Hinton Bike Park back in Great Shape!

Hoots Inc. and crew have completed three weeks of maintenance and trail building work at the Hinton Bike Park!

Thanks!

 The HMBA would like to thank Jay, Alan, Dalan, Fraser and Ben for the awesome work done!!!

The HMBA would also like to thank the Town of Hinton for the Community Grant received in April. This grant ensured that the Drop Zone, Fo'Shore and Slope Wars skill areas got inspected, re-shaped, and buffed.

Business Time

Other areas in the park that received similar maintenance include the Skills Area, Dirt Jumps, Business time, Midway Pump Track and Jodoin's Journey. Funds for this work was provided by the HMBA, the Town of Hinton's Bike Park Annual Maintenance Fund and from donated services/labour by Hoots Inc.

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Dirt Jumps

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Midway Pump Track

Lastly, the Hinton Bike Park now has a new trail!!! This trail is freshly built over approximately 600m of gently sloped terrain. It was designed with the younger bikers in mind, to allow easier access to the mid-areas of the park. This trail was funded by a generous benefactor which we hope to announce soon! Registration revenue and donations from the Hinton Sprockids program also contributed to this build!

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New trail

HMBA Trails 101

In an effort to manage an inventory of sustainable trails in our area, HMBA has outlined some key steps that are needed before new trails, or re-routes to existing trails, are built.  There is also concern that, although more trails would be super cool to add to our existing trail systems, they do increase the amount of trails HMBA's volunteers have to maintain!!

If enthusiastic trail builders would like to build an authorized trail:

1. The idea needs to be presented at an HMBA board meeting.  Contact us at info@bikehinton.com to find out when the next meeting will occur.   Trail suggestions/ideas are compared against the existing Trail Master Plan and approved by the HMBA Board.
2. If accepted, HMBA will help the builders apply for a TFA (Temporary Field Authorization) with the Alberta Government on the condition that the builders agree to provide maintenance on the trail in the future. 
3. Any trail within the Town of Hinton town boundary also requires approval.
4. For re-routes, previous areas have to be reclaimed, blocked off and returned to it's natural state.
5. HMBA has various tools that can be loaned out to members for approved trail building initiatives.

These steps ensure that renegade building does not become a liability for HMBA and that the responsibility for maintenance does not fall back on HMBA to expend resources and energy on a potentially poorly built trail. We are aware that certain illegal trails have been grandfathered in the HMBA systems but moving forward, there is a process in place that will be followed.  In extreme cases, renegade building may be reported to the ESRD and the Town of 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!