Bushwhacking Good Works at Passion Trail Bikes

This week’s shaggy dog word on the trail, on Sept 1, 2009

1. NorCal High School Team Meeting Tonight, 7:00pm
2. Tickets for Freedom Riders Movie at Rio Theater, 9/17
3. Ridge Trail Opens Hiking-Only Trail for Bikes, One Day Only Sept 12
4. Pumpkin Ride & Picnic 10/4; Halloween Party 10/30
5. Wednesday Wrides: Impromptu Vegetation Styling at 6:00pm
6. Waterdog Trailwork – Brushing and Maintenance 9/13 8:30am
7. Carbon-Carbon Connections to Your Bike On SALE


1. NorCal High School Team Meeting Tonight 7:00pm
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Please encourage any High School students you know on the Peninsual to join our first MTB Club/Team meeting tonight 9/1. Youth and parents and adults interested in supporting the team are welcome tonight at Passion Trail Bikes at 7:00pm, when we will talk about riding bikes for fun and competition. We will order pizza and enjoy draft root beer courtesy PTB. Please RSVP to Patty at patty@passiontrailbikes.com.

NorCal League kids racing

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2. Tickets for Freedom Riders Movie at Rio Theater, 9/17
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Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz presents the Santa Cruz showing of Freedom Riders 7 pm Thursday September 17th at the Rio Theatre. This film is a benefit to raise money for our local State Parks district to replace the sign at the entrance of the Wilder Ranch back country.

Tickets are on sale at Passion Trail Bikes for $10, or if not sold out, will be available at the door. All ticket holders will get a raffle ticket. MBOSC will also sell additional raffle tickets in the theater.

Freedom Riders is the story of a core group of riders who evolved from covertly building rough and unsustainable trails, to creating a precedent setting relationship with the Forest Service and creating some of the best Freeride trails in the country. The Freedom Riders story has parallels with the story of the Braille Trail and other trails like it.

MBOSC is presenting this film because we feel it is a story that could resonate in this community and it could lead to some wonderful future possibilities in our local scene. The current state fiscal crisis and the change in leadership in the local district is creating more dialog between land managers and the local mountain bike advocates. They are looking for allies and partners.

Since February, we have been actively working with our local State Parks district to create more legitimate mountain biking opportunities. We are inviting local land managers to the showing of this film and hope that they can see how co-operation between downhill/freeride mountain bikers and land managers has worked in another part of the country.

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3. Ridge Trail Opens Hiking-Only Trail for Bikes, One Day Only Sept 12
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We just got confirmation that the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council has obtained a special use permit for one-day only bicycle access to the Skyline Trail in Sanborn County Park, which is currently closed to bikes. AWESOME! Come join Patty and other Ridge Trail supporters for a special shuttled and catered ride along the summit between Sunnyvale Mountain and Borel Hill.

This is a super fun fundraiser ride with lots of support and a really special feeling and vibe to it. Patty will be doing the Intermediate ride, with a white socks pace. To join this fun event, visit the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council’s website here.

Sanborn County Park future mountain biking trail map

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4. Pumpkin Ride & Picnic 10/24; Halloween Party 10/30
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Save the date for two super fun annual fall events on the Peninsula: On October 24th the ROMP Fall Picnic and Pumpkin Ride, staged near the top of Whittemore Gulch Trail at Purisima Creek Open Space Preserve, costumed riders will descend to Half Moon Bay to select pumpkins for the holiday. Here’s the blurb from the ROMP website:

Pumpkin ROMP and Picnic! Meet at the Kings Mountain Community Center and Firehouse, 13889 Skyline Blvd Woodside, CA at 9:00 AM for a mountain bike and road ride through Purissima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve down to Arata’s Pumpkin Patch near Highway 1. Pick your pumpkins and ride back up for a picnic / pot luck starting after noon at the Community Center. Easier rides available for youth and the less mad. Prizes awarded for best costume, best pumpkin, most pumpkins in weight hauled up, largest single pumpkin, and stuff like that. Or just come out for an afternoon of hanging out in the redwoods with some old friends, or ones you have not met yet.

And on October 30th, Passion Trail Bikes will be hosting our annual candlelight costume party. The flourescent tubes will be off and the wax will be on, so start planning your best disguise for the dimly lit but warmly welcoming evening of tricks and treats!

