with all the side-hilling necessary to join the trail sections together, the project might have taken weeks instead of hours. Instead, we decided to attack this problem in stages, the first being an area we worked on Saturday. If you’re familiar with Clear Creek, then you know where the sharp corner at the beginning of the hike-a-bike section is and the nasty rock drop-off there.

This is where we worked the IMBA magic. Moving back up the trail, we went left; that is, around and below the drop-off section. This was not an easy fix, since it necessitated raising the level of the by-pass about four feet in order to re-join the original trail. We did this by building a rock retaining wall, filling in the middle with smaller rocks and finally, by covering it all with dirt.

Now this actually fixes only a short section, we will have to work on the rest as time permits. (Hint-hint.) Still, it is a great start to fixing a difficult problem and it shows what can be done with a dedicated crew and hard work.

Speaking of our work crew, a tip of the visor to all who came out and worked. We had fourteen or fifteen workers both days, we got a lot of work done, and we all had a great time. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating, ”nothing beats riding on trails that you have helped build.”

Happy Trails, Bill

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