Vandalism at the Cottage Grove Bike Park

One of the volunteer trail workers stopped by the park yesterday afternoon and noticed that some of the fencing that was put in place a few weeks ago to close the park for the season was taken down. Upon further inspection they noticed that approximately 85% of the fencing had been cut, tore down, knocked down or the post had been pulled out of the ground and thrown to the side.

There were plenty of foot prints and tire tracks all over the park. This act has caused multiple hundreds of dollars worth of damage to the materials that were already installed and multiple volunteer hours to install it. There will be additional fencing and signage installed, this however will cut into next year’s funding to continue the building of the park and will most likely delay the official opening of the park. It is important to understand that the park is closed to protect it during the freeze and thaw cycles. Riding when wet or soft causes severe damage and requires the volunteers to spend their time repairing other peoples VANDALISM! That is what it is, destruction of City property!

There has been a police report filed and both the city and the police force will be increasing patrols of the area. No one should be in the bike park area riding their bikes. It is 100% closed and if caught you could be subject to a Trespassing ticket.

Please be respectful, when the park is closed and you ride it you are causing damage and breaking the law!

We are asking all residents, especially those that live around the park to keep a closer eye on the park and if you see anyone out there please notify the police.

Thank you!

some more pictures here 

The build continues!

We had a great build weekend! 32 hours of manual labor later we are 90% complete with the 4x track! Mike, Buck and I put in some serious time this weekend along with some help from a hand full of others! 

We are about 5 loader buckets and 3 hours of work short of completing the park! We had a nice group of neighbor hood kids out helping us Sunday, it was great to see the future of our sport lending a hand and they loved it! They did probably love the reward of riding better but hey take what you can, right? haha. 

Once the rain gardens are in place and the extra dirt that is dug out added to the back side of the starting hill and side slope of some of the jumps and berms we should be dang near done with the 4x track and can start to focus on the jump lines!

We are moving along nicely with only minor set backs from the weather. Our next build day is Saturday August 24th! 

Hope to see you out there. Remember the park is still closed to the public as it is a construction site so if you want to ride it you have to come to a build day and work so you can "test" the track! 

Keep it real,

Chance 

Raising money!

Hey ya'll how is life treating you?

Well it is sure keeping me busy!  We have been hard at the bike park and will continue to keep on rocking it out.
Keep up to date with the parks happenings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cottage-Grove-Bike-Park/596908407004866

here is a glimpse of what we have done

We are also having a big fundraiser in the park on 9/14/2013. The local Cottage Grove Lion's Club is going to help us out by throwing a party in the park for us!
https://www.facebook.com/events/1375990429292993/

So come out and help us out!

Right now we are in the process of obtaining silent auction items to be auctioned off. If you own a business, work at a business or know someone that owns/works at a business that would be willing to donate a product or service to the silent auction please let us know by August 30th. You can send me an email at cglasford(at)gmail.com! 

Thank you so much for all your support!

Keep it real! 

4X

Well I must be a terrible blogger. It has been a long time since I've been on here... but dang I have been busy! My crew and I were giving a blank slate, a budget and some big ass equipment and man we have been in sandbox mode this last couple weeks. Most of the change coming from 7/11/2013- 7/17/2013.

This is what we started with:

This is what we have as of last night: 

As you can see we have been busy. We have sculpted the hill and moved about 4000 cubic yards of material around and are not quite done with the 4x course. We also have the main line of the slope style course roughed in. We wil continue to work on the project through out the summer. This will be a down weekend but we will pick back up next weekend and will have a tracked skid steer to add to our tools. That will make short work of the features. Rumpca Excavating will continue to bring material and the city will continue to place piles for us and we will continue to make magic! 

Huge thanks to Rumpca Excavating, the crew from the City; Joe, Noah and Josh, and a really, really big thanks to my awesome crew! Aaron (my dad), Mike, Nick and Buck! We really made some great progress this last week! As well a big thanks to MORC for all the support! 

Come check it out! 

Keep it real! 

Still Spots Available!

Weather looks like it is going to play nice for Thursday's ride clinic. Hopefully the trails won't be closed but either way there will be lots of valuable information to absorb and skills to learn. There are still spots available so please check it out. If you have questions post up and we will try to answer.

Hope to see you out there!

http://morcmtb.org/wp/morc-mountain-bike-skills-development-clinic/

Register now: MORC Mountain Bike Skills Development Clinics

There will be two opportunities to get yourself on the fast track to becoming a better rider this summer. Come on out to Carver Lake for an affordable evening clinic on June 27th or July 25th. You'll leave with new skills, confidence and drills to keep you improving all season.

Full details and registration can be found here:
http://morcmtb.org/wp/morc-mountain-bike-skills-development-clinic/

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!