BTCEB Buzz, January 2022

Saturday January 29th – 9:00am to Noon
Rockville Hills Regional Park
2149 Rockville Rd, Fairfield, CA 94534

Join us on JANUARY 29TH for the BTCEB Gala ride in the rugged ROCKVILLE HILLS REGIONAL PARK! This is a great spot to test your technical skills, climbing and rolling over rocks, roots, and gnarly obstacles. But don’t feel intimidated, there is a trail for every skill level at Rockville.

The soil here drains really well, so even if it is wet, it’s a pleasure to ride through the oak trees and manzanita bushes. 

We will gather at 9am in the Rockville Parking Lot and hit the trails promptly at 9:30am. The parking lot space is limited, but there is ample street parking.

==> BTCEB will be covering the park entrance fee for all riders who RSVP by Friday, January 28th 9am, so make sure you RSVP in time.

The main ride is approximately 10 miles with 1100ft of climbing and will be broken into at least 3 groups, organized by pace and distance, from slower riders to more advanced riders. These are no drop rides, where we travel and make sure everyone stays with the group and has a good time.

Afterwards, we will have post-ride beer, hot cider, and snacks in the park. Come join us for the rocky fun!

==> THE ADDRESS IS: 2149 ROCKVILLE RD, FAIRFIELD, CA 94534

We offer ride groups for ALL SKILL LEVELS, from novice to intermediate to advanced. All rides are ‘no-drop’ rides (we won’t leave you behind or let you get lost) and are fully supported. A novice rider should be able to ride 10-12 miles ( including ~1000ft of climbing) on hilly narrow singletrack for 2.5 hrs.

Rides are free and open to the public and led by experienced local mountain bikers familiar with the trails. Medical coverage is provided to all paid BTCEB members, one more reason to join. So go to our website and hit the JOIN TODAY button. We take PayPal.

And as always PLEASE RSVP to join the ride.

Saturday January 15th – 8:30AM to Noon
Meet at Highland Way Parking Lot in Los Gatos 95033

Due to the rain last month the RLAG ride at Demo was postponed to this month.  The trails are back open so the post-holiday edition of our women’s ride series will be a bit more adventurous than usual: we’re going to venture into the depths of the Santa Cruz Mountains and ride Soquel Demonstration Forest. The mission of Ride Like a Girl is to have fun, learn new trails and meet other women who love to mountain bike. We’ll take care of you: these are no-stress rides where no one is left behind.

Join ride leader Rebecca Lewington on Saturday, January 15th at 8:30am in the parking lot off of Highland Way. We’ll roll at 9am, which will give us plenty of time to sign in and go over the ride. The dirt road up to the parking lot is rather rough. If you’re not sure your vehicle is up to it, park on Highland Way and ride the very short distance up to meet us. The payoff for making the trek will be perhaps the finest singletrack in the Bay Area, the famed Flow Trail.

Our route will cover 14 miles with 2,000 feet of climbing. Please note that this ride is not suitable for beginners. Intermediate riders will be fine, but should be prepared to walk a couple of short, rocky sections of the Ridge Trail which are tricky even for experienced riders. The flow trail itself is not technical, just an unbelievable amount of fun!

Please bring your mountain bike, obviously, in good working condition. (No ebikes are permitted at Demo.) Whether you’re running tubeless tires or not, please make sure you have a spare inner tube to fit your wheels, plenty of water and some food for the trail. If it’s wet, which none of us should complain about, we’ll postpone.

We usually hang out for a while after the ride, so bring along your favorite beverages and snacks if you feel like it.

​Sign up on Meet Up.

And don’t forget to join BTCEB! We are much more than a group that puts on rides. BTCEB tirelessly advocates for better bike access on trails in the East Bay and we need your support.

JOIN BTCEB today!

by Scott Bartlebaugh, BTCEB Advocacy Director

Wildcat Canyon Flow Trail

THANK YOU to all of you that signed the Wildcatflowtrail.org petition taking it to nearly 2000 signatures.  After the public comments by us at the EBRPD on December 7th, the staff reports that they have started to study the site further and get some plant/bio surveys under contract for this spring to analyze the potential trail corridor.  If the results are promising, these studies will be used to produce a future CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) document.  Assuming they like what they see in the initial studies, EBRPD will hold a public engagement campaign outside of the CEQA process sometime in 2022.  The CEQA process normally takes six months to one year depending on what is discovered in the preliminary studies. It’s too early to tell when a Notice of Preparation (NOP) will be available for the public given that they need to conduct initial studies first. Stay tuned.

Upcoming Crockett Hills Trail Work Day February 26th

We’re lining up a trail work day at Crockett Hills for Saturday February 26th with the following Saturday March 5th being a rain date.  Look for more details coming in a few weeks on the BTCEB Meetup group.  If you haven’t already JOIN the BTCEB Meetup group and get updates for trail work days and group rides.

