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In this issue...
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Vote
to induct CORBA into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame.
Ballots
must be mailed by July 15th, so act now!
(See the
President's Message for details.)
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Proper Trail Etiquette
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News from the CORBA Website
Blog
Learn how to get our blog articles delivered
to you when they are published!
A Message from CORBA’s President
by Mark Langton
 Vote for CORBA for Mtn Bike Hall of Fame
The time is now to vote for CORBA (a chapter of IMBA) for induction into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame and Museum. We were nominated last year and therefor are eligible again moving forward. To learn more about CORBA’s nomination, click here.
CORBA has been on the forefront of mountain bike advocacy since there was such a thing. CORBA as an organization has developed groundbreaking advocacy policies, standardized trail building guidelines and design techniques, and outreach programs (Skills Classes, Mountain Bike Unit volunteer patrol). CORBA members were present at the initial summit which created the International Mountain Bicycling Association, and is listed as a Founding Member of that organization. CORBA may be eligible as an advocacy candidate for the Hall of Fame, but the organization could easily also be included as a Pioneer. For you that are already members of the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame and Museum, check your mailboxes for your ballots. If you need to join the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame visit their website at www.mbikehof.com. There are options to join via PayPal or by printing out the membership form and sending a check. Voting ends July 15th, so don’t delay!
A Tribuet to Danusia Bennett-Taber
Sunday, June 9, 2013, a memorial service was held for former CORBA Treasurer and Board Member Danusia Bennett-Taber. Around 80 friends, family, fellow volunteers, agency representatives, and one friendly horse, hiked or rode in to a secluded corner of Malibu Creek State Park. Under the majestic oaks with the sounds of rustling leaves and bird songs–one of Danusia’s favorite places in the park–people recalled some of their fond memories of her.  It was especially clear that there was much more to this wonderful woman than any of us really knew, except perhaps her husband Don, whose recollections brought both smiles and tears to the gathered crowd. We, as CORBA Board members knew her as a diligent and passionate volunteer who loved the mountains and the trails, with a penchant for making sure everything was done correctly.
Her family knew she volunteered, but according to them, she had never made any big deal of it. It was just something she did. CORBA’s Steve Messer talked about her legacy and dedication to mountain biking, the depth of which was unknown to her family. In fact, this was a common theme among those who spoke. Everyone seemed to know a different side of this remarkable woman. But the common thread was that she touched many people, in many meaningful ways. Many thanks to the numerous past and present CORBA board members and volunteers who came out to celebrate her life, and our sincerest condolences to her non-mountain biking family and friends. Special thanks go to Wendy Engelberg, who organized the service. Wendy collaborated with Danusia on a final project, a bell program that will serve multiple purposes: It will remind everyone of Danusia’s great work for the trail community, help ease tensions on the trails from user conflict, and raise money for the Sarcoma Alliance that helped Danusia through the most difficult times of her life. Look for the official announcement in the coming weeks.
To learn more about Danusia's contributions to CORBA, mountain
biking advocacy in general and youth interests in particular, read
Steve Messer's tribute in our
full blog article...
Recreational
Rides
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September's
Beginners' Ride had 16 participants. Would you or
a new rider you know like to join us too?
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For a list of upcoming recreational rides, please visit the CORBA
Calendar.
Upcoming Beginner - Intermediate Rides (follow the link for details
and to sign up!)
See our Rides
Calendar for details and for other beginner-level rides. Many thanks to North
Ranch Mountain Bikers Michelle and Kevin for leading these
rides!
CORBA’s Recreational Rides calendar provides a full
monthly schedule of mountain bike rides for all skill levels. Mountain bike
rides are organized by CORBA member clubs and led by experienced and
knowledgeable guides. Recreational rides are a fun and social way to experience
a variety of trails in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, and beyond.
 Upcoming
and Recent Trailwork
For many years, most trailwork has been done by volunteers because of budget
cutbacks at our parks systems. So come out and help CORBA and
other volunteers keep our trails in top riding shape! You can learn
more about what to expect and what you'll need to bring with you
on our Trailwork
web page. Keep in mind that CORBA now provides prizes and lunch
after the event for volunteers who register
in advance! And by registering in advance, you'll help us prepare
by knowing how many volunteers to expect. If you come out to two
or more trailwork days in a year, we'll give you a cool long-sleeved
CORBA trail crew shirt - be sure to ask for yours!
Children
must be over 7-years old to attend, and children under 14 must be constantly
and directly supervised by their parent or guardian who brought them.
May 11: Report on Space Mtn Trailwork in Thousand Oaks.
Eleven mountain biker volunteers along with four others ascended “Space Mountain” (Los Robles Trail West) to fix up CORBA’s adopted trail.
Several years ago, a few CORBA volunteers built drainage dips to protect it from the erosion of winter rains. Those drains have served the trail well, but now they are filling with silt and so are losing their effectiveness, and they need to be cleaned out. The chance came when the Springs Fire burned through Pt Mugu State Park, requiring us to cancel the work we had scheduled for Guadalasca Trail, and allowing us to work on Space Mountain instead.
Overall, we cleaned out somewhere between one and two dozen drainage dips along the bottom 0.6 miles of the singletrack section.
See our
blog article for the full story and photos...
June 8: Report on Springs Fire Trail Repair in Pt Mugu State Park.
