Tag: <span>Chance Glasford</span>

Photo album

Last night’s grand opening of MORC‘s Cottage Grove Bike Park was a big hit.  Props to Trail Steward Chance Glasford and his crew of Dirt Bosses for building an amazing facility, and to the City of Cottage Grove for its involvement.

Pump track, Cottage Grove Bike Park 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park

The bike park currently has a 4X race track and two pump tracks. Phases 2 and 3 will include a tot track, slopestyle course, mountain bike skills course and dirt jumps.  Construction for some of those additions will begin soon, as the bike park won the 2014 Bell Built contest, Midwest region

Photo album

Chance Glasford Cottage Grove Bike Park

I blogged twice last year about the development of the Cottage Grove Bike Park.  I’ve been following it closely since A) it’s relatively close to my house (45 minutes); B) it’s huge; and C) it’s been the passion of Chance Glasford, fellow MORC Board member and the guy who taught me how to pump.

2014BellBuilt_FinalistPoster_CentralFinalists 2014_BellBuilt_Facebook_WallPost_CottageGrove

The park is a finalist in the Midwest region, competing for a third of the $100,000 grant offered by Bell Helmets in conjunction with IMBA. The winner is determined by popular vote going on now through May 4. 

Advocacy Trails

Organizations Photo album

Maintenance People Trail work

Leb skinny intermediate outIn a MORC forum discussion thread this week, I commented to Lebanon Hills Dirt Boss Dave Tait about the height of the big log skinny in the intermediate out section of Leb. He had told me that when the tree originally fell, they had to lower it a bit to comply with Dakota County’s height limit of 30 inches. I used the phrase "dumbed down."

Battle Creek Dirt Boss Tom Gehring wrote:

This touched a bit of a sore point with me. I may be in the minority, but I fail to see how "lowering it" is dumbing it down. It still takes just as much skill to ride without dabing it just reduces the consequences of a fall.

Dave Tait wrote:

I agree. There was never an issue of feeling like we were dumbing down that tree ride. We peeled the bark off, prepared the ride surface to a minimum and then measured up the height. It was a little high so we put a saddle beneath it and dropped the height to our allowed limit. The end result is actually tougher than the original with bark because you slip off easier. The only resistance to lowering it was that we needed to figure out a few details and do a little extra work.

Chance Glasford, chief designer of the Eagan and Cottage Grove bike parks, wrote:

I see no issue with keeping skinnies low, the skill is in the balancing act…

A big part of any sport is managing performance anxiety. That can be danger-related or it can be stage-related.

Learning the balance beam in gymnastics can start with a harness and the beam on the ground. And then it’s doing it without the harness. And then with the beam higher. And then in front of parents or at a competition.

We all know the experience of choking, knowing that we can perform a skill when it’s practice but screw it up when it’s performance time.

I see skinnies this way. The variety of skinnies in Leb’s skills park is perfect, IMHO: some are smooth, straight and low. Others are crooked and bumpy and a bit higher off the ground. Likewise,  the skinnies at Ray’s Indoor Bike Park. Both parks offer lots of progression options.

Carver raised bridge skinnyOut on the trails in the Twin Cities area, there are man-made skinnies with some height if you want to try them: some wide but higher up; others narrower and higher up. They freak some people out and others love the challenge and see them as a way to try to put those skills learned in the skills park into use on the trail "For Real." The man-made skinny at Carver Lake Park is a great example of a high skinny with options: variable widths and an exit before the most difficult narrow part.

61 skinny Murphy-HanrehanLikewise, the man-made ’61 skinny’ at Murphy-Hanrehan: wide, then very narrow, back to wide, then a dirt ramp out-option before it starts curving and gets higher.

Most intermediate riders could clean it if it was flat on the ground but its height adds the element of danger. The athletic challenge is managing one’s anxiety.

As you can see in this 30-second video, I can easily clean it but if I made a $10,000 bet on it and had to do it in front of a crowd, I’d probably choke.

Stockade skinny HillsideThe stockade skinny at Hillside (the ‘Browner’, named after the first—and thus far, only person to have cleaned, Ray Brown; video here) is the most challenging skinny in the metro area and possibly the entire state.  It’s all or nothing. As designer/dirt boss Rich Omdahl wrote:

The Browner is in its own class of evil. I’ve never even made it half way across it. I designed that thing to have 8 layers of difficulty. The first one you contend with is that I built it at the top of a climb on an uphill slope with an off camber entry. Then it gets harder.

Most local expert riders could probably clean the Browner if was a foot off the ground but the danger of not making it at its current height is a big psychological barrier for most of us. Danny MacAskill and Ryan Leech would be bored with it, but they have their psychological barriers, too.

Somewhat related: A friend of mine remarked recently that he thought the arguments to legalize exploding fireworks (eg, firecrackers, cherry bombs, etc) were off-base. "Why not just enjoy the explosions that are set off by the professionals?" he asked. I said to him: "Because a big part of the fun is in managing the danger."

See all my blog posts tagged with the word ‘skinnies.’

Learning to ride

A crew of MORC Gravity Advocates (a sub-group of MORC) spent much of Saturday working on the Cottage Grove Bike Park.

Colin VanDerHyde Chance Glasford Mike Mullany

 

Adam Buck Andy Sinclair

I took a few photos of Adam Buck, Mark Gavin, Chance Glasford, Mike Mullany, Andy Sinclair, and Colin VanDerHyde.  Chris Braaten was there in the morning before I arrived.