BTCEB Supporting Donations

BTCEB completed 2021 by making a number of donations to organizations that support and partner in our shared mission to educate cyclists in responsible mountain biking, to advocate for appropriate access and to promote community among trail users so all may fully enjoy and preserve the natural spaces of the East Bay.  Donations were made to the following organizations that are active in the East Bay.  Our donations totaled $2800.  We thank them for their service to our community and we thank our members and sponsors making this support possible.

• Friends of Joaquin Miller Park
• Friends of Sausal Creek
• Oakland Trails
• Cycles of Change
• John Muir Land Trust
• Regional Parks Foundation
• Bay Area Ridge Trail
• Save Mount Diablo
• Dirt World
• El Cerrito Middle and High School MTB Program
• Piedmont High School MTB Program
• Oakland Composite and DEVO MTB Program
• NICA NorCal League (East Bay teams designation)

Public Comment Calendar

If you’d like to be added to a public comment opportunity email list, send a message to advocacy@btceb.org.  We will message out via email on particular public comment opportunities.  

Walnut Creek PROS Commission (Lime Ridge Flow trail) – 6pm

• February 7, 2022
• April 4, 2022
• June 6, 2022
• August 1, 2022
• October 3, 2022
• December 5, 2022

EBRPD Board Meetings – 1pm

• January 11
• January 18 (Redistricting Workshop)
• February 1
• February 15
• March 1
• March 15

By John Roberts BTCEB Director at Large

BTCEB led over 400 volunteer hours doing trailwork at Joaquin Miller Park in 2021.  This was primarily hard work such as moving earth for erosion control, and removing deadfallen trees and major brush off the trail.  

Notable contributors were the Piedmont and Oakland youth mountain biking teams, and professional coach Ian Massey.  I have a list with the names of 85 of the 90 volunteers that made this possible. The unknown five mountain bikers are pictured above.  This father and two sons were riding and helped me upon request, together with another unrelated biking pair, back on November 7th.

Volunteer work brings out the best in people, as you can tell from their smiles.  From the first photo at the beginning of this article note that the dad is standing on the remaining log after the rest of that large tree was removed off of the Chaparral Trail.  It was getting late and I never took down their names.  Similarly, I have received serendipitous help from three other father-son teams that helped remove trees over the past two years.  

And good samaritan volunteers abound.  It is amazing how helpful mountain bikers can be, and what a great bonding activity biking can become.  More importantly, we can do more together than we can do separately.  

Removing one of the largest deadfallen trees of 2021 took a total of nine hours.  Three volunteers took three hours each and a portion of that tree is still sticking out on Sequoia Bayview Trail at the north trailhead of Big Trees Trail. 

This tree was blocking two trails and was forked so will require more work if it is to be completely removed.  Maybe in the summer once the soil dries and drainage becomes less if a priority?  To the 90 volunteers I have on my list, and to the unknown volunteers that helped improve the quality of JMP trails, all of us thank you!

By Scott Bartlebaugh, BTCEB Advocacy Director

Cattle grazing and Crockett Hills Regional Park is a story of the the good, bad, and the ugly.  In an ideal world we have normal rainfall every year and plenty of places to put cattle during the wet season that doesn’t involve trail damage.  Ok in an IDEAL world we don’t have to deal with cattle at all and we have more trails to ride than we know what to do with.  But we live in this real world of ours. 

The cattle are there primarily to manage wildfire fuel loads and additionally to reduce impact of invasive vegetation species.  Managing fuel loads is a high priority for the park district, the general public, important to the surrounding residents (disclaimer: I’m one of them) and awareness of fire risk is high these days.  Cattle grazing is the cheapest option for grassland fuel management. It’s also the highest impact option on the trails. 

Rotation of the cattle to different pastures at different times of the year can reduce the damage to trails.  Unfortunately the grazing infrastructure is less than robust enough to provide good grazing pasture options through repeated drought years.  Water supply via rain supplied ponds,  solar powered pumped wells, and fencing are key infrastructure items.  There are 4 pastures at Crockett Hills, the top (Soaring Eagle trail), the middle (Sugar City, Tree Frog, Goldfinch trails), the front (south of Goldfinch with just fire roads), and the Stewart property (land bank, no access to the east of top, middle and front pastures).  There is no grazing north of the Cummings Skyway tunnel.

Amongst the ‘good’ is the local park supervisor who works with us to try to minimize the cattle damage and during the past two annual cycles the cattle were kept out of the middle and top  pastures for the vast majority of what is normally the wet season and trail damage was minimal.  Below normal rain made that easier to accomplish.  Two seasons ago a rainless February and not much rain after that left the ponds in the top pasture empty when it was time for the cattle.  Empty ponds resulted in the top pasture getting just about 1 week of grazing compared to the bulk of the summer months putting more load on the middle and front pastures.  Good for trails but not so good for fuels management with the top pasture being under grazed and the front pasture overgrazed.  Last season turned out to be another dry season and the front pasture didn’t recover.  The top pasture was grazed but required water to be trucked in to the pair of poly tanks installed at the top of Sugar City.  The top pasture catches up on fuels load but cattle are congregated right on top of the trail.  Free probiotics for everyone!  And now in the current season the front pasture wasn’t ready for grazing at the start of the rains and the Stewart property could only handle part of the herd which had already been reduced during the past 2 years of drought.  This left a portion of the herd in the middle pasture.  Above normal rain and cattle in the middle pasture give us an ugly scenario for trails.

