Be There or Be Square!

Hello Everyone,

This coming Saturday will be the first major build day at the Eagan Bike Park, the newest addition to the MORC riding facilities. The park is currently about 80% complete after all the hard work from the volunteers last year. The original group of volunteers approached MORC and asked if MORC would like to partner with the City and help take this Bike Park to the next level and fulfill its true potential.

The answer was “Yes” and now is the time to act! There will be a Mini-Excavator, Skid Steer and gas plate compactor on site to speed up the building, but a majority of the work will still need to be done by hand. Please come help make the first bike park in the Metro area a success! Dress for trail work, wear closed toed shoes and bring gloves.

We are not sure if the water will be turned on, on site by this Saturday. The weather has pushed the City to their limit in trying to get things together, so please bring 5 gallon buckets, watering cans and pump sprayers if you have them. Hopefully we won’t need to use them. If you have any hand tools, please bring them along. We need additional tools like steel rakes, flat and spade shovels, hand tampers and rouge hoes. Oh and don’t forget your bike! This weekend is the big Eagan city soccer tournament so get there early if you want to park in the parking lots. There is a parking lot right by the skate park off of Diffley Road and another on the other side off of Lexington Avenue. If the lots are full there is street parking but you will have to park a few blocks off and ride your bike in. So if you brought things just drop them off, go park and ride up!

Make sure to check in with one of the guys in the bright orange shirts to sign the volunteer waiver. We will be providing lunch, pizza from Little Caesar’s and will have water on site but it would probably be best to bring a jug of water for yourself, hydration is important!

The address is 4201 Lexington Avenue South, Eagan, MN, look for a large white water tower follow the road back to a parking lot by the skate park and then follow the bike path towards the trees and look for the blue MORC tent and feather flags.

Please post up if you are going to be able to attend and help out so that we can get an idea of the amount of hand tools, water, food, etc. to have on hand.

Thank you! Hope to see you all there!

Long time coming.....

Hey everyone, 

Sorry it has been such a long time coming I have been a busy man trying to balance work, home and play can get pretty hectic and this awful spring isn’t lessening my stress levels any. I have 3 major bike park projects to complete this summer and I was hoping to start working on them this coming weekend but there is no way that is going to happen. The snow isn’t 100% gone yet, the frost isn’t out of the ground and nothing is near dry enough to put bike tires on it.

I’m guessing the single track won’t open till the first weekend of June, maybe memorial Day weekend if we are lucky but we will need Mother Nature to wake the F up and realize it is actually spring and our average highs should be near 60 not 40 and we should have lows near 40 and not 20! That would help a lot. We will see what the next few weeks bring. I know that there is some rain in the forecast, that will help bring the frost out and close to 60 predicted for next weekend so thing might be looking up.

Eagan Bike Park is close to finished, this year we will finish out the jump lines and tune up the pump tracks and that will be good for that park. Maple Plain is getting a complete rebuilt. I am excited to do that park. It will be kind of small. Smaller then Eagan but it will be nice for that community. I am most excited about Cottage Grove, one it is in my home town and two it is going to be huge! Big jumps, probably the biggest set in MN, at least legal, non-private jumps. It will have the only 4cross(4x) track in the Upper Mid-West that I know of.

The Task Force and myself our now hitting the streets hard to obtain sponsors, we spoke with Rumpca Excavations out of CG last night. It sounds like they are on board. We are just sorting out what they will be helping us with.

Should be an exciting summer! I can’t wait! Stay tuned!

Keep it real! 

Over The Top Skate Park

It should really be called a bike park since there wasn't a single skate boarder there and to be honest the ramps were built for BMX and pretty dang large. I met up with my buddies, Jed, Thor and Griff for a little evening session about 2 weeks ago. The Over the Top Bike Park is in Zumbro Falls, MN located at the Bluff Valley Camp Ground, about 1.5 hours south of the cities. It isn't the easiest place to find but totally worth the trip if you have the itch to ride your bike in the winter or on one of those rainy weekends this summer. It is not for beginners. The park is tight and has pretty large ramps. The over all size of the park is pretty small but still a great time.

