Represent THOR before a legislative committee in Lincoln

Is anyone able to testify on behald of THOR before a legislative committe in Lincoln on 3/3/11 at 1:30? There is a bill (LB 656) proposing to cut the amount of NRD money that goes to recreational purposes. I can prep you on the proposed bill and how to testify. 

Please contact Susan Reff (new co-VP of THOR) at susanreff at hotmail dot com.

THOR Annual Membership Meeting

THOR Annual Membership Meeting
Saturday, February 26 · 2:00pm - 4:00pm

National Park Service
601 River Front Drive
Omaha, NE


The annual meeting agenda will include an overview of the 2010 goals and what was achieved as a club and at each trail system. New goals for 2011 will be discussed. Voting for chair positions will take place. As it was declared at last year's meeting, Kent McNeil will be stepping down as president and we're looking for a new visionary. 1 year term is all that is expected, so think about if you or someone you know would like to take the reigns for 2011. More info as well as meeting agenda outline to follow via email and on our website.

tranquility north fort st trail is beta

Thanks to Aaron, Chris, Dale, Greg, and Paul, the out and back trail corridor along the Big Papio is cleared. Little tread work - though rideable, it's not necessarily enjoyable - consider it a beta release. Sod cutting the tread will wait for another workday, probably next Spring.

 
The trail circled in pink is what we worked on yesterday and today - about 20 hrs. About 20 hrs were spent on the ground walking, envisioning, and flagging prior to this weekend.
 
The trail circled in blue at the top is a double track going around a built wetlands in order to mitigate wetlands lost from the soccer fields south of Fort St and the new cement trail around Standing Bear Lake.
 
The trail on the west boundary will be worked on over the winter, weather permitting. This entails clearing deadfall and dead undercanopy in the trail corridor.
 
Greg brought out his stihl saw with color coordinated stihl chaps -- very professional, should have snapped a pic!
 
Chris putted around with his walk behind weedeater to clear parts of the tread along the trees down to the dirt.
 
I ended up putting about 8 hrs on Tigger. She worked hard making a preliminary pass through at 5" and a follow up cut at 3.5". The air cooling screen was plugged several times from all the cut grass thrown upwind. Though she has some minor groundings with the blades, the worst was running up over an unseen railroad tie when finishing up in the dark about 6 pm. Stopped the blades and stalled the engine - ouch! In 1 hour, Tigger does what use to take us about 4 hrs to push. Thus those 8 hrs this weekend saved us at least another 24 hours of mowing by hand.
 
Besides weedeating, clearing branches, and some hoe work, Aaron and Paul set bridges in place over the Fort St bridge erosion ruts.
 
I found out Friday at 1830 that Melinda, director of Omaha Parks, and Dennis, Park Planner had given us the "Notice to Proceed" with construction of the proposed trail. This time of year, there are few weekends amicable for trailwork.
 
I thank God for moving Melinda and Dennis to ok the proposal, for providing Chris, Paul, Greg, and Aaron to interact with the design and construction, and I'm grateful to God for giving me the desire, eyes, and hands to help paint a mtb trail on his canvas.

mowed north tp return route

Talked with Chris who was out doing some lopping. Decided not to rent sod cutter for tomorrow's trailday, we will just work on clearing and mowing the trail corridor on the Big Papio. Mowing the grass will allow the frost to melt more quickly next Spring when the sod cutter can be put to work.

This is looking south on the return route towards the Fort St bridge.

This is looking back up the return route towards the north baseball parking lot.

Though difficult to see, this is one of those half inch diameter scrub brush that has a 10' root starting back at the head of the rogue hoe.

tranquility trailday this sunday 11.21

Thank you, Omaha Parks, for approving the trail extension!

Trailday this Sunday noon – 3pm.
Meet north of Fort St in east lot between front and back baseball complexes.
Will work on parallel out and back trails along Big Papio.


I will walk for obstacles, flag, and mow as much trail corridor as possible with Tigger on Saturday.

Work for Sunday:
- Mow tread low on Tigger prepped trail corridor
- Run sod cutters over tread line
- Saw, trim branches in trail corridor along creek
- Weedwack non Tigger tread
- Put in bridges under bridge

Tools provided.

We need 6 or so workers to rsvp in order to rent two sod machines.
Assumes:
- Tigger can prepare the trail corridors on Saturday
- Frost is not in ground already

With bitter cold weather forecasted and trail corridor mowed to ground, frost will set in before another trailday can be run, so as much sod cutting/treadwork must be done this Sunday as possible, or it will have to wait till Spring, in my opinion. If low number of workers are available, will leave sawing/trimming till after frost in order to concentrate on sod cutting tread.

Please let me know if you plan to work on the trail Sunday - tpmbt at cox dot net

Dale

TV Shoot Date changed to Tues 11/16 due to weather

Iowa Public Television's new recreation and conservation series, Iowa Outdoors wants to feature mountain biking around Council Bluffs in a future episode in late Spring/Summer 2011 and particularly the courses at Lewis and Clark Monument and Lake Manawa.

They plan on being here on 11/16 to video riders on trail. We need riders to be at L&C and ready to ride at 11am sharp. Please let me know if you can participate.

The bigger benefit is they want to feature THOR as well and that may be shot on the same day or in the spring during an actual trail day.

It should only take an hour or so. Come on out and show off our trails!

Contact me ASAP if you can attend. roxzanne dot abbott at gmail dot com

Thanks, Roxy

Thank you THOR Volunteers!

Seriously, people. What other sport on this planet has it's competitors and enthusiasts taking care of the very playground they play in? MTB volunteers have got to be the most selfless and passionate people I have ever met.

Just want to say thank you to Tom Winfield and Steve Dickey for organizing and orchestrating two successful days at Lake Manawa.  A huge shout out to the guys from Extreme Wheels who came out and took care of business.

Steve says: Perfect crew along with perfect weather let 11 workers get a total of 33 hours in to make Manawa ridable in all sections except east sidewider which has two areas and very muddy in a few sections. Use caution if you haven't riden here lately, there is some muddy spots in low areas under leaves.We ended the day with pizza and some even went out for a ride after that. To all who helped get manawa ridable since the last flood you are AWESOME!