Orange fencing is up and other developments

It is unusual for us to have to close the trails for spring thaw this early in the season. There are a few other factors that are going to effect trail riding this spring. 3 Rivers Park District is putting the Luce Line trail right down the existing ski trail that is in the north loop. The is the ski trail that runs parallel to the RR tracks on the southern most side of the north section of trail. If you take a look at the map on our home page at www.mocatrails.org, you will see a ski trail running along the "Conundrum" section and the "Snake Trail" section. This is where the Luce line will be coming through.

The construction project is a major one since they will be grading and paving a trail through the park. Due to the construction, the mountain bike trails will be closed. The majority of this construction should happen while we typically don't ride anyway (during spring thaw). We know there will be a few minor reroutes of the mountain bike trail because of the new Luce Line. As soon as the construction is done on the Luce Line, we will be laying out some new trail to do these reroutes.....it's going to take a lot of work and we could use all the trailwork help we can get.

This may delay riding a bit in the spring, but it's all for the good of the trails. We will have some more official signage and trail crossings than we have had in the past. 3 Rivers has 1 mountain bike trail (Murphy) with another on the way........so they understand the importance of the mountain bike trail and are working with us every step of the way. Wow!.....a lot better than how things used to be....:-).

So please be patient during the trail closings and construction of the Luce Line. Theo will be up and rideable as soon as we can get everything dialed and ready to ride.

Thank you for your understanding!

Late Winter and Spring thaw.....please don't ride the trails.

It's getting to be that time of year again. Yeah, I know it's only February and I am making this announcement. The reason is that today it's supposed to get up to 31 degrees, maybe higher. As far as the forecast goes it's showing highs in the low, mid, and upper 30's for a week. Starting in about mid February, the temps tend to start rising and spring warm up starts to happen. That's not to say we won't have any more freezing cold days or a stretch of cold, but in general, the warm up is on it's way. Because of this I have to get our annual reminder out. So here it goes.....

Please do not ride the trails during these warmer periods. I know, it's not fun and you want to ride. But riding during these late winter and early spring warm ups, especially as the snow thins and dirt gets exposed, is when the most damage is done to our trails, the trails we all love and enjoy riding. The last few years we have had people ride during spring thaw quite a bit, even after we put up orange fence to close the main entrances. This has caused us to do months of extra trailwork to repair all the damage. We have to repair it or drainage will not work properly during the rainfalls in the summer months. This is about 1 1/2 months of other work our trailworkers could be doing to improve the trail and this year we would like our trailworkers to be working on our new advanced section (section 6) in the North East part of the trails. If we can get an early start on section 6 this year, we can possibly open the 1st half of the advanced section by mid summer. But if our crews are having to fix the existing trail due to damage caused by riders riding wet and muddy trail.....we may not get section 6 open this year or at least not until late in the season.

So please....please keep an eye on the MORC forums trail conditions thread and on our home page trail conditions in the upper left corner before you go ride. We provide these tools for you to use and to give you the latest updates on Theodore Wirth.

Expect that the trails could be closed from now until late April or Early May....unless we have a dry and warm spring. Also, please educate fellow bikers. These trails belong to all of us who ride them and it is up to all of us to educate others on proper trail etiquette. The MOCA trail crew is spread too thin to be able to do it all on their own. So please help us spread the word and keep our trails in great shape for the warmer spring and summer months!

Thank you!