5. Wednesday Wrides: Impromptu Vegetation Styling at 6:00pm
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Sunset is at 7:38PM this Wednesday 09/02/09. Twilight ends and near-darkness falls right around 8:15pm.
Next week on Sept 9th the Regular Ride launches at 5:45PM.

Tomorrow Patty will be bringing her tool bag of hand clippers, loppers, and folding saws, and will offer them out to any volunteers who might want to carry them into Waterdog and put them to use for 10 or 15 minutes along a section of overgrown trail. This will be completely non-organized, impromptu, interruption of your Wride to do a bit of trimming on the scraggly beards of various woody plants that seem to be reaching into the trail to tickle your neck or scratch your ear. Leave the open space with a newly styled trail side, and hardly miss a beat!

P. L. E. A. S. E. . . . P. U. T. . . . L. I. G. H. T. S. . . . O. N ! ! ! !

Please remember to put a light on your handlebar and have a blinky ready for the ride back to the shop! CA vehicle code requires it. Don’t get caught out on the streets in the dark! Also, a reminder that we need to be super conscientious about stopping at stop signs and lights, yielding to pedestrians, and operating our bikes predictably and responsibly while on the roads and trails. Let’s be safe and kind out there.

For all the details about what makes each group listed below unique, please refer to this webpage. If your questions aren’t answered there, you can also email us for info at info@passiontrailbikes.com.

All rides start pedaling from the shop: Passion Trail Bikes, 415 Old County Road, Belmont, CA 94002 650-620-9798.

Riders and Food Prep Staging for the Wednesday Wride

The EARLY ride will go out at 5:45 PM.
The REGULAR rides will go out between 6:00 and 6:10 PM.
The WHITE SOCKS ride will go out at 6:15 PM.
The FBG or Fat Bottomed Girl ride will go out at 6:15 PM.
The STRAGGLERS ride goes out sometime around 6:30 PM.
For future planning, we have the upcoming start times each week for the first wave of the REGULAR ride posted on our Community Calendar

Note we may not have leaders for each ride but usually someone knows their way around. All groups will meet back here at Passion Trail Bikes right around dark for the usual story telling & beverage enjoyment. We will have stuff to eat plus chips and fatty snacks and EANABS to pair up with the Devil’s Canyon Brewery’s Full Boar Scotch Ale, Silicon Blonde Ale, and Little Devil Root Beer. We will hang out until about 10pm, so come on down, even if you can’t make the ride! Passion Parties are better with YOU in the mix!

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6. Waterdog Trailwork – Bridge Repair Thursday 9/3, 5:30pm, Brushing 9/13 8:30am
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There is a broken bridge on Chaparral Trail that needs immediate repairs. Patty will be cutting some boards and delivering them to the end of Sommerset Court and could use a handful of helpers to carry them in and assemble them into a replacement bridge on Thursday. Meeting at 5:30 pm. Please email Patty at patty@passiontrailbikes.com if you can assist.

And after Labor Day, whatever encroaching brush we don’t get to on the Wrides tomorrow will still be waiting for a good bushwhacking. Come join Patty with a morning of singletrack care. You will get another notice coming up but save the date: Sunday Sept 13th, 8:30am.

Volunteers cut back brush on the top of the Rambler Trail

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7. Carbon-Carbon Connections to Your Bike On SALE

Easton carbon handlebar and seatpost package deal!

We have an overstock of Easton carbon handlebars and seatposts. This is your chance to upgrade your bike and take a bunch of heavy aluminum parts off and get that wonderful vibration damping sense of calm that comes with a carbon bar and post. Normally, these retail for $200 for the seatpost, $150 for the DH bar, and $130 for the XC bar. But if you get a bar and post together we will take $25% off – save about $85 with this great deal and help us get our stock down to slightly less ridiculous levels.

Just mention that you saw a deal on these items in the newsletter and we will discount your parts at the register and pour you the beverage of your choice in our lounge. So come on down and lighten up at Passion Trail Bikes!

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Read back issues of the Passion Trail Bikes Community e-Newsletter on our website.

To contact us, email us at info@passiontrailbikes.com, or call the shop at 650-620-9798.

Happy Trails, the PTB crew
Charles, Patty, Berry, John, Bret, Daryl, Pancho, Will, Peter, Reba and Buster