Archive for the ‘Default’ Category

Notice to users of the Los Robles Trail

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

From Mark Langton, chairperson of the Conejo Open Space Trails Advisory Committee (COSTAC)

 There is a section of the Los Robles Trail in Thousand Oaks (also known as “The Switchbacks” and “Space Mountain”) that crosses over a private dirt road between the Moorpark Road (at Greenmeadow) trailhead and the intersection of Rosewood Trail (picnic table overlook). The private dirt road is an extension of South Ventu Park Road in Newbury Park. Please be aware that the private dirt road–distinguished by a stop sign at one side of the road where the trail crosses, and an information kiosk on the other side–is only to be used by the public to connect to the trail on either side of the private dirt road. Actions by trail users such as stopping vehicular traffic or traveling away from the path of the Los Robles Trail as it crosses the private dirt road are illegal. Failure to respect this private property could affect future public access to the Los Robles Trail.

 

MBU volunteers at the Advanced Skills Clinic

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

By Danusia Bennett-Taber

On March 20 CORBA hosted a special session of our Mountain Bike Skills Clinic program. CORBA president and skills clinic instructor Mark Langton offered this session to Mountain Bike Unit volunteers and class of 2010 recruits.

The class was held in the beautiful setting of Malibu Creek State Park. Sixteen MBUers participated. As at CORBA’s regularly scheduled Free Mountain Bike Skills Clinics for the general public, Mark was assisted by Ezra, a member of MBU. 

During the four hour session the MBU volunteers practiced riding over obstacles, climbing and descending steep hills, riding over rocks and ruts, and riding stairs. Finally, they had some fun learning how to do wheelies. Check out the event pictures.

This was the first of two sessions offered by Mark Langton and CORBA to MBU. If you are an MBU member or class of 2010 recruit, mark your calendar:  the next session is on April 21.

The next Free Mountain Bike Skills Clinic open to the general public is this coming Saturday, April 3 at 8:30 AM, also at Malibu Creek State Park. Check the CORBA calendar for more details.

Griffith Park Neighborhood Council Elections

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

This coming weekend, on March 20th the Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council will be holding elections for their 10 available seats. The other nine seats are appointed by those elected (the highest proportion of appointed seats of any Neighborhood Council in Los Angeles, and one of the reasons change has been so difficult to make).

Anyone who is a Griffith Park stakeholder is eligible to vote. That includes anyone at least 13 years old who lives or works near, or visits Griffith Park. You’ll be required to declare your eligibility by making a written affirmation that you are a stakeholder, i.e. somebody who uses or would use Griffith Park. You don’t have to be registered to vote.

As many CORBA members and other off-road cycling advocates know, all of our past dealings with GGPNC and other groups with an interest in Griffith Park have been met with a complete anti-mountain bike sentiment that verged on hostility.

In many ways the management of Griffith Park, LA park system’s crown jewel, has affected the management of every other park in the City and bicycles remain banned in all LA City Parks.

The current GGPNC lacks transparency and is vehemently opposed to new ideas or any compromise. While it may not lead to any immediate gains or concessions for mountain bikers, change is good, and it starts with making your voice heard by voting.

There is one group who, according to their candidate statements and web site, are also frustrated with the lack of forward thinking and openness to new ideas for Griffith Park. That group calls themselves Los Feliz Forward (http://www.losfelizforward.org). They are running as a ticket on a platform of openness, change, and moving forward, ideas which CORBA welcomes.

We encourages anyone who has an interest in Griffith Park to visit the GGPNC web site and the Los Feliz Forward web site to evaluate the candidates’ statements, and vote in the neighborhood council elections.

Polling will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 20th, 2010, at Hollywood Lutheran Church, 1733 N. New Hampshire, just north of Hollywood Boulevard. Get out and vote!

Cyclists take on one of L.A.’s steepest hills

Monday, March 15th, 2010
Climbing Fargo Street in Echo Park is no easy task. One woman tipped over and tumbled into a bush. Other riders used a zig-zag approach.

At a whopping 33% incline, Fargo Street is one of the sharpest grades in L.A. Many never made it to the top. One man climbed the peak 51 times in a day.  

From the Los Angeles Times  

There are people who sprint with the bulls in Spain, and people who plunge into icy oceans on New Year’s Day.  

Then there are the several dozen men and women who gathered in Echo Park on Sunday morning at the bottom of a beastly hill and looked up. Before them stretched Fargo Street, one of the city’s steepest roads.  

