CAMBA EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS TO DEBUT IN JUNE

CAMBA to Offer Youth Instructional Course - CAMBA Kids CAMBA's first youth instructional course - CAMBA Kids, will kick off on June 2. The course will teach young cyclists how to ride off-road mountain bike trails. Course content is geared for riders ages 6-13 with basic bicycle riding experience.

CAMBA Kids will take place at Hatchery Creek Park, Hayward on Saturday afternoons from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. - June 2, 9, 16 and 23.

• The course will include:
• Bike safety, fit and maintenance
• Following IMBA's "Rules of the Trail"
• Bike handling theory
• Drills to promote bike handling skills
• A short trail ride at every session

Participants will need a mountain bike in good working condition and an approved helmet (required). The cost is $10.00 for CAMBA family members, $25.00 for non-members.

Registration forms are available on the CAMBA website, www.cambatrails.org, and at the first class on Saturday, June 2 at Hatchery Creek Park. To receive a registration form by mail or for more information, call (715)798-3599 or email camba@cheqnet.net.

Finding the Rhythm of the Trail - An Introduction to Mountain Biking
Finding the Rhythm of the Trail is a workshop that will examine in detail those things that make a bike stable and those things that make a bike unstable. These basic principals apply equally to road riding and trail riding although are largely overlooked on the road. By understanding the basic stability principals a rider will immediately become safer and more secure on the road and on the trails.

The workshop will introduce a series of drills to teach stability and bike handling skills. The drills will easily transition riders from the road to the trail, including singletrack. By practicing these drills riders may move up a learning curve, if they wish, to the more difficult trails that CAMBA has to offer.

This is CAMBA's first adult instructional course in learning to ride off-road mountain bike trails. The course will be held Tuesday mornings from 9:00 a.m. to noon - June 12, 19, 26 and July 3 at Hatchery Creek Park, Hayward. In addition to bike handling and other instruction, the course will include a short trail ride at every session. Open to riders with basic bicycle riding experience, the only requirements are that participants have a bike in good working condition and an approved helmet. The cost is $10.00 for CAMBA family members, $25.00 for non-members.

CAMBA's Introduction to Mountain Biking will be supplemented by a new how-to manual, Finding the Rhythm of the Trail, written by CAMBA board member John Leighton. For more information, contact CAMBA or visit www.cambatrails.org/pdf/findingtherhythm-registrationform.pdf.

Discover CAMBA on Discover Wisconsin on June 9 and 10

As previously reported in our Pre-Season Newsletter, the CAMBA trails will be featured in an upcoming segment on the Discover Wisconsin television series. The segment was filmed last fall on the Hildebrand Lake Loop of the Rock Lake Trail. Host Stephanie Klett joined CAMBA executive director Ron Bergin and board members Jeff Jackson and John Leighton for several hours of filming, capturing the essence of this new CAMBA trail. The show will feature interviews as well as numerous trail riding scenes, including the No Hands Bridge.

The CAMBA segment will be featured in a show entitled Extreme Wisconsin that will highlight an assortment of action sports from around the state. It will air on June 9 and 10 around the region. For a complete listing of where to find the program in your area, visit the Discover Wisconsin website at www.discoverwisconsin.com. In the CAMBA home area, tune to Channel 10, WDIO-Duluth (ABC) at 5:30 on Sunday, June 10.

Hatchery Creek Singletrack Progressing
CAMBA began work on new singletrack trails this spring on both sides of Mosquito Brook Road, three miles north of Hayward. New trails to be built this summer were flagged in and mapped north of the road, and digging resumed on the Hatchery Creek singletrack to finish a southbound loop connecting the Mosquito Brook Trailhead and the Hatchery Creek Park in Hayward. The new trails are part of a three-year plan to connect, by singletrack, Hayward's Hatchery Creek Park and the OO Trailhead east of Seeley. The new flagging north of Mosquito Brook lays out a loop about eight miles in length that roughly parallels the Birkie Trail to Gravel Pit Road and then returns to the Mosquito Brook parking lot. This trail will be the main focus of this summer's work, which will begin when trail construction south of the brook is finished.

By the end of the third week in May, CAMBA volunteers had added an exciting new loop south of the brook and pushed on toward the loops at Hatchery Creek, finishing almost a mile of single track through some of the most dramatic and beautiful topography in the Hayward cluster. Much of the new singletrack is currently open to ride and new sections will be opened up as the work progresses. The new trail has some mild technical features and is aerobically challenging. Completion of this final segment is expected by mid-June.

Last summer's eight-person trail crew has been replaced by a mini-excavator that has a 32 inch wide track and a 14 inch bucket. A skilled operator does the initial duff removal and leveling. Two hired workers and volunteers will follow the excavator all summer, cleaning up and finishing the tread. This new approach to the trail work proved very successful last fall in completing a loop at Mosquito Brook and should result in more trail getting built at less cost.

The cost to construct these singletrack trails averages about $.80 per linear foot, including the free contributions of labor by volunteers. Volunteer workers are absolutely essential to the success of our efforts this summer. If you would like to to be notified of when and where work is being done, get on the volunteer email list by contacting Steve Morales at (715) 634-2592 or moralesf@cheqnet.net. Join us and have some fun, meet new like-minded riders and take pride in "earning your ride." Monetary contributions are also essential to the project, so if you enjoy riding the trails, please volunteer and consider sending a meaningful contribution to CAMBA earmarked for the singletrack trail fund.

Photos of recent work on the Hayward singletrack can be viewed in the Photo Gallery on the CAMBA website.

CAMBA Is Now 501 (c) 3
CAMBA is pleased to recently have received notification from the Internal Revenue Service that our application for 501c3 tax-exempt status had been approved. This now means that all donations to CAMBA can be claimed as a deduction by the donor on their tax return. It also opens up a much larger field of potential grants. In addition, it further allowed CAMBA to apply for (and subsequently receive) exemption from paying Wisconsin state sales tax on all purchases.

CAMBA Website Receives Facelift
The CAMBA website, www.cambatrails.org, has received a thorough facelift. A fresh new look, many more photos, improved navigation and additional content all contribute to a dynamic new site for CAMBA. A few trail related items still remain to be tweaked and fine tuned to reflect the many changes in the CAMBA system over the past few years, but otherwise the site is up and running and ready for you to check out.

A special thanks shout out to Tim Gavigan at OldCabin Internet, www.oldcabin.net, for his able assistance in developing the new CAMBA site. Thanks Tim.

To view past editions of Enews from CAMBA Country, go to: www.cambatrails.org/enews.

To join CAMBA, please click: www.cambatrails.org/membership.html.