Twenty-two CORBA volunteers, along with others from the Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council, Calabasas Day Hikers, a local boy scout troop and Coyote trail runners, hiked up the Wood Canyon Vista Trail, part of the Backbone Trail system, in Point Mugu State Park, to prepare it for the fall and winter rains
after the Springs Fire a few weeks ago.
The goal was to build new drains and fix existing ones to get the water off it as quickly as possible. With many hillsides completely devoid of vegetation, any heavy rain will wash ash, dirt and other debris down onto the trail, turning some sections into piles of silt, and others into huge ruts. To prevent that, we built or rebuilt 84 drainage “nicks” along the 1.8 mile trail.
See our blog
article for the complete story, an explanation of nicks and
a link to the photo gallery...
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Filling
in the huge rut on Guadalasca with a Sweco bulldozer
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June 15: Report on Guadalasca Trailwork in Pt Mugu State
Park. A week after working on the Wood Canyon Vista Trail, about 30 volunteers from CORBA, North Ranch Mountain Bikers, Girls Gone Riding, DirtChix, the Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council, the Ventura County Trail Runners and others came together at the top of the Guadalasca singletrack in Pt Mugu State Park to groom the trail after it had been levelled by a small bulldozer, fondly known as a Sweco.
As explained in our previous blog, State Parks has wanted for some time to fix the huge ruts and drainage problems on Guadalasca. The recent Springs Fire provided added incentive and also opportunity. Incentive came because unless something was done, rainwater would race down the denuded hillsides, carrying ash and mud with it, run onto the trails and then down it, futher erroding the already deep ruts, and also clogging it with crud. Opportunity came from the lack of brush along the trail edge, and overgrowing it, that normally impedes treadwork, and by the eagerness of volunteers to pitch in to help repair the trail and protect it from long-term damage as a result of the fire.
To see the complete story, and a link to the photo gallery, visit
our blog
article...
To see all trailwork dates, including those of other groups,
visit the CORBA
trailwork calendar.
Join our mailing list to get updates on trailwork
opportunities!
Send an email to Trailwork-Volunteers+subscribe@corbamtb.com
General
News
Long Time Trail Advocate Linda Palmer Has Died
Linda Palmer, a long time advocate for preservation and construction of trails in the Santa Monica Mountains, has died. Linda was a past president of the Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council and served for many years on the Advisory Committee of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. If you ride or hike a trail in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, you owe a debt of gratitude to Linda. We send our condolences to her family and friends.
GirlzGoneRiding News for July
by Wendy Engelberg
Ladies! We have had a big problem in our cycling community for a long time now. NO DEMO BIKES! Problem solved! Kim and I had a wonderful meeting with Newbury Park Bike shop in Newbury Park and they have MANY demo bikes now available to us GGR Girlz! They even purchased a few more just for us! Make sure you tell them you are from GGR and they will treat you extra special! http://www.npbikeshop.com/
n a note that is close to my heart and many others, the Danusia Bells are now here! We are working on the literature and a bell box program. We hope to have them online and ready to sell soon. All the profits will be donated to the sarcoma fund to help others with Leomyosarcoma; You can purchase these bells directly from Wendy Engelberg anytime for $10. I will be keeping a box in my car now all the time.
[Ed. note: The Danusia Bell will also be available for sale from
the CORBA Store.]
To view the remainder of Wendy's monthly GGR roundup, visit the
much
longer blog article...
Free Mountain Biking
Skills Clinic
 Saturday July
6th is the next skills clinic.
The CORBA free skills clinic is held on the first Saturday of
every month at Malibu Creek State Park.
Mountain biking is a lot like tennis or skiing. Just a few minor
adjustments in technique can make a huge difference in your
control and proficiency. If you want to get better faster,
you need to know the fundamentals of mountain biking technique.
Whether you're just getting into mountain biking or have been
riding for years, you'll learn some valuable tips from our Introduction
to Mountain Biking skills class that is offered each month.
Check out our Skills Clinic
web page for all the information. After the clinic, see photos
of your new skills on the CORBA web site that you can share
with your family and friends!
Follow
CORBA on Meetup, Twitter and Facebook
 We have set up accounts with Twitter and Facebook to help keep people informed
of the latest developments in our trail advocacy, recreational rides and trailwork days. Join
our events on Meetup
and follow
us on Twitter at twitter.com/CORBAmtb
and Facebook at facebook.com/CORBAMTB.
Get Our Blog Articles Delivered to Your
Desktop
Have you ever wished you could get our blog articles without having
to check
the CORBA website every day to see if there’s anything new? Well, you
can! Even though our blog software won’t send articles by email, you can
still get them delivered to the inbox of most email readers like
Microsoft
Outlook. You use the “RSS feed” functionality for this. In fact, you can
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Explorer
and other web browsers. This
blog
article on RSS feeds shows you how.
Support
CORBA
Join or Renew your membership today on our membership
web page. Join Our Team! Do you have any ideas about mountain biking recreation in the
L.A. region? Would you like to apply your skills and manage projects
that contribute to the sport and lifestyle that you love? Is there
an advocate in you? We are recruiting motivated individuals who
work well with others. Send an email to info@corbamtb.com
or come
to a monthly Members Meeting to find out more about what we do and how you
can help. Check the calendar
for the next meeting.
Other simple ways to
support CORBA
- REI:
Use the link at left and REI will donate 5%
of the purchase price to CORBA
- Holmes Body Shop: Get that dent fixed and help CORBA
(Click on the links above to get more details!)
CORBA
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