The challenge: to climb it. On a bicycle. Without stopping.  

Some tried and failed. Falls were so common that no one blinked when a woman tipped over halfway up the hill and tumbled violently into a bush on the side of the street.  

But many triumphed. More than half of the 105 people who signed up made it to the top, where they were greeted with cheers and dazzling views of Griffith Park and the Hollywood sign.  

Dan Wyman was one of them.  

His chest was still heaving from the ascent when someone asked him, “Why do you do it?”  

Wyman, 58, raised a hand in the air and said he needed a minute to cool down. “Sorry,” he said. “Nausea is overtaking me.”  

A couple of deep breaths later, he explained: “It’s not something you want to subject your body to. But the feeling when you conquer the hill is so special. You know you can do something no one else can do.”  

Wyman has participated in the Fargo Street Hill Climb almost every year since the inaugural event in 1974, when someone bet bicycle enthusiast Darryl LeVesque $100 that he couldn’t make it up Fargo Street.  

In front of a crowd of about 50 members of the Los Angeles Wheelmen bicycle club, LeVesque and his wife, Carol, got onto a tandem bicycle. As they were preparing for their climb, a man on a track bike made a sudden, unplanned run at the hill and cycled to the top.  

LeVesque, 64, who came to watch Sunday’s ride, said he still harbors resentment. “He was some young punk,” he said. “He stole our thunder.”  

The LeVesques hold the record for first tandem duo to make it to the top, and Carol holds the record for the first woman to make the solo ascent. The record for number of climbs made in one day is 101.  

Kent Karnes was this year’s top finisher, with 51 climbs.  

With a grade of 33%, the street is so steep that the Fire Department and car manufacturers are said to test equipment on it.  

Many people make adjustments to their bicycles, putting cogs as big as pie plates on their back wheel, and tiny chain rings on the pedal cranks, LeVesque said. Riding techniques vary. Some go straight up, while others crisscross their way to the top.  

“You’ve got to watch out for the zig-zaggers and for all the looky-loos on the side,” cyclist Hazziz Ali told Andres Morales, a younger cyclist who was considering making a run at the hill. “The biggest obstacles are the other people.  

“You can’t pace yourself,” Ali, 64, told Morales. “This is a sprint.”  

Morales, 32, couldn’t decide whether he should try the climb. He plans to run in the Los Angeles Marathon next week, and he didn’t want to injure himself before that. Besides, he said, looking up at the sharp incline, “it’s intimidating.”  

“Man, people give too much respect to this hill,” Ali told him. “The truth is, it’s about 1% physical and 99% spiritual.”  

“Yeah,” Morales said. “My old coach said it’s not the size of the body but the size of the heart.”  

When Ali pedaled away to warm up for his second ride, Morales said he had decided to bow out. “I think I’m going to skip it,” he said. “I’m going to ride to the beach.”  

At the bottom of the hill, Bruce Bates and his girlfriend sat on a guardrail, smoking cigarettes in the late-morning sun. Bates, whose bare chest was pink from sunburn, took swigs from a bottle of whiskey and loudly heckled the bicyclists.  

He said he had tried to ride the year before. “Halfway up I said, ‘Nope,’ and fell over backward.’ ”  

His girlfriend said she wasn’t crazy enough to attempt the ride.  

“It would take me about three hours to get up the hill,” she said, “and there would be a lot of stopping.”

Trailwork Report – Backbone Trail

Monday, February 1st, 2010

On Saturday, January 30, CORBA volunteers had a very productive day out in the Santa Monica Mountains. Ten riders met us at the Reseda trailhead, four of us loaded up BOB trailers full of tools, and headed for Rogers Road in Topanga State Park. Trailers and bicycles allow us to travel further down the trail in a given amount of time and get more done in the same time as the other two groups who hiked in and worked on the first mile of the trail.

It was a cooperative trailwork day with the Sierra Club and Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council.  These other groups stayed closer to the beginning of the trail.

We rode to the Oak tree several miles in on the Backbone trail. Another five volunteers rode in from the south side and met us there. We hiked down about 3/4 of mile and went to work on this steeper and badly eroded section of trail. Most of what we did was erosion prevention, putting in new water diversions, and clearing out some older filled and blocked off ones.

After several hours of work, we had built and/or restored 40 water diversions, reinforced one section of trail that was eroding away completely, as well as some brush clearance. It was a productive day.  Towing a trailer full of tools on the ride out adds an extra challenge, but can also be a lot of fun. CORBA’s BOB trailers have earned their keep over the years.