So while there’s a bunch of trail ugly going on, there is more good.  A number of water supply improvements are happening.  Over the past season a water line was run to the middle pasture from the well on the Stewart property.  A well should be drilled in the next few months to supply the top pasture.  Permitting is ongoing to clean out the ponds in the top pasture and return them to their full water holding capacity.  Side note – the sediment in the ponds also creates muck that cows sometimes get stuck in and die in addition to reducing rain water storage capacity.  The park supervisor has also acquired some additional trail equipment (a Toro Dingo) and should be able to help out with remediation of cattle damage more easily.  The EBRPD Small Trails Crew is getting a small Sweco grader in early 2022 and is slated to do some trail rehab at Crockett Hills.  There’s also a 2nd tunnel under Cummings Skyway that leads to additional land banked property that may be an option for wet season grazing to protect trail conditions.  And there’s a new grazer for Crockett Hills that is interested in finding ways to help reduce cattle impact on the trails and help support the mountain biking community.  He’s been very impressed with the courtesy shown to his crew when they are out working the cattle.  It’s the best and safest he’s ever seen – please keep up the good behavior folks.  He may even be interested in some help when it’s time to move cattle between pastures.

There are a number of good things going on and it is getting better albeit slowly.  Seeing the trails trampled after money is spent to install trails, and hundreds of volunteer hours are put in to maintain them boggles the mind.  There are too many times when the hills are not filled with the sound of music . . .  Managing fuel load and trail quality is difficult with the current resources but folks closest to it are doing what they can and it is getting better.  If that isn’t good enough consider a discussion with your park district elected director to let them know how important this is to you.

By John Roberts, BTCEB Director at Large

Wet is good. Soil is the best to work on when wet, and water flow on the trail can help detect the best places to create better drainage. As soon as rain is predicted to stop, we can help trails be more sustainable. If you would join post-rain trailwork, please email 24@btceb.org and let us know you would like to be on the 24-hour notice volunteer squad.

Do not ride when it’s wet.  It’s dangerous and requires far more maintenance.  The trail is wet when wheels leave a trace. The trail is wet if mud was flung onto the back of your jersey.  The trail is wet when you have to wash your bike afterwards.

We have probably all ridden a trail when it was wet.  Hopefully, it was an emotion-packed lesson to not do it again. Instead, upper body workouts are far more preferable when the trail is wet by instead doing trailwork. This also makes trails more sustainable.  Joaquin Miller Park trails don’t drain well by themselves.  A lot of trail work went into many of the trails that now “drain well”.  Let’s make them all like that.

Riding a trail when it’s wet produces more than 20 times the damage compared to when it’s dry. Subtle damage includes flinging puddle water down trail or riding around puddles and widening trails. Wet trails are the favorite landing pad for the devil’s braking bump hammer. One way to avoid creating braking bumps or flinging mud on your back is by simply riding slower when the trail is wet.  Even better is to not ride at all.  If mud got in your eye, you will know it’s time to pick up a BTCEB tool, and help improve our trails.  Is it wet yet? 

By Rebecca Lewington​

For the sixth in our women’s ride series, we were due to venture south to ride Soquel Demonstration Forest, but rain forced an eleventh-hour change of plan. Instead, we returned to the trails south of Pacifica!

It wasn’t exactly a dry ride, but the sandy soil there drains fast, so two clear days were enough for us to ride without causing damage to those lovely trails. We got just the right amount of muddy and the freshly washed scenery was a joy to behold in the sunshine. And then we gathered for a tasty beverage at Humble Sea Brewing Company.

For the next ride on January 15, we’ll have another go at riding Demo, weather willing . . .

Follow BTECB on Facebook or Meetup and we’ll let you know when signups open.

By Ben Brunetti, Events Director

Unfortunately, December’s Holiday Gala ride in Mount Tamalpais Watershed was postponed a week because of the rain. That meant after a more than THREE YEAR hiatus (due to weather and COVID-19) BTCEB was back riding this time on January 2nd when the rain finally gave way!

Twenty-five hot-blooded, mountain bike riders joined us on that freezing day. It was literally 32 degrees when we left Deer Park! So extra gloves and cold weather gear was needed.

Group riders worked hard climbing and riding to stay warm. After dropping down Shaver grade, the Sun came out and joined us.

It turned into a beautiful day as we toured over the dam, around Bon Tempe lake and Lake Lagunitas.

Afterwards, everyone had a good hang and were able to enjoy a bit of hot apple cider to warm the belly. And if you paid close attention, a number of riders were seen leaving the park in our brand new BTCEB riding shirt.  Come get yours at our next Gala Ride!