Pedal Driven

I saw a film last night it was a documentary called "Pedal Driven". It was about the confrontation between mountain bikers and federal land management agencies. It featured some local Mt Bike riders including a guy named Matt who works at Counterbalance. There was some pretty awesome riding footage. http://pedaldriven.howellatthemoon.com/videostrailers You can buy the DVD or watch movie trailers at the pedal driven link. The room was packed with mountain bikers. Boy did I feel like I was in different world!

So I learned a lot about mountain bike trails and thought I'd share since all my mountain bike teammates were actually mountain biking this weekend. Apparently there have been a lot of "illegal" trails build due to a lack of good places to ride. The problem is that the trails, if not designed well can increase erosion and be harmful to the environment. The documentary was about the success stories of the Mt bike community working together with forest resource people to get well designed Mountain bike courses that are also sustainable. According to the film a well designed course can last forever. One of the groups that is working to get new trails built is the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance. This group is responsible for the I-5 Colonnade, Duthie Hill Mountain Bike Park and others. The I-5 Colonnade and Duthie were featured in the film. It seemed like a very good organization www.evergreenMTB.org They are currently building a bike park in redmond and are looking for builders: http://redmondbikepark.com

Overall the film was great and it was fun to feel the energy in the group. I used to mt bike in the old Redmond watershed before I converted to a track rider.