I took these pictures from Griff's blog:
http://mountainbikegeezer.com/posts/my-first-trip-to-over-the-tops-indoor-bmx-park-humbling-rewarding/

We rode for about 3 hours and then headed home right before the big winter storm blew in. I had a great time, met some great people there and learned a few things like a foot jam whip. I couldn't land it on the wedge ramp but I will keep working on it!
Check out Over the Top Skate Park here on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/overthetopskateparkmn?fref=ts

Keep it real!

A little more press

Here is another great article from Emily Buss from the South Washington County Bulletin

http://www.swcbulletin.com/event/article/id/22496/

I rode my bike over the future bike park yesterday. The goal was to establish the best rout. No need for that because about 2 blocks from my house I can get on a bike path and it takes me right to the park on a nice rolly trail that winds through prairie. Yesterday I was really wet and kind of out of breath when I arrived. Those hills are tough on a single speed 24 inch BMX bike. The ride was 10-15 minutes. I know right, I am out of shape but I'm hoping that if I ride my bike there and back every time I go to do work or ride I will be in killer shape! I guess I need to step up the cardio or bike time. I like bike time... I will need to start riding more and this weather is totally helping me with the motivation to do so!

Keep it real!

It's official!

Alright! Cheers, time to celebrate! The City Council and Mayor approved the park in its entirety last night. We will now begin the fundraising aspect of the project. We will need to raise money for rental equipment as well as materials so that we can build the skills area!

If you can’t tell I’m really excited and thankful for the help and support of Zac Dockter, the task force and Reed Smidt from MORC. All of our hard work finally paid off! This project is going to be huge and is going to be a great attraction for the City of Cottage Grove.

Besides raising money we will be raising awareness, creating a Facebook page and hopefully a buzz throughout the riding community. This park will be the second of its kind in the metro and the state of MN. I know there are other projects in the works right now so there may be potentially 4 total bike parks in the metro and a few others around the state by the end of the summer but from the plans I’ve seen none of them will be on the same level as this park.

Now Mother Nature needs to speed up the spring season to get rid of this snow. Before we can get in and start working the city will need to come in a clear the area in preparation for their prairie restoration project, which will give us a clean slate to start working.

Stay tuned for more information on when this project will begin. If you have any leads for potential sponsors please let me know.

Keep it real! 

Approval Meeting

Hey everyone. If you have time tonight around 730pm and would like to show your support for the potential bike park in Cottage Grove, please come to the City Council Meeting tonight at the Cottage Grove city hall. I will be presenting and the City Council will be making a decision on the project. I hope we have reason to celebrate!

Here are a couple news articles about the up coming project:

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_22807595/cottage-grove-gets-rolling-bicycling-projects

and

http://mobile.swcbulletin.com/page/article/id/22471/#.UUn1AH1NSKk.facebook

Keep it real!

One more to go

Hey ya'll we got the news that myself and the Task Force will need to do one more presentation! This time is the big show, we will be in front of the City Council on 3/20/2013. I'm not going to lie I'm a little nervous at this time because this is kind of the make or break point in this plan. I really really hope that they have been following along and have seen all the great energy that surrounds this idea. Not only from myself and the task force but from the MORC member, all of the people that attended the meeting on 3/11/2013 and the media attention we are getting. Griff featured the park in a blog post , Bob Shaw called last week to do an interview for the Pioneer Press that will be in this Sunday's paper so keep your eye's out for that, also Emily Buss from the South Washington County Bulletin called on Wednesday and stated that she will be putting an article out about the project in the Bulletin on 3/20/2013 so please check that out too! Also there has been a lot of buzz on Facebook about it on multiple pages! If you have some time, come show your support at the City Council meeting on 3/20/2013 at 7pm at the Cottage Grove City Hall.

Keep it real!