Fixit Bike Repair Station Now at Hinton Bike Park

Handy Repair Station

Daniel Duval of Assante Wealth Management generously donated a Dero Fixit Bike Repair Station to the Hinton Mountain Bike Association to be installed at the Hinton Bike Park.  Daniel, a HMBA member for many years, also volunteered his time towards the installation of the stand.    This repair station is Hinton's second - the first one was installed earlier this year by the Town of Hinton and is located at the Dr. Duncan Murray Recreation Centre.  10 minutes after the installation was complete, Daniel witnessed someone needing some quick repairs on their bike and was glad to see the station was put to good use!

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Site Preparations:

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West Riddge Sand & Gravel donated the concrete for the pad.

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Hoots Inc. framed and formed the cement pad.

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Installation:

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End Result:

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A thumbs up for this great addition to the Hinton Bike Park!  

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Available Tools:

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Tool List: 

Philips and flat head screwdrivers; 2.5, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8mm, Allen wrenches; Headset wrench; Pedal wrench; 8, 9, 10, 11mm box wrenches and 2 Tire levers.  Air Pump for tires.

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Hinton Bike Park Fixit Stand made possible by:

Community Contributions

Jay Hoots and his hardworking crew arrived early this week to give some TLC to the Hinton Bike Park and to start getting ready to work on the Happy Creek Trail boardwalk repair - a 2014 Hinton Participatory Budget project.   A special thanks to a few key individuals who have greatly contributed their own time this past week: Shawn Lee (our very own HMBA president!), Brayden Langford (a super keen HMBA Youth Coordinator), and Shawn Cripps who has been a longtime HMBA contributor!

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A new and different kind of technical feature was added to the Skills Area on Wednesday.  A special thanks to Summit Machining & Welding, Napa (cables/hardware), Alstar Oilfield (paint) and Shawn Cripps for building it!

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Cement was poured on Thursday for a small cement pad that will be home to a Fix-It station for the Hinton Bike Park.  Thanks to West Ridge Sand & Gravel for the donation of the cement!

The HMBA also values all the Hinton businesses who contribute in so many ways to our mountain biking community !   Your support is greatly appreciated!!  Below are businesses who have contributed to the work done this week.

Bike Park Prep and More

This week, work is being done by Jay Hoots & crew at the Hinton Bike Park and on Happy Creek Trail East (boardwalk sections).  As work progresses throughout the week, you may see piles of dirt or flagging tape in some areas.  These sites will be temporarily closed until maintenance is complete - so we thank you for your continued patience throughout this important work!

If venturing out on or near Happy Creek Trail, you may hear a moto bike nearby.  Please rest assured that this moto bike is setup to leave as minimal a disturbance as possible and is used to help transport material in and out of the area.  As you can imagine, the two boardwalks add up to a lot of lumber!  This particular project is funded by the Hinton Participatory Budget in the amount of $30,000 which HMBA was awarded in Fall of 2014.   Thank you Hinton!!!

New Re-route on Gulley Trail

On August 8, 2015, the IMBA Canada Trail Care Crew (aka Justin Truelove) came out to teach us trail building techniques on how to build and maintain our trails.  The first day consisted of a 3-hour classroom session followed by an afternoon of putting our skills to work!  The builders-in-training tackled a trail re-route on Gully Trail where it joins with the North access to Stinger, within the Hinton Bike Park.  The re-route allows better flow and easier access to Stinger.

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Justin and Kevin selected a site for the re-route and flagged the new proposed trail.

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14 HMBA members attended the full day of training.

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New trail built and old trail section reclaimed!

6th Annual Beaver Bike Fest Around the Corner!

The 6th Annual Beaver Bike Fest is happening August 22nd and 23rd, 2015!  

For event details and schedule, visit the 2015 BBF page.

Online registration is open -  Please save time by registering before the big day!

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IMBA Canada Trail Care Crew Coming to Hinton August 8th

The IMBA Canada Trail Care Crew is coming to Hinton on August 8th and 9th!!   This is a great opportunity for ALL trail users to contribute to our awesome local trails. Learn about trail building and maintenance techniques to help sustain our trails for all to enjoy for years to come! 

Directed by the Canadian office of the international Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) and sponsored by Parks Canada, the IMBA Canada Trail Care Crew travels across the country in a Subaru Outback, giving workshops to IMBA-affiliate clubs, Parks Canada sites, and other land managers. The two-person team of professional trail builders educates Canadians on how to build and maintain sustainable trails, manage volunteers, and develop trails as community resources.

