News – San Miguel Bike Alliance

Surrounded by expansive public lands, we are fortunate here in Telluride to have seemingly endless access to explore the unforgiving terrain that abounds in Southwestern, Colorado but specific land designations create either opportunities or constraints of us as mountain bikers. A recent debate regarding federally designated Wilderness areas is buzzing right along on the interwebz with a spectrum of opinions, ideas, and solutions for how to protect and preserve land while still allowing the public to experience these amazing places.

The debate at it’s core is simple; does the human powered nature of mountain biking warrant their acceptance in to Wilderness areas and does the current state of mountain biking warrant opening up the Wilderness Act to allow mountain bikes and other forms of human powered wheeled travel?

On December 13, the House Natural Resources Committee voted 22-18 to move to the House floor a bill, HR 1349, sponsored by California Republican Tom McClintock that would allow bikes into wilderness areas. A companion bill, S.3205, has been introduced in the Senate. If passed, the bills would overturn the longstanding ban on bicycles in federally designated wilderness areas and give local land managers discretion to open trails they deem appropriate to bikes.

This bill could prove good or bad here in San Miguel County and in our surrounding public lands. But no matter what happens with this bill, we need your help to bring a cohesive, knowledgeable, and professional voice to the mountain bike community to help move things forward on public lands and with land management agencies. At SMBA, we value the need for Wilderness areas and their standards of protection and believe in and support IMBA’s stance. If you’re curious how you can be involved in the Wilderness discussion, Mountain Bike advocacy or trail development efforts here please reach out to us: max@telluridesmba.org or sound off on our facebook page

If you’re unfamiliar with this debate here is some reading to get you up to speed:

IMBA’s Response

Pinkbike Coverage

Sierra Club Opinion

Where do YOU stand on this highly divisive issue?

Thanks for another great season of increasing excitement and awareness of what our trail’s can be. It’s hard to imagine a better off season treat than these glorious conditions. Traction on Eider is at an all time high. Likewise, the high country continues to ride like a dream. As our climate changes and the window of opportunity expands for riding up high, we should rehab and reroute unsustainable high country trails to improve our riding opportunities.

SMBA graciously gave up the park to Neil Young for our annual September 30th party, so this year we’ll be doing an election night FUNraiser to help distract us from the fate of our nation. All are welcome to join us at There… 6 P.M. Tuesday, November 8th where we’ll be drag racing for SMBA.
Partners will race a lap on an Xtracycle and then swap spots for the second lap. Fastest time wins! We’ll have Xtracycles, Helmets, Lights, and Prizes!
All proceed’s will support SMBA’s ongoing efforts to improve our trails.

Alta Lakes new trail has been delayed. Unfortunately there are issues with the cost of the new trail reroute and the landowner has concerns over access to the National Forest after trails that lead to Skyline ranch are closed. Hopefully these issues can be resolved and weâ€šÃ„Ã´ll be moving the project forward with full support of the landowner. Furthermore, someone ripped out the new trail flagging. Any information regarding the so & so responsible would be much appreciated.

Telski is quite excited about the new flow trails they have been constructing with Gravity Logic off the top of chair 4. Please remember that the ski area is preparing for winter now so please smile and wave and stay out of their way.
Meanwhile, we have been walking potential cross country trail alignments with Telski, and those may be further off in the future, but the support is there.

In conjunction with the Telluride Mountain Club Trails Group we have been working on our dream trail list. Thanks to all who helped us by fillingÂ¬â€ out the Trails Group Survey. Special thanks to Mark Plantz for walking some potential alignments and sending us gps tracks recorded with the free TrackRec app. Actual ground-truthed alignments are very helpful for determining property boundaries and the like. Anyone else who wants to help in this way should feel free to send us their tracks.

A special thanks as well to the all those who takeÂ¬â€ time to keep our trails clear. We look forward to the upcoming formation of a paid trails crew to get even more done.

Thanks to Ski Butlers for bringing 25 volunteers out to work on the Aldasorro east trail in early October. Despite looking like a double track for four wheeler’s, we’re working to improve the drainage and add the occasional jump. Thanks to all who came out and worked this summer. Please remind your elected officials that we want new trail construction to be done right no matter what.

Those who still have SMBA packable trail tools, please bring them back. Trail Boss is sending upgraded collars to improve them and we are going to service them for next season.

Seems safe to say that we’re going to have one of the hardest working County Commissioners imaginable on the job soon. And she happens to love Stomping up Eider on her bike! Thanks for supporting the one and only Hilary Cooper!

Thanks for renewing your membership and supporting SMBA, sorry for the sock delay, some folks have put in a lot of miles breaking them in; we’ll have more in time for the 3rd Annual Fat and Skinny Relay, Date Dependent on POW