Trailwork this Sunday at 10:30am

On Sunday November 2nd we plan to have another trailwork session. We will continue with the advanced section (section 6). We missed trailwork last Sunday due to poor weather. So we will continue finishing the downhill rock armor, then hopefully have time to start on the tight and twisty uphill rock climbing section after the new gully crossing.

Bring good work shoes/boots, long pants, water, gloves if you need them, and anything else you may want to have with you. We provide the tools, so no need to bring your own. Bring a bike if you want so you can test new sections if needed or go for a ride after trailwork. If you can't make it at 10:30am, just come later (we will be there 3-4 hours) and join us on the trail.

Trailwork rained out twice in a row!

We plan to have our last trailwork this Wednesday (10/29) at 5pm.

I uploaded some recent trailwork pics and just thought I would share.

Work on the downhill rock armor.

It needs more work yet. But when finished, this will be one fun section of trail.

Trailwork this Sunday.

On Sunday (10/26) we plan to have another trailwork session to continue our awesome progress on Section 6.

Meet at 10:30am at the Par 3 lot. We will continue work on the downhill rock armor, we are almost finished, and then move to the tight uphill rock climbing section to start work on that.

If you can't make it at 10:30am, we will be working for about 3-4 hours, stop by anytime to come help. Bring good work boots/shoes, wear long pants, bring work gloves if you use them, and water.

Hope to see you there!

It's that time of year again!

This Wednesday(10/22) at 5pm will be our last Wednesday trailwork for 2008. It was a great year and we got a lot done. Meet us at the Par 3 lot. We will likely do light maintenance on some areas that need fixes.

But wait, we are not done for the year, we are now doing weekly Sunday trailwork until the ground gets too solid to work with. The next one will be starting at 10:30am Sunday (10/26) and going about 3 - 4 hours. We plan to continue work on Section 6 (advanced section).

Hope to see you there!

Trailwork on Sunday Oct 19th at 10:30am

We plan to continue work in Section 6. The rock causeway needs to have an entrance and exit put in. We also need to finish up work on the downhill rock armor. Once we get those two projects completed, we plan to start on the uphill rock climbing section just after the causeway.

Meet at the Par 3 lot (parking permit required to park there) and bring water, long pants, maybe bug spray, work gloves, and good work boots/shoes. We will supply the tools.

The more people we get to volunteer, the sooner we can get the first 1/2 of Section 6 finished and open for riding.

One Ditch Witch, 6 people, and 2 rocks bars!

It took us months to plan for the projects that happened on Sunday. When all was said and done, we got 2 huge projects completed. One was a rock causeway, first in our area, that crosses a gully. The other project was to armor two low spots the trail will go through in another gully. That project was done by a troop of Eagle Scouts.

We just happened to have our major trailwork day, including machine work, on the same day as the Theodore Wirth Cup (a Cyclocross race). But after some negotiations with Paul Schoening (race director) about the course layout on Friday, all was good to go. A huge thanks to Paul for working with MOCA on coordinating the two events at the same location. It's nice to know that we have a tightly knit and awesome bicycle community here in Minneapolis.

A huge Thanks goes out to Tim Wegner for his time behind the Ditch Witch. The guy has some serious skill with that machine. He also has a ton of patience as we asked him to take the whole causeway apart and reassemble it so we could get it just right. He shook his head at us a couple of times, but hung in there. In the end, we got the causeway just right. This made for some great celebrating afterwards. We knew we could do it, it was just a matter of time and patience by all to get it done the way we wanted it. Puzzling rocks together is never an easy task and the larger the rocks, the tougher it is to get them together.

The crew hard at work!

Completion of project, what an awesome job by all! Thanks to Tom, Chuck, Jake, and mara for all the hard work you put into this trail feature!

Jake giving it a test ride. He said it was like riding on the sidewalk. Okay, he didn't really say that, but you could tell he was thinking it.

The Eagle Scouts got their 2 projects done. Thanks for coming out and giving us a hand with out trail! 

In the end, it was a great day for MOCA. We plan to have some future, less chaotic, Sunday sessions. If we get enough good weather this fall, we might just get lucky and get this 1/2 of Section 6 completed and open for riding. We still have a lot of work to do though, so it's possible it might not get done until early spring or summer of next year.

Huge trailwork session this Sunday!

All the right pieces fell in place for us. We will be having a mega trailwork session from Noon - 4pm, maybe longer, this Sunday (10/12).

We have 3 main projects going on all at once. One project will be moving really large rocks by machine to a new rock causeway. We need people to help dig out the area these rocks will be placed. Another project will be to continue the rock armor downhill that is just over 1/2 complete. Some Boyscouts will be working on another rock armor project for us.  We will need some trailworkers to support them by bringing rock to there worksite. Once these goals have been met, we will move ahead to get our advanced section (Section 6) well on it's way!

All you need to do is show up at noon this Sunday at the Par 3 lot. If you come late, just head up to the prairie and you will have no problem finding us. Also, there will be a CX (Cyclocross) racing going on, so you can take some time to spectate that during any downtime we are likely to have.

Bring good trailwork shoes, gloves, long pants, maybe bugspray, and comfortable clothes for dirty work. Tools will be provided.

Hope to see you there!

Board meeting next Wednesday!

The MOCA board meeting will be held at the Kenwood Community Center in Minneapolis on Oct 8th at 7:00pm. The meeting can take up to 2 hours, but it's usually less.

Before the meeting we plan to have a group ride at Theo starting at 5pm and going until about 6:30 so we have time to ride over to the KCC for the meeting. Please feel free to join us for the group ride and/or the MOCA board meeting.