The IMBA Trail Building School is a half-day of classroom education followed by several hours of building new trail, rerouting and reclaiming old trail or adding new features to an existing trail. The goal of a TCC visit is education, not to build as much trail as possible. And remember: Sustainable trails don't mean sanitized trails!

Is the Trail Care Crew program only for mountain bikers and cycling clubs? No! The principals of sustainable trail design apply to all trails and all trail users, no matter if you are a hiker, a trail runner, or a mountain biker. We invite all members of the community to our events to learn something new, and meet fellow members of the trail
community!

Half-day classroom session on August 8th, 9:00 am to 12:00pm at the People's Center at the Dr. Duncan Murray Recreation Centre.

Other locations and times to be determined - stay tuned!!

You must pre-register for this training:

Tool Locker for HMBA Youth

Shawn Cripps once again donated time and resources to HMBA, installing a tool locker on the Hinton Bike Park seacan. This allows HMBA's youth committee to access tools for bike park maintenance whenever they want.  Big thanks to Jay Hore and Alstar Oilfield Contractors for painting the locker (and another feature to be installed soon!). It takes a solid community to make awesome things like this happen! Thanks!

Summer Day Camp Will Visit the Bike Park

Each year, the Town of Hinton's Summer Day Camp visits the Hinton Bike Park. Each year, we ask any available members to come out and be a Bike God or Goddess for a day and share their passion for biking.

This year, its on Friday, July 24th. Discovery Camp will be there all day, so feel free to stop in at any time. The Camp will be on trails, jumps, skills area, and pump tracks. The Camp appreciates anyone who is willing to share their passion, knowledge, and skills. 

Our reward will be a $250 honorarium to HMBA, which will go towards something awesome, as always. 

It would be great to see some of our teen riders out, sharing their knowledge and passion for biking with the younger ones.

Parking options for Hinton Bike Park visitors

Welcome to Alberta's Mountain Bike Mecca!  As summer unfolds, many locals and visitors alike are expected at the Hinton Bike Park!    The Hinton Mountain Bike Association would like to remind everyone to park safely in designated areas - not on Robb Road, an active haul road.  

Currently, the parking overflows onto the active gravel haul road which has the potential to create dangerous encounters.  This can be a safety issue for both patrons of the park and the active transportation along the road.  Logging trucks are present all the time and can't stop as fast as they wish.   Large dust clouds, flying gravel and steep grading of the road are also concerns.

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Parking along Robb Road is discouraged.

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Parking Options

It is not uncommon for the parking lot a the bike park to be full!  Below are multiple options to suit most everyone!

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If parking across from the cemetary, please use the crosswalk at Mountain Street.   All parking locations are close to Hinton's town trails which all connect to the Hinton Bike Park.

Bringing the whole family?   Why not park at the Dr. Duncan Murray Recreation Centre on Switzer Drive.  There is trail access nearby and many different options sure to please all family members: a library, swimming pool, skateboard park, playgrounds, spray park, ball diamonds, climbing wall, courts and arenas.

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Inventory of Directional Trail Maps

HMBA needs your assistance!!

Our 1ft x 1ft directional trail signs (see images below) are out of date and need to be updated/replaced.  However, we need to know how many are out there, or need to be out there - and WHERE they are.  YOU can help by participating in a member-sourced inventory.  Using your smartphones and linking to this form via your web browser (with GPS enabled), enter the info at the location of existing directional signs - or at locations where you think there should really be one! Unfortunately, we cannot put them everywhere ($$), so select the most optimal locations. THANK YOU!!

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Bike Park and Happy Creek Trails are priorities at this time.

About the form

Note: please click on the 'get GPS location' button a few times until the accuracy is within 5-10m.  Thanks!!

June Dirt Jam

This Friday, June 19th at 7:00pm,  there will be a Dirt Jam at the Hinton Mountain Bike Park. Music. Shaped jumps. And rad riding with awesome guys and gals. Hope to see all of you out there!   Jump shaping starts at 7:00 pm and the event and music with start right after.

Important note:  The two smallest sets of jumps will be closed. This event is geared towards the big jumpers, so they don't have to worry about running the little ones over.

With the rain comes good dirt!

Some TLC for the Jumps

On Thursday June 4th, after a day of rain, a small crew made it to the Bike Park to fix the dirt jumps (aka give them some good TLC).

It was a solid evening of work. Thanks to Lindsay, Nathan, Heather and Gavin, a youth from Hinton Sprockids and out-working most other members I might add!

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Gavin showing the others how it's done!

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Great results!