CORBA treated the volunteers to lunch at Sharkey’s afterwards, everyone feeling good about what was accomplished. When working with Sierra club and other groups on shared-use trails, it is always helpful to have a strong mountain bike contingency showing that we care for our trails as much as any other trail user group.

L.A. Bike Plan – February Update

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
LA Bike Plan Report – February 2009
Sadly, several City statutes make it illegal to ride on a trail in any Los Angeles City Park. After more than 18 months of development, Los Angeles’ Draft Bicycle Plan did nothing to change that. It took recommendations off the table that had been included in the plan’s last revision in 1996. It called for studies to assess our needs for trail access, but provided little in the way of concrete guidance on the issue.
The plan has been the subject of intense scrutiny from all facets of cycling, including its off-road components. When the draft document was released in late September, the City held five public workshops, and allowed just six weeks to digest and comment upon this 563 page document. Bowing to pressure from the cycling community at large, the City extended it’s comment period until January 8, 2010.
CORBA representatives attended all of the public workshops. The extended comment period gave us the opportunity to review the plan in detail, and compile our official response. We then called upon the mountain biking community at large, and you responded.
CORBA put together a grass-roots advocacy campaign, with a petition drive and an email and letter-writing drive. Between December 19, 2009 and January 7, 2010, 929 letters and signatures from mountain bikers were gathered.
On January 8 we delivered those letters to the City of L.A. Planning Department. Key City officials, Rec and Parks personnel and Members of L.A. City Council also received copies of all the  letters and petitions via email. We got the City’s attention.
This was the biggest response CORBA has ever received to an advocacy campaign. Mountain Bikers stood up for themselves, demanding a change to the decades old ban on bicycles in City Parks. We need more options for outdoor recreation and exercise, especially for kids.
Currently, the City is revising the draft plan, taking into consideration all of the comments received. A second draft is expected to be released within the next two months, and will be followed by another comment period before being submitted to the City Council for adoption. We’ll keep you informed and updated on the progress.
CORBA is looking forward to working with the City to make its parks more inclusive of all user groups, including off-road cyclists. Thank you for standing up for yourselves!

Sadly, several City statutes make it illegal to ride on a trail in any Los Angeles City Park. After more than 18 months of development, Los Angeles’ Draft Bicycle Plan did nothing to change that. It took recommendations off the table that had been included in the plan’s last revision in 1996. It called for studies to assess our needs for trail access, but provided little in the way of concrete guidance on the issue.

The plan has been the subject of intense scrutiny from all facets of cycling, including its off-road components. When the draft document was released in late September, the City held five public workshops, and allowed just six weeks to digest and comment upon this 563 page document. Bowing to pressure from the cycling community at large, the City extended it’s comment period until January 8, 2010.

CORBA representatives attended all of the public workshops. The extended comment period gave us the opportunity to review the plan in detail, and compile our official response. We then called upon the mountain biking community at large, and you responded.

CORBA put together a grass-roots advocacy campaign, with a petition drive and an email and letter-writing drive. Between December 19, 2009 and January 7, 2010, 929 letters and signatures from mountain bikers were gathered.

On January 8 we delivered those letters to the City of L.A. Planning Department. Key City officials, Rec and Parks personnel and Members of L.A. City Council also received copies of all the  letters and petitions via email. We got the City’s attention.

This was the biggest response CORBA has ever received to an advocacy campaign. Mountain Bikers stood up for themselves, demanding a change to the decades old ban on bicycles in City Parks. We need more options for outdoor recreation and exercise, especially for kids.

Currently, the City is revising the draft plan, taking into consideration all of the comments received. A second draft is expected to be released within the next two months, and will be followed by another comment period before being submitted to the City Council for adoption. We’ll keep you informed and updated on the progress.

CORBA is looking forward to working with the City to make its parks more inclusive of all user groups, including off-road cyclists. Thank you for standing up for yourselves!

Sullivan Canyon Closure

Friday, August 28th, 2009

A community meeting is scheduled for Monday, August 31 at 7pm at the WLA Municipal Center (1645 Corinth Ave, LA 90025) arranged by the Brentwood Community Council and Councilmember Rosendahl’s staff.  Southern California Gas Company representatives will explain their project in greater detail and provide attendees an opportunity to ask their questions. The gas company still plans to close their canyon property to the public beginning September 1, 2009 and expect to re-open the canyon when the work is complete.