February 2012 Board Meeting Minutes

Valley Mountain Bikers Meeting Minutes, Wednesday Feb 29, 2012

The February board meeting was held at Hello Burrito. In attendance were:

Eric Rigler
Doug Pinkerton
Rich Butz
Scott Stortz
Kenny Magee (temporary chair)

Members and guests:
Frank Maguire (IMBA rep)
Jon Roth (member)

The meeting was called to order at 6:45.

Motion: Remove Evan from the Club, per Article 2.2.8 of the Bylaws.
After some discussion, the motion was passed, 5-1.

Nox Meeting: Scott reported on the meeting today with Rep Quinn regarding complaints from residents about inappropriate behavior by mountain bikers. Meeting went really well, VMB was received well when the trail building was explained, parking problems were addressed, Take A Kid Mountain Biking Day (and other initiatives) were discussed. Sunday hunting was discussed, but it sounded like it might not pass.

Trex Meeting: Meeting with Scott Stortz, Frank Maguire, Andrew Budick, “Dirtsculpt Dave,” Carl Martin (Director of Stewardship, Wildlands Conservancy), and Tom Gettings.

Comments from IMBA rep Frank Maguire:

“There are significant areas for concern, but things overall are not as bad as they could be. (IMBA’s overall sustainability issues: Is it meeting needs of riding community? Is it creating conflict? Is there a significant resource drain?)

Upper (new) trail could use work but is fairly OK. Concern there are not enough drains on this and Shaleface/HP3, but it seems to be working now, it’s not a disaster.

Problem: Andrew is not following a plan, should be encouraged to finish trails per park’s specs.

Accentuated the positive, now we must follow through.

We need to finish the work in Part 1, which includes remediation and planting trees/grasslands, before moving on to the next section.

Frank recommends that we have a plan that can be followed. Who owns what goes wrong if something does? Something that Carl asked: do we have a maintenance agreement? (A formal document, visual inspections monthly, review after a few years.)

Maintenance issues: once a year? What is the maintenance schedule, will it be a resource drain (in terms of volunteer manpower) to keep the berms etc maintained?

New IMBA ideas for more MTB-friendly trails, ie “Flow Country.” Bermed turns hold up better, but need drainage designed in from the start. (Fountain Head in VA is a good example.) Terracing is a problem in our trails: water may drain off one trail section, onto another section lower down the slope.

Speed issues? They were satisfied that sight lines, berms and one-way flow make this OK.

From Frank: “The most successful trail-building projects/clubs have had the most restrictive land managers to deal with.” Examples: Florida, White Clay in Delaware.

End: Meeting adjourned 8:40 PM.