in Group Rides, Bike Trips, and Events

WE do have enough people for both events on Tues.  With that we are keeping with 6/18 @ 5pm at Quarry.

Thanks.

**And by no means was I am bitching at people about the calendar,  do what works, inform best we can.  There are enough people to do smaller work days and that works for us all.

Our forum is an open tool.  Use it to ask for help for informal, ad hoc type requests. 

Our calendar and facebook events are the official club resources.  What goes on there is official sanctioned CORP activity that falls within the charter of our Wisconsin Non-profit corporation sanctioned by the board of directors.

At the moment CORP has a membership challenge.  We teeter extracting as much blood, sweat, and tears as we can from our stalwart volunteers each season.  These are folks that keep coming back year after year, paying dues, contributing to the unpleasant.  As we add members and more stalwart volunteers we are completely open to adding to the trails in our network.  The key is people first.

The history at QP has not been very accommodating of the organized structure of our club.  It has been very much a rogue property and it has been made clear we have not been welcome in the past.  If things are changing, by all means lets get the conversation going.  I'm sure the City of Madison would like to see some leadership and accountability for that property.

The history at QP has not been very accommodating of the organized structure of our club.  It has been very much a rogue property and it has been made clear we have not been welcome in the past.  If things are changing, by all means lets get the conversation going.  I'm sure the City of Madison would like to see some leadership and accountability for that property.

You are correct, Quarry and CORP aren't really all that well aligned in the way they operate, but they don't have to be joined at the hip in order to work together every now and then. Quarry attracts young riders to the sport and gets them interested in trail building because of the accessibility and freedom they have to experiment; if CORP lends the park a hand on occasion then it's a good way to introduce those young riders to the club and in the end that's good for CORP and the sport.

I've probed a few times about making Quarry Park a CORP managed trail and have seen resistance from both sides of the fence and I think both sides have valid points. More than one person on the CORP leadership side have balked at the idea of associating the club with a park that has such a rogue reputation, and the riders don't want to suddenly be subjected to rules for building and maintenance when the organic building has been successful for longer than any of the other trails in the area have even existed.

CORP could do a lot of good for the park by working on the specific things that Dan has brought up (trash, trimming, sawing), but the ad-hoc development of trails has been working very well at QP for decades just doesn't fit in with the ethos of the club. If CORP gets involved there could be an enormous amount of friction with the riders/builders who are used to being able to experiment without having to develop a formal plan for every feature.

It may be the redheaded stepchild of mountain bike trails in the area but it is accessible, fun, challenging, and has a unique social vibe that you don't get at any other park.  That little green space has been the first love of many local riders including some that have grown into very active club members (shout out to Tom Holaday) and it deserves some respect for that. Yea, some sketch things get built from time to time but they usually fade away and there is a weird natural balance that seems to keep the system in check; that doesn't line up with the authoritarian approach that CORP uses on it's trails, which is completely appropriate when the reputation of the club is on the line, but it's been working at QP for a long time and the freedom of those trials is arguably the reason they attract so many young riders.

In my mind it would be great if there could be a middle ground where QP gets a formal work day or two throughout the year but maybe wouldn't be 'owned' by CORP or at least subjected to the full rulebook that the rest of the trails have to adhere to.

i have no problem falling in love with any of the trails in dane/corp if they are within QP/QR proximity-- they are all awesome to bits.  it's not that i love mountainbiking alone that attributes to this feeling, i can see the love of other bikers oozes out of every inch of trail.

i just wanted to pointout how most of the dog walkers are so nice to bikers, one of them even asked "how are the trails this year" after i complimented his dog.