Appalachian Mountain Bike Club

This is the web home of the Appalachian Mountain Bike Club, a SORBA affiliate. We are a member based, not for profit organization that thrives off the passions our members bring to our club. Those passions being:

promoting land access and working with land managers
preserving existing trails
designing and building new trail systems
promoting mountain biking and helping others get involved
Riding SWEET single track!

Achieving these passions allow area mountain bikers, hikers, and other trail enthusiast to enjoy an improved touring, racing, fun, and fellowship experience.

Do you share our passions?

Blooms and Bikes

BLOOMS AND BIKES RIDE

Blooms and Bikes, part of the Knoxville By Cycle Summer Ride Series is just around the corner! These bicycle rides are for all ages and skill levels, with a different theme each month. The next ride will start at the UT Gardens on the UT Agricultural Campus off Neyland Drive on Saturday, June 28, 2008. All participants should be on site and ready to ride by 9 a.m.

This ride will be held in conjunction with the Blooms Day Festival at UT Gardens. You're encouraged to decorate yourself and/or your bicycle with a flower/plant theme. You can also attend Blooms Day afterward. Thanks to Team in Training for leading this ride! Meet at the parking lot for UT Gardens. (Located on Jacob Drive off Neyland Drive on the UT Agriculture Campus)

The Blooms and Bikes ride is organized by the Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization and the Knox Revolution cycling club. Thanks to Team in Training for leading the Blooms and Bikes ride Local sponsors are Mast General Store, Smoky Mountain Wheelmen, KnoxVelo, Knox Revolution, and SCO bike club.

For participant safety: Helmets are required on the rides. Participants have to follow the rules of the road when on streets. Bicycles are vehicles under Tennessee law, and bicyclists have the same rights and responsibilities as motorists. Bicyclists have to obey all traffic lights and stop signs, and ride in the same direction as other traffic. The Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization would like to remind motorists to respect bicyclists' ight to be on the road and yield just as they would to other vehicles.

For more information, please got to www.knoxtrans.org or call the Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization at 865-215-2500.

IMBA Trail Care Crew Results

I'm happy to report that the IMBA Trail Care Crew weekend was a success. I don't have the list in front of me but we had around 20 people. Kelly and Collins Bishop did a great presentation on building sustainable trails. We were in a classroom setting from 9:00 to just a little after noon. We then broke and went to Hastie where the Trail Care Crew did a demonstration of proper benching. Then we spread out and started moving dirt or in my and Josh's case, busting rock. We worked until around 4:00. Kelly and Collins Spent the last hour or so demonstrating trail layout and inclinometer use.

After we all cleaned up a bit many of us went to Brian and Mary Beth Hann's home to cookout and have social hour.

There are so many people to thank and recoginize. Josh Talley worked tirelessly to set up the IMBA visit and then to take care of rounding up food and drink for all of us. He and his wife Carrie and son Carter hosted state IMBA reps Shana and Doug Culberson as well as Walt Bready, the SORBA trail coordinator and membership guru. Without Josh pushing this through the Trail Care weekend would not have happened.

Thanks to Kelly and Collins Bishop, the IMBA Trail Care Crew, for doing a great presentation and trail work demonstration. The Bishops are from Chattanooga and have been heavily involved in Racconn Mtn. from the start. We hope to have them back next year to do it again (I asked them when they would like to be close to home so we could schedule them here then).

Thanks to Thomas Gaines for the wonderful food he provided for our lunch. There was even some left over for our dinner.

Thanks to Ann Strange and the Lake forest Neighborhood Association as well as Lake Forest Pres. Church. We had an industrial kitchen, power for the projector and a comfortable place to sit. Ann, David and David worked to help prepare and set up food while we were in class.

Thanks to Brian and Mary Beth Hann for opening their home to us Saturday night. If you wern't there you missed a pretty good party.

Thanks to Jimi Flynt for getting the word out to so many people. We had several people show up that were not in our traditional loop. We even had five new members sign up at the class. Jimi is also responsible for obtaining a grant from Scripps-Howard. We were able to buy enough hand tools so that everyone was able to work at the same time.

Thanks to Kevin Davis for putting up with me and setting up and maintaining our AMBC-SORBA web page.

Thanks to Walt Bready of SORBA for bringing swag and taking care of signing up new members at the class. Thanks to Doug and Shana Culberson, IMBA Tenn. state reps for moral support and feedback.

Thanks to Harper's Bicycles and the Bike Zoo for the cases of water bottles which we filled and gave out on the trail.

PS-On Sunday, many of us went on a "dirty south" ride. We started at IJAMs and rode through Forks of the River WMA, out to Burnette Creek Rd. and over to Hastie. We rode all of Hastie and the back to BHann's for some of his trails and then back through the WMA to our cars. New member Randy Farmer lives next to Forks of the River WMA and led us around.