Edmonton family supports Hinton's backyard playground

Steve Sevcik's family travels from Edmonton every summer to play in our Bike Park and to ride our fun network of trails.  Members since 2011, they have generously donated over $2,500 over those years!  They see a lot of value in supporting the Hinton Mountain Bike Association and every dollar they donate helps to improve biking in our community!

An ENORMOUS THANK YOU to this wonderful family for their ongoing support!! 

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In, 2013 funds were used towards this sign and box mounted on the seacan next to the Hinton Bike Park parking lot.

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The reasons we support the HMBA!! 

We would like to thank the executives, countless volunteers, local businesses and the Town of Hinton for creating and maintaining such an awesome place to ride.  The amount of time and resources that your community has contributed to the park and trails is the real reason that the park is as good as it is. 

We love trail and gravity riding and want to try and share some of the responsibility of maintaining such a great community facility.  We donate because we want the cash resources to be a little less scarce for the HMBA when deciding on whether to add a stunt, build a berm, buy toilet paper, or just need gas for the equipment.  

We are fortunate to be only 3 hours away from such a great bike park and network of trails and we often recommend the Hinton Bike Park and trail network to anyone that we know who is looking for a new place to ride.  We can’t think of a better place than the Hinton Bike Park for someone to be introduced to the sport.  

- Steve and Lara Sevcik

Early Spring Trail Report

Bike Park

With the good weather and recent winds the Bike Park is drying up fast. There are still some critical wet areas and subsequent rutting from riders  who are too impatient to wait it out. The ground is still frozen and spring showers are sure to come.

The strong winds also present a hazard with unstable trees in many areas of the areas of the Park. Several of these trees will have to be professionally removed and this may take time.

If favorable conditions hold throughout the week, there will be a basic maintenance day on Saturday April 18th. This will include garbage cleanup, removing debris from the trails, raking leaves and debris from drainages and raking out the unfortunate new ruts.

Stayed tuned on our website calendar for upcoming maintenance dates!

When conditions are poor, you will see signs like these at the Hinton Bike Park.

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Trail Systems

Happy Creek

The Happy Creek trail system has seen high use in the last couple of weeks with favorable temperatures and rapidly melted snow pack.

There are still a few areas with snow/ice and lots of wet problem areas throughout, especially Happy Creek East and Just Giver.  All other trails are in awesome early season shape. 

Downed trees on Slowcooker were cleared this weekend.

Jack's

Report from Jack's Trails of downed trees and wet areas in the obvious spots.

As always, please let us know your trail feedback. Keep us informed on trail conditions and maintenance so we can pass it on to others.   

See you at the AGM!

Spring Conditions in Bike Park - Please Stay Out!

Please stay out of the bike park during these early spring conditions.  The weather is great and we are all itching to get out, but please have some patience.  It takes a lot of time and effort to fix ruts created when trails and features are muddy.  Time that would be better used making the park radder for all of us!

Thank you!!

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Volunteer Call!

Volunteer Call! HMBA is looking for someone to help with a Hinton Bike Park mini-project. We need to have a cement pad installed near the seacan in the spring (roughly 3'x3' to 4'x8') and would like someone with good concrete know-how to help manage this small project. Any takers??

Email us at info AT bikehinton.com for more details!

Hidden Gems: Totally Lost

THIS WEEK'S HIDDEN GEM: TOTALLY LOST

This week's gem is not necessarily hidden (it can be found on current maps and signs), but may yet to be explored by those still unfamiliar with the park's network of trails.  A favorite to many, this twisty trail is a definite must when playing in the park!

Location: Hinton Bike Park

Difficulty: Beginner

Type: Singletrack

Description: This 1km flow trail keeps you guessing as it weaves and loops in all directions through the Park but don’t worry, it’s safe to leave your compass at home. Return to ride the opposite way or take “Okey Spokey” back to the start. Explore the other options such as “Gully Trail” or the new “Stinger” flow trail - another gem!

Directions: Two-way. Follow “Mid Access trail and look for the first trail on the right before the pump track to ride clockwise. Follow “Jodoin’s Journey” to the “Gully Trail” to ride counter clockwise. Are you lost yet?

AFD Gravity Cup Update: Event Cancelled

Recent weather conditions forces this weekend's event to be cancelled.

Post by AFD Racing.

Dirt Jam Under the Lights - Saturday September 13!

Thank you The Hinton Voice Inc. and Oui Print for donating this awesome poster!   And thank you to Jules Oilfield for sponsoring the big lights!!  Don't forget to check out AFD Racing .