What was the first trail you rode in Austin?

[rockshins]

Forest Ridge was so good, might have heard about some “friends” that did some secret rides out there with a get away car, lol. 
I had that MTB booklet, well a photocopy of it, but as a kid that thing was amazing, can’t find it for the life of me. Remember it listing where to swim nearby after the rides. Good luck with that nowadays. 

[WhoAmI]

I know that nostalia is painting a prettier picture than it actually is for me.  I hiked it a few years ago, and it was pretty eroded and even overgrown in some places. I just don't think it would flow as well today.

Don't get me wrong; I enjoyed riding there and Ken's Trail, but there were also fewer options back then, so I rode there a lot.  

[Mattlikesbikes]

Rode Rocky Hill in college, 2000 ish, then when I moved here in 2006 I think I rode WC first, but second was a we don't name trail in the 360 area. I ride that trail weekly still.

[hurronnicane]

On 9/27/2023 at 12:01 PM, spicewookie said:

the rifle range had it's own tech and obstacles......the old man that ran the place was nuttier than a squirrel turd.

I would second that.  He stood right next to us shooting a pistol in the air while we got our bikes ready.  Then he told us to watch out for the rattlesnakes and claimed to have seen hundreds out there.  Finally as we were riding out of the parking lot he told us to be careful because they would be firing the cannon later.

[AustinBike]

On 9/28/2023 at 9:24 AM, mtb_jeremy said:

I feel like it was around 2006.  One of my fondest memories was with a Kona Demo event there in the late 90s.  I had the chance to ride a Stinky Deluxe up then down the trail.  At the time, 4" travel full suspension 26" bike felt like I was floating on a cloud as I dropped those ledges.

I used to ride it on a hardtail with ~80mm on the fork.

Would love to try it now on my FS carbon 130mm squishy with a seat dropper. I wonder if I would walk away saying, eh, what was all the fuss about?

[rockshins]

59 minutes ago, AustinBike said:

I used to ride it on a hardtail with ~80mm on the fork.

Would love to try it now on my FS carbon 130mm squishy with a seat dropper. I wonder if I would walk away saying, eh, what was all the fuss about?

I had to look up the travel on Rockshox Indy and I found this, would also like to check out that trail again on modern suspension. 

[CBaron]

On 9/28/2023 at 9:36 AM, WhoAmI said:

Some history: A developer went bankrupt right as he started developing the land during a real estate bust.  It sat for a while with trails on it, and in the early to mid 90s, the city pitched making it park/preserve land through a city bond.  They stated that current use cases would continue, and when it became public land, they bulldozed a 20' path around it and erected a chainlink fence then restricted biking altogether and restricted hiking during nesting season to permit only groups of three.  They used several endangered species as the argument, but the golden-cheeked warlber became their super hero.

 

They also made an effort to acquire serveal thousand acres of endangered species habitat, whcih including allowing developers to pay a mitigation fee of (IIRC) $2,500 per acre to develop habitat if they also found a substitute parcel to sell to the city.  One of the substitute parcels was DK Ranch, which also had trails on it.  Really, the thing was about enabling development of endangered species habitat.

 

They claimed the bird species (also the black-capped vireo) were "harmed" under the Endangered Species Act, whcih has a very broad definition of harm to include when a bird is flushed.  We, i.e the mountain biking community backed by ARR and Hill Abel, who I think was the president of IMBA at the time, tried to present a study conducted at Ft. Hood of the impact of having mountian bike trails near live and simulated weapons fire that showed no effect on the nesting habots.  They representatives of the city, county, etc., would literally withdraw and try to hide their hands when you attempted to give them a copy of the study.

I'm sure others here have things to add to this, and I look forward to hearing from them.

 

Yep, I lived through all of this and attended many meetings trying to do my part in representing the community and helping to make a difference.  No Such Luck.  The bureaucratic minds had already been made up long before hand.  The Ft Hood study was powerful and compelling.  The birds litterally flourished in a war-lick simulation setting.  FYI- half dozen years ago me and @cxagent did a deep dive trying to locate the report with no success.

IMHO DK Ranch trails were some of the best single track I'd ever ridden at the time.  Back in early 2000's it had everything you could ever ask for in Cen-Tex trail.  Fun off-camber less traveled miles of trail with some TTTF that were rare features back then.  The trail system was not easy at all...but it wasn't so hard that it seemed impossible.  It was a rowdy goldilocks level.  I truly miss what it had to offer.

Back on the Forest Ridge topic...
At the public meeting where they made the formal annoucment to close the trail (99'?), they said that they would revisit the habitat in 10 yrs to see if things had improved/changed enough to re-open.  10 yrs later at THAT meeting, they said they didn't have enough funding or resources to do the new updated study!  Thus needed to keep it closed.  (this was the one where they Ft Hood study was offered up as a proxy study for FR).

Cheers,
CJB

[WhoAmI]

19 hours ago, CBaron said:

 

.  FYI- half dozen years ago me and @cxagent did a deep dive trying to locate the report with no success.

 

While not specifically the study we're mentioning here, scroll to page 144 here.   From the paper: "The methodology used here was modified from the methods used for PVAs of the
Golden-cheeked Warbler and the Black-capped Vireo during two Population and
Habitat Viability Workshops concerning these species, conducted during the fall
of 1995, and sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS 1996). "

Edited October 5, 2023 by WhoAmI