Bicycle Music   
 Ride Stats
Distance: 5.28 miles Route: CAMBA - Festival of the Trails Time: 00:53:45
Avg Speed: 5.89 mph Max Speed: 20.00 mph Avg HR: 0 bpm
Max HR: 0 bpm Calories Burned: 0 Weight: 193
Altitude Gain: 0 ft Terrain: Off: XC Bike: Salsa Mukluk Fat
Club: Secular Cycleism
Weather Conditions: Sunny. Windy. 83°.
Ride Description: W/Sue...
Riding into the Makwa to get card punched and Taste de Trails food.
NEW CHAIN (SRAM PC-971) ON THE MUKLUK
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 My Own IMBA Epic. :)
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I began mountain biking in 1990.
My parents have a "cabin" on the lake, in the Chequamegon National Forest.
I loved to explore the fire roads, ski and snowmobile trails in the area.

Then, in 1993 the Chequamegon Area Mountain Bike Association formed.
CAMBA began mapping, and marking trails in 1993. Most of the trails back then were fire roads, ski trails, snowmobile trails and old doubletrack logging roads. A short section of singletrack (still in use today) was built around Patsy Lake.

CAMBA's Singletrack Trail Initiative began in 1999 with Terrain Park and Ojibwe being the first new "IMBA standard" singletrack trail constructed.
Rock Lake singletrack began in 2003, and was "completed" in 2006.

In CAMBAland "completed" is a technical term meaning the trail is open and ready to ride. All of the trails in the system continue to be tweaked. As a result, sections may get re-routes, (Logging Happens) and improvements are continually being made with additional singletrack.

I joined CAMBA that year, and I've been a paying member every year since 1993.

I am also an IMBA supporter, and after attending my first IMBA Trail Building School at Rock Cut State Park (Illinois) in July of 2003, discovered I love to help build new, and maintain current singletrack.

In 2004, I joined CAMBA's week long Trail Camp, building new singletrack at Rock Lake. I have also volunteered many additional hours of trail building on the Rock Lake trail system since then.
Some of that time was with CAMBA trail building guru, and master of rock obstacles, John Leighton. It's been said John was one of the first trail builders to start moving rocks onto the trail tread, when everyone else would remove the rocks from the trail.
But there was a method to John's "madness", and Rock Lake (and later Patsy Lake and Namakagon) would become a world class trail thanks to John's incredible skill, effort and hard work. Yes, he had a lot of good help, but I remember several times riding at Rock Lake, and seeing John, all by himself, building new trail. Of course, I would stop to help when I could.

One of my favorite rides has been to ride one mile of road, from the cabin, to the Namakagon Town Hall Trail Head and ride a combination of trails that included the Namakagon, Patsy Lake, Rock Lake and Glacier trails, That loop was usually about 25 to 30 miles, depending on the routes taken.
Since CAMBA started building new singletrack trails in the Namakagon Cluster in 2003, the trails have evolved into a network almost entirely of IMBA style singletrack. My favorite ride just kept getting better every year.

In November of 2010, the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) announced that the Chequamegon Area Mountain Bike Association (CAMBA) trails had received an IMBA Epic Trail designation. This prestigious recognition is only one of six Epics announced in 2010. Officially making this one of the best trails on the planet. Something I've known for a long time.

CAMBA's IMBA Epic trail is actually a compilation of trails in the Namakagon Cluster of the CAMBA trails. It combines the Rock Lake, Namakagon and Patsy Lake trails. With the exception of a couple short segments of linking double-track, it is otherwise entirely singletrack trails. The total route is approximately 31 miles.
This is the same route I've been riding for many years.

The IMBA Epic route was formally dedicated in a brief ceremony on National Trails Day, Saturday, June 4, 2011 at 2:00 p.m. The dedication took place at the Rock Lake Trailhead.

Photos from the Tribute de Trails.
Photo #1 CAMBA Executive Director, Ron Begin began the ceremonial speeches.

Photo #2 Our Regional IMBA representative, Hansi Johnson.

Photo #3 Ron Bergin presents John Leighton a beautiful Sara Balbin designed sculpture to honor his hard work and dedication at Rock Lake.

Photo #4 John Leighton gets the honor of attaching the IMBA Epic sign to the trail head kiosk.

Photo #5 The Rock Lake kiosk.

Photo #6 The IMBA Epic sign.

Photo #7 Me with a trail building master, John Leighton. John and I spent two days moving the rock that I'm riding over on the CAMBA jersey I'm wearing.

Photo #8 The rock we moved to the trail. It's on the Hildebrand Loop.

Story in the local paper...
www.haywardwi.com/articles/2011/06/10/news/doc4defa59d7f396990254057.txt


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