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Austin Ridge Riders... FR512...

RidingAgain

By RidingAgain,
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endo_ Newbie

endo_

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Just an FYI. While y’all were still discussing forum locations and the difference between the “two groups”, we were shredding trail and drinking beer! Win for us! FYI. They were not beginner trails, drops and gaps mandatory. I guess that makes us 512.

 

 

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cxagent Newbie

cxagent

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I will try to answer some of throet's questions in the few minutes I have - 

ARR is 100% volunteer. NOBODY is being paid. 100% of membership revenue and donations go to building / maintaining trail, trail building tools, club costs like the tool storage shed, etc. NOBODY is paid for their work.

The number of memberships varies from month to month. Typically it is in the 400 to 500 range. The number of local mountain bikers is really hard to define. The best documented info I find is the number of people on Meetup is about 4500. So in round numbers ARR membership is about 10% to maybe 15% of the Austin mountain bikers. I know a lot of people I have ridden with are not ARR members. That is their choice. I hope they see the value in what we do for them but it is always their choice to join.

There was a question about IMBA's position in MTB ban in wilderness areas. I really don't understand the position they took. I would have fought it but that is my personal opinion. But since Texas has very little wilderness area I don't see it as much of an impact on ARR.

Several if not most bike shops support ARR when they can. Things like donations for Pace Bend Race, Cranksgiving and Ride Like A Girl. Once a year the Pace Bend Race gets a "Title Sponsor". Years ago it was consistently BSS. More recently Chumba has been the Title Sponsor. Recognize that the current economics of most people buying online instead of locally really limits what the bike shops can do. We greatly appreciate any and all help.

Local governments rarely provide money. Most of the time, governments are short staffed and short budgeted so they really don't have the option of providing money. If they can provide anything it is usually donating staff time / labor to support cleanup and trail building efforts. All donations are greatly appreciated.

I need to quit typing and go ride. But it is too wet to ride. People have their opinions and nothing seems to change those opinions. Some recent "discussions" makes it clear to me that most people quit listening after 10 to 15 seconds. Everything needs to be a "sound bite". But since this too far into this post for people to read - I might as well be saying blah blah blah tiddle de winks bulls hit.

Edited by cxagent
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throet Proficient

throet

Posted
Posted
12 hours ago, cxagent said:

The number of memberships varies from month to month. Typically it is in the 400 to 500 range. The number of local mountain bikers is really hard to define. The best documented info I find is the number of people on Meetup is about 4500. So in round numbers ARR membership is about 10% to maybe 15% of the Austin mountain bikers. I know a lot of people I have ridden with are not ARR members. That is their choice. I hope they see the value in what we do for them but it is always their choice to join.

I suspect that number is way too low and would guess that there are 20,000+ individuals (including kids) across Greater Austin who regularly mountain bike (meaning they ride multiple times per year and not necessarily multiple times per week). Seems ARR needs to somehow connect with a greater percentage of riders. Instead of creating a grandiose vision of what mountain biking could be in Austin as I suggested earlier, perhaps we could paint a grim picture of what MTB in Austin would be like without ARR. What if signs were posted at trailheads declaring "These trails made possible by Austin Ridge Riders - please see our story at www.austinridgeriders.org." What if local bike shops handed out pamphlets describing the importance of ARR to the community. I'm guessing with the right conversations you might even be able to get the online retailers to include a pamphlet with bikes shipped to designated zip codes. What if we worked with local governments to require ARR memberships for riding the trails at LGT, Walnut Creek, and Brushy Creek? Even though it would be impossible to enforce, there would be enough people joining even under an honor system to bolster membership. These are just my thoughts and maybe they've been tried or they are just crazy. In some ways I think that the Austin MTB community prefers to maintain more of an "underground" presence, but that is not a sustainable model with the level of population growth we're experiencing here. Bottom line is that ARR is doing a great job given its very limited resources, but imagine what they could do if they actually were able to payroll some people to work full-time supporting MTB for the community. With the 16th largest per capita GDP in the country, we as a community should be able to cough up more than $50K annually to support this cause!      

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4fun Contributor

4fun

Posted
Posted
15 hours ago, cxagent said:

I will try to answer some of throet's questions in the few minutes I have - 

ARR is 100% volunteer. NOBODY is being paid. 100% of membership revenue and donations go to building / maintaining trail, trail building tools, club costs like the tool storage shed, etc. NOBODY is paid for their work.

The number of memberships varies from month to month. Typically it is in the 400 to 500 range. The number of local mountain bikers is really hard to define. The best documented info I find is the number of people on Meetup is about 4500. So in round numbers ARR membership is about 10% to maybe 15% of the Austin mountain bikers. I know a lot of people I have ridden with are not ARR members. That is their choice. I hope they see the value in what we do for them but it is always their choice to join.

There was a question about IMBA's position in MTB ban in wilderness areas. I really don't understand the position they took. I would have fought it but that is my personal opinion. But since Texas has very little wilderness area I don't see it as much of an impact on ARR.

