Highlighting The Alliance

News

Our chapter, Northwest North Carolina Mountain Bike Trial Alliance, also known as The Alliance, is a host of our Summit for 2023 and deserves a highlight on all the work they accomplished in 2022. Based in the Northwest NC’s mountains and foothills, including the communities of Boone, Hickory, Lenoir, Marion, Morganton and Wilkesboro. Looking back on 2022 and into 2023, the Alliance is proud of the work they accomplished with your support. They’re also excited that the organization will be turning 10 years old this coming Fall! Here are just a few ways they impacted MTB trails within Northwest NC last year:

 

@brian.tunstill.photo

Restoration of Schoolhouse Ridge Trail in the Pisgah Grandfather District

An important piece of the ongoing Mortimer Trails Project. This project focused primarily on refurbishing 1.5 miles of lower Schoolhouse Ridge. The relo trail follows the historic alignment in many places, including several steep, rocky sections. The work was funded by a North Carolina RTP grant.
 
Zacks Fork Gravity Trails Expansion
This past summer, over a year’s worth of planning, volunteering, and contracted trail work led to completion of a Gravity Trails expansion at Zacks Fork Trails in Lenoir. The fundraising effort began in 2021, with grant writing and the establishment of a budget for the project. What followed was an amazing amount of crowdfunding through GoFundMe, grants awarded by the Lenoir Tourism Development Authority and The Broyhill Foundation, and some matching grant funds from the MTB Alliance. Once the funding was secured, Horton Design began surveying and designing in early 2022. On March 28, 2022, construction of the Flip Turn connector trail from the Zacks Fork main trail to Jim Barger Rd. began, and the launch pad area for the Freestyle Medley jump line and the Deep End drop line. Working through the summer, the gravity trails were completed in July of 2022 with the finishing touches on the black diamond Cannonball jump line. Project leads for this work were Lenoir-based members Shawn and Golden Moore and Board Members Wendell Owens and Jack Brown. At our Annual Alliance Chapter Meeting in December, Golden was awarded our Volunteer-of-the-Year award for her massive amount of volunteer hours contributed during construction of the entire project.

@brian.tunstill.photo

Rocky Knob Park has a fresh Pump Track AND an awesome new MTB trail called Jumbo Shrimp
2022 was a big year for the Boone locals. Most of the project work was headed by Alliance member Kristian Jackson and was capped with the completion of a paved pump track built by the awesome folks at Velosolutions. 

RKP also celebrated the opening of a blue-rated, downhill adventure trail that begins on the summit called Jumbo Shrimp! The local community successfully put together a large volunteer work day to help put finishing touches on the newest addition of the RKP trail system.

Throughout the year The Alliance organized numerous Trail Parties within the Northwest mountains and foothills that focus on maintenance and construction of MTB trails
They are especially proud to have 20 sawyer-trained members that volunteer to clear our trails of fallen and hazardous trees.

@wc_rambler

Lake James State Park Sustainable Trails Workshop
Last month they had a formal trails workshop at Lake James State Park. A large contingent of The Alliance members were part of the 40+ volunteers who participated. The focus of the workshop was sustainable trails basics, particularly trail maintenance. The program was broken into two parts: a morning classroom session and an afternoon working outside on the trails. The workshop was co-hosted by NWNC MTB Alliance and trail partners Friends of the Fonta Flora State Trail and Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. The event took place at the beautiful, brand-new LJSP visitor center and adjacent trails. After the workshop, maintenance work was performed on segments of the Fonta Flora State Trail as well as the Wimba Loop Trails. Special thanks to Tim Johnson of F3ST Friends of the Fonta Flora State Trail and Destination by Design Planning for bringing all of his experience in leading us to help make this a really special day.

@wc_rambler

They were stoked to receive a $5,500 grant from Athletic Brewing!
The incredible team at Athletic Brewing Company created their own “Two For The Trails” program to make an impact by donating 2% of all sales to protecting and restoring trails worldwide. The Alliance is humbled and honored to be one of the recipients in 2022! The grant money along with additional funds from the Alliance are currently being put to use on maintenance projects along the Overmountain Victory Trail and Dark Mountain trails on Kerr Scott Reservoir. Athletic Brewing exceeded their $1,000,000 donation commitment through this grant program and awarded funds to over 100 organizations across the globe. Huge thank you to Athletic Brewing Company for your donation, commitment, and for helping with our mission of making mountain bike trails within the NWNC region accessible and sustainable through our core values: Speak, Build, Respect, Ride!

Save the Date – APRIL 10-16, 2023
The crew is super excited to be a co-host of “Camp SORBA”, the Spring edition of the Southern Mountain Bike Summit! This multi-day event will be held in Old Fort, NC and in partnership with our friends at G5 Trail Collective and nearby Camp Grier. We’re working to have a week full of events and sessions to empower volunteers to be amazing trail stewards. The schedule includes trail crew leader training, chainsaw certifications, bridge-building training, rock armoring, educational sessions, field trips, MTB rides, social events, music, raffles, and beer. We hope to see y’all there!
Registration is open and the schedule can be located here – https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2023-southern-mountain-bike-summit-tickets-519980925947

@wc_rambler

Mortimer Trails Project
So far, the ongoing Mortimer Trails Project has achieved many of the goals it was set to achieve, most notably they have been able to service over 15 miles of unmaintained trail from the USFS backlog. In the future, The Alliance will continue to focus on maintenance work on trails, such as Middle and Lower Wilson Ridge. In the coming year, they will also have something new on the ground, the 4-mile Marks Mountain Trail.