Fires at Waterdog

Posted by Patty Sat, 06 Sep 2008 05:51:00 GMT

Belmont issued the following press release today about a person of interest related to the fires set in Waterdog Park.

Age: 30’s
Gender: Male
Height: 5-10 to 6-0
Weight: 170
Eyes: Unknown
Hair: Brown
Complexion: Medium
Race: White
Date of last contact: 9/4/08

On Thursday 9/4/08 at approx. 4:50pm, two separate fires were reported in the canyon area, on the east side of the Hallmark neighborhood. Both fires were near Wakefield Dr & Somerset Dr and the two fires each burned approx. 1/4 of an acre. No structures were involved and there were no injuries. A preliminary investigation has determined that both fires were human-caused and may have been intentionally set. The Belmont Police are asking for the public’s help in this investigation.

Posted in Trails | 2 comments

SSWC

Posted by PeterD Fri, 22 Aug 2008 21:05:00 GMT

Posted in Bikes, Trails | Tags singlespeed, SSWC | 1 comment

Ride Day 8, Oakridge Day 2

Posted by Charles Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:25:00 GMT

Our original plan was to use yesterday, Wednesday, as a rest day of sorts, so we would be plenty fresh for a long ride on Thursday. The long ride of choice was the Alpine Trail, just outside of Oakridge in Westfir, also known as the venue for the Cascade Cream Puff . After the prior day’s dubiously restful nature, we had a lot of trouble getting ourselves motivated and out the door early enough to load our Camelbaks with a days rations and hit the trail in time to catch the shuttled riders leaving the Trailhead Cafe at 10:00, so we slept in, and it was good. Real good, and easy to tacitly rationalize at this point in our trip, so instead we grumbled. Or at least I did, all the way up the hill in the shuttle van. It seemed a shame to waste a perfectly good ride day with just one short shuttle that would have us back in town by 1:00, especially now that we were so well rested.

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Ride Day 2, First Day at Baldface

Posted by Charles Sat, 02 Aug 2008 06:12:00 GMT

We have completed our second day riding in the Nelson area, both in town, as well as from the Baldface Lodge 4000 feet above town. While we originally found Canada a smaller place than originally stated (metric conversion conspiracy. Every thing in Canada is about 1/3 closer than it sounds), we have found the 4000 foot drop into town is at least 5000 feet, and a “full day” of riding can be had by noon.

Our group started with 14 eager campers, and a 45 minute push from the Lodge up to Cherry Tops, because the aforementioned 4000 feet evidently wasn’t, by local standards, enough. Our guide today was some available local named Mike, and we followed him to the best of our ability down High Man to Swamp Donkey. The best of our ability turned out to be better than the ability of at least six of the riders in our group, and they got on a truck at mid mountain. Four were never seen again.

Posted in Trails, People | 1 comment

Ride Day 1, The Nelson Town Trails

Posted by Charles Fri, 01 Aug 2008 04:50:00 GMT

One the scale of people you know that really like to drive, Sean would rise to the top. He really, really likes to drive, and he’s excellent at it. He and I did a very fast road trip two years ago, a mad dash to central Oregon and back in four days, with three epic rides sandwiched in between. When he called a couple weeks ago to tell me Nelson was only 19 hours away by car, I knew what he was thinking, and what he was capable of. We put together a couple of roof racks and outfitted his Prius to carry our two bikes as well as the three bikes that belonged to Patrick, Rob, and Jim, who we were to meet in downtown Nelson on Thursday.

Posted in Trails, Passion | no comments

National Trails Day June 7th at Waterdog

Posted by Patty Wed, 28 May 2008 19:35:00 GMT

Hey all you trail lovin’ people!

National Trails Day is the one day every year where communities across America celebrate their trails! This year we are planning a (work)PARTY at Waterdog Park in Belmont on Saturday, June 7th. Won’t you please join us???

Our goal is to provide some care and trimming of the amazing singletrack trails in this multi-use park. The plan is to leave the digging tools out of the equation and just work on brushing out the trails, which despite our dry spring are getting rapidly overgrown! We’d like to make sure people can see around the turns, can ride or walk without getting scratched on the bushes, and can find places to pass safely and cordially.

One of our kind neighborhood volunteers sprayed the poison oak earlier this spring, so most of our work will be PO free! The work will be easy, fun and rewarding, and appropriate for well-behaved and well-supervised kids.

We will work on trimming back sagebrush, coyote brush, scotch broom, blackberries, etc, then gathering up the trimmings and pushing them over the edge and tucking them under the bushes to compost. Depending on the size of the turnout we may ask volunteers to bring tools from the garden shed to supplement our supplies of rakes, loppers, hedge trimmers and shears.

Details:

Date: Saturday June 7th, 2008
Start time: 9:30am
End time: 12:30pm
Volunteers needed: at least 20
Hospitality: Coffee and bagels in the morning, free BBQ and beers (hopped and rooty styles) afterwards
Swag: two $50 gift certificates to Passion Trail Bikes will be raffled off to volunteers during the BBQ
Ride or Hike: After the BBQ volunteers will be able to enjoy a fun ride or hike on the trails in Waterdog Park.
More info: call Patty Ciesla at Passion Trail Bikes 650-620-9798 or email her at patty AT passiontrailbikes.com if you have questions.

Download a printer friendly flyer here.

Sign up to volunteer: http://trailworkers.com/waterdog_park.cfm

Hope to see you there!

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Pacifica Ride Report

Posted by PeterD Fri, 02 May 2008 00:39:00 GMT

Here is a ride report from Jay, who did a ride with Charles and some others this past Monday up in Pacifica.
(note – if you click on a picture, you will see a higher resolution version of that picture)

When you have no meetings, a boss out of town, some time off to burn, a new downhill bike, and a case of the Mondays, there’s only one thing to do – Go out to the coast and ride! The blooming spring colors, ocean views and quality of people couldn’t have been better today. Also, Tom and Charles had matching shoes, which somehow is less controversial than when Sterling and I show up in matching socks. Anyway…

We started off with a nice climb with what used to be the old Highway 1:

Posted in Trails, People | 7 comments

Shop rides

Posted by PeterD Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:25:00 GMT

There was a recent post on MTBR that covers what the ride is supposed to be about:
I spend a lot of time training and riding with a focused goals. Racing is great but it’s good to recalibrate once in a while. I went to the Passion Trails Wednesday night ride tonight and remembered why I started riding in the first place. Good people, friendly vibes and just a damn good time on a bike.

It was great to hear this.

Did remind me of some things meant to say before the last ride I lead, which I thought I would post here:

Posted in Trails, People | 1 comment

2nd Anniversary Demo Days

Posted by PeterD Tue, 18 Mar 2008 04:41:00 GMT

The event went off well. The weather reporters were wrong when they said we would get rain on Saturday – we got just enough Friday night to make sure the trails were dust free, but not so much to make things muddy. Good set of photos and comments showing up on MTBR (though I am copying some of the better ones over to this post).

Thanks for everyone who showed up! And special thanks to folks like JohnH, Justine, TomR, MichaelP, and others who chipped in to help.

More photos below…

Posted in Shop, Trails, Passion, People | 1 comment

Tandem Drag Races?

Posted by PeterD Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:19:00 GMT

Ok, we like bikes. And we like beer. So any event that involves both has to be pretty cool! Below is listed one in the city for this Friday that sounds like a blast…

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