Several if not most bike shops support ARR when they can. Things like donations for Pace Bend Race, Cranksgiving and Ride Like A Girl. Once a year the Pace Bend Race gets a "Title Sponsor". Years ago it was consistently BSS. More recently Chumba has been the Title Sponsor. Recognize that the current economics of most people buying online instead of locally really limits what the bike shops can do. We greatly appreciate any and all help.

Local governments rarely provide money. Most of the time, governments are short staffed and short budgeted so they really don't have the option of providing money. If they can provide anything it is usually donating staff time / labor to support cleanup and trail building efforts. All donations are greatly appreciated.

I need to quit typing and go ride. But it is too wet to ride. People have their opinions and nothing seems to change those opinions. Some recent "discussions" makes it clear to me that most people quit listening after 10 to 15 seconds. Everything needs to be a "sound bite". But since this too far into this post for people to read - I might as well be saying blah blah blah tiddle de winks bulls hit.

If anything good came from this discussion, it was the kick in my butt I needed to finally join ARR after months of good intentions! I will in the future join FR512 when my offspring become less needy and I have the time to ride trails that are farther than a mile from my house!

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cxagent Newbie

cxagent

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Posted

throet - there are still two ARR Board positions still open. We had to go begging to fill three of the five that were open. All help is appreciated.

Many of your ideas have been discussed. Clearly they have not been implemented. For example, we tried to post signs at ARR maintained trails. Signs as simple and innocuous as "Maintained by Austin Ridge Riders" at the bottom of the sign. Even on the LCRA signs where ARR was providing 100% of the cost - the land owner rejected any ARR name on any sign. Parks and Rec had similar direction. It is not that your ideas are not good ideas. It is there are limits that ARR has to live with. Like following the land owner permission.

As far as the $50,000 income per year - that is the threshold where a tax return is required to be filed. Below that threshold the "tax return" is a form saying we did not have that much income. ARR has not had the "problem" of filing that tax return.

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cxagent Newbie

cxagent

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Posted
5 minutes ago, TheX said:

So out of the $39 a year I pay to be a member, how much goes to IMBA and how much ends up with ARR (where I would like it to go)?

It was a 60% IMBA / 40% ARR split. But I think that changed this year to 50/50. 

I think it was ~4 years ago that ARR decided to become and IMBA chapter. Before that 100% went to ARR but ARR had to provide a lot of "overhead" now covered by IMBA. There are still discussions about if the sharing is worth it to ARR. So far, the result is that it is worthwhile to both even at the 60/40 split.

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First-Blood Newbie

First-Blood

Posted
Posted

 

 

 

Many of your ideas have been discussed. Clearly they have not been implemented. For example, we tried to post signs at ARR maintained trails. Signs as simple and innocuous as "Maintained by Austin Ridge Riders" at the bottom of the sign.

 

Kent

Brushy already implemented this if you didn't know. ARR is mentioned and logo on all kiosks maps.

 

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

 

 

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cxagent Newbie

cxagent

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Posted

WOO HOO! I did not know that.  To my knowledge this is the only place that ARR gets any credit. OK, there is one other place where the local manager decided to 'let something sneak in'.

As I mentioned on a different post, I try to stay out of the way on BC. You guys have it under control. I need to spend time in other areas.

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Chardog Newbie

Chardog

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, cxagent said:

It was a 60% IMBA / 40% ARR split. But I think that changed this year to 50/50. 

I think it was ~4 years ago that ARR decided to become and IMBA chapter. Before that 100% went to ARR but ARR had to provide a lot of "overhead" now covered by IMBA. There are still discussions about if the sharing is worth it to ARR. So far, the result is that it is worthwhile to both even at the 60/40 split.

IMBA recently revamped their Local Services program based on a feedback initiative with local clubs.  As of July, ARR signed an new agreement with IMBA which changed our relationship from Chapter to Affiliate Co-Branded.  IMBA's cut of dues was reduced to a membership processing fee of $15/member.

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HoneyBadger Rookie

HoneyBadger

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Posted

Everyone should join ARR, they are the face of Mountian Biking in Central Texas and every governmental agency that is considering putting new trails on their land wants ARR involvement. I have personal experience of this. When I started building Peddlers Pass it was an unsanctioned trail on land owned by the City of Cedar Park. When it started to become popular the City closed down the trail. I met with them to get the trail reopened and one of the first things they wanted was the involvement of ARR. The same thing happened with the rest of the trails at Brushy Creek. Williamson County wanted the involvement of ARR to make all the rouge trails official and allow trail building to continue. I know there are lots of people on this forum that ride at Brushy Creek and are not members of ARR. Please join ARR, without their involvement there would be no trails at Brushy Creek. 

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Skyyhorn Newbie

Skyyhorn

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Posted

Thank you to everyone that responded on behalf of ARR as it was very eye opening how involved the club is. I had a misconception that the trail builders mostly did everything on their own without realizing how much community effort went into creating a name for ARR with local governments to help build trails. I was one of the guilty that enjoys brushy all the time, but was not a member of ARR....that has changed. Thank you for all you do! 

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