Yeah it's been awhile!

Yes it has it's been a awhile since the last time I wrote anything in this blog. Why, not sure, other crap going on, building a ukulele or the overwhelming feeling that these ramblings just fall on def ears, so it goes. When last we spoke the park was gearing up for some big events. The Freedom 50 one of the parks longest mountain bike races went off without a hitch this year, my initial intention was to just ride it as a patrol but about half way in I decided to race it. As normal it was about the hottest day of the year so much suffering was had by everyone, but never the less it was fun event with good competition. The Quick n Dirty 30 was also a big hit with a good showing. The event which I thought would be a really unique and fun was the Ninja Night Race. I had never seen or heard of a nighttime mountain bike race in San Diego so I was keen to take part in it. Normally the park would be closed during that time but I was willing to make a concession because of the uniqueness of the event. The race was also limited to 50 participants in order to try and mitigate some of the night time impact an event such as this would generate. All of the participants seemed to have fun and while it was cool seeing all those lights along the lake shore I can not see myself putting in the effort to do it again, but who knows. Suffice it to say the park out did itself last year by hosting over 40 events. 2014 looks like another big year, Quick n Dirty will be back on February 22nd for a stand alone race and also for the Wednesday night summer series. We will also be having a Tuesday night running series event this summer.

The mountain bike patrol had its first mountain bike swap meet in September. Twelve vendors showed up and all the people that came to check out the deals walked away with something worthy of the effort made to attend. It would be great to have this swap meet once if not twice a year and hopefully see it grow. It fills a much needed niche in the North County area.The event raised money for both the SDRP Mountain Bike patrol as well as the Sikes Adobe historic farm house.

Mountain Bike Patrol Swap Meet

I was also able to hold another patrol training within the last couple of months and the SDRP mountain bike patrol is now up to 21 patrollers. Outstanding by any measure and we have been nominated for an award by the Parks and Recreation Association to boot. With the continued support of our sponsors and dedication of our volunteers this program remains one the best attended mountain bike volunteer patrol programs in San Diego County if not the whole of SoCal. In six months the patrol has put in 436 hours of volunteer time patrolling the trails. This has enabled me to stay on top of things in the park and address any issues that may come up in a timely manner. I will be doing one more patrol training in the coming weeks, so if your on the fence now is the time to act. I have discussed spreading the love to other parks but I am still waiting for the phone call. If you live near an open space that may or may not be having difficulties managing their trails send them my way.

The patrol crew, well half of them.

Cool side story to the SDRP mountain bike patrol. Just before Christmas one of our more active patrollers had his bike stolen. During our end of the year BBQ we decided to put the word out to our other patrollers in hopes of getting some donations to get him back on a bike. Within two weeks the patrol donated $700. That enabled us, through working with one of our great sponsors (North of the Border bike shop) to buy him a brand new Norco 27.5. Couldn't ask for a better group of guys and gals!

Mario and his new bike!

Quick trail bulletin, if like me you ride the trails around the San Dieguito River Park you may have started to notice that some of your favorite trail features are slowly but surely being removed. I can assure you the the rangers of the San Dieguito River Park are not responsible for this trail sanitation. I prefer to preserve those features, they act as good buffers in slowing traffic and add fun to an already tame trail, if I didn't I would just flatten everything, pave it with DG, through some peeler post fencing up for good measure and call it a day. The sole responsibility for this recent round of sanitation lies within the mountain biking community. Those trail features have been in place since I started riding these trails over 20 years ago and within the last year they are gone. If you can't ride the feature there is no harm in walking your bike, really no one will give you any grief for doing so. If someone out there witnesses this type of behavior please due us all a favor and ask them not to. Since when did this become a popular way of looking at a challenge? That being said while I pride myself on some of the best maintained trails around there is plenty of actual trail work to be done in the park. I hold a trail maintenance day every second Sunday of every month from 0800 to 1100 and have done so now for over ten years. So if any of you would be trail work folk are out there we would love to have you. I always find it strange that mountain bikers who use the trails the most are never there come trail maintenance day. If you love the trails and want to help maintain them please come out. Right now the trails are bone dry so please stay on them at all cost, any incursions off trail will cause irreparable, unsightly and unneeded damage. Now if we could just get some rain!

All in all I am looking forward to this year and working with everybody in anyway I can in order to provide a great outdoor experience for both parks users and it's inhabitants. Stay safe and enjoy the trails!