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If you show up to work, you get to test and play a bit.

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Some photos of Chance (above) and Mike (below) doing both:

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See the large slideshow of all the above photos plus a dozen or so more or SLOW CLICK this small slideshow:

Photo album Trail work

Cottage Grove Bike Park - 4x track construction  Cottage Grove Bike Park - 4x track construction

I stopped by the Cottage Grove Bike Park yesterday to take some photos of the park’s construction.

Chance Glasford, Cottage Grove Bike Park Chance Glasford, Cottage Grove Bike Park

Chance Glasford, his team of fellow MORC Gravity Advocates (a sub-group of MORC), and many other volunteers have made great progress in the past month on the 4x (mountain cross) track. According to Chance’s Aug. 12 blog post titled, The build continues!, they’re almost done:

We had a great build weekend! 32 hours of manual labor later we are 90% complete with the 4x track! Mike, Buck and I put in some serious time this weekend along with some help from a hand full of others!

We are about 5 loader buckets and 3 hours of work short of completing the park! We had a nice group of neighbor hood kids out helping us Sunday…

Other features to be constructed in the park include a tot track for strider bikes, pump tracks, dirt jumps, a slope style course, and a mountain bike skills area.

The next ‘build’ day is Saturday Aug. 24. You can keep up on the details of all the build days either via the Cottage Grove Bike Park Facebook page  or the Cottage Grove Bike Park forum in the MORC Forums.

Cottage Grove Bike Park partyAnd on Sept 14, they’re hosting a big Party at the Park- Cottage Grove Bike Park Fundraiser.

Come join us at the Cottage Grove bike park! Enjoy a silent auction, beer, food, DJ, Bonfire, Bounce house and of course tours of the bike park as it nears completion and raise funds to finish the build!

I asked Chance to take a few runs on the 4x track so I could take some photos and a few video clips. He reluctantly obliged:

Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park

Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park Chance Glasford, 4x track, Cottage Grove Bike Park

httpv://youtu.be/QYyVZl5mx3E

Parks

I took the MORC Mountain Bike Skills Clinic from Jed Olson and Chance Glasford last week at the Carver Lake Park MTB Trail. (See my album of 30+ photos.)

They started the clinic by asking everyone to state what they hoped to gain from it. I said that I wanted a refresher on the basics.  I didn’t really expect to learn anything new.

But I did.

Chance Glasford and Jed Olson Chance Glasford and Jed Olson

Chance Glasford DSC02391

1. The day after the clinic I rode the intermediate loop at Elm Creek. It was much more fun (I could go a lot faster) due to my more consistent use of A) the attack position; and B) proper cornering technique, especially looking ahead in the turn while rotating my hips.  I’d gotten lazy and developed bad habits without realizing it. Watching Chance demonstrate this several ways and then doing those drills at the clinic on a flat grassy field immediately carried over to my riding.

2. The individual coaching I got from Jed on doing a bunny hop resolved a dilemma that I blogged about recently: Why am I able to able to ride over a big rock (lifting the front wheel with a manual, then unweighting) yet I’m not able to bunny hop over a small object like a pop can?

My interpretation of Jed’s answer: when my unweighted rear wheel strikes the rock (or if I hit it with my chain ring bash guard), the impact forces the front wheel down. My unweighting still gets me over it.

Jed OlsonBut since one purpose of a bunny hop is to clear an object without touching it, I need to push the front wheel down with the handlebars after the peak of the manual, while simultaneously unweighting or even ‘scooping’ the rear wheel.  That pushing motion is important. Jed demoed it several times (alas, no photo) and it’s imprinted in my brain. Now I’ve got to go out and do it.

Those two items alone were worth the cost of the clinic for me.

It was great to see the strong turnout for the clinic (19 paid registrations, maximum 20). I hope MORC keeps offering these, maybe offering short clinics devoted to a single skill/technique, eg, a two-hour clinic on jumping table tops, a two-hour clinic on pumping, etc.

Learning to ride Photo album

Learning to ride Photo album

My home town of Northfield has acquired the Fargaze Meadows subdivision for a future park but it comes with an eyesore: a huge mound of dirt. In the May 28 Faribault Daily News: Northfield gains 40 acres from Rice County for parks and trails:

But converting the land will neither easy nor cheap. A giant mound of dirt lies on the north part of the land, which not only makes for a poor view, but also causes a lot of problems for the homes in the neighborhood. County engineer Dennis Luebbe estimated it could cost up to $280,000 just to move the dirt.

Eagan Pump and Jump Bike parkDavid DeLongBack in May after a downtown parking management meeting, I was chatting with Ward 2 Councilor David DeLong about my mountain biking adventures and mentioned to him that many municipalities are building bike parks (pump and jump parks) as an amenity for their citizens of all ages. As I’ve noted here on my blog, Eagan has one that I regularly use (left photo), Maple Plain has one, and Cottage Grove starting building a big one this week.  Others are in the works for Duluth, Maple Grove, and Cuyuna and probably many more. When Dave learned about the cost of removing the big dirt mound at Fargaze, he emailed me, wondering whether some of that dirt could be used for a bike park. I replied:

The type of dirt used to build the features for these parks matters, as the jumps, berms and rollers deteriorate quickly if it’s not hard-pack dirt.  I’m guessing that mound of dirt at Fargaze is black dirt.

He replied:

Griff, I don’t know what the dirt is but I think there must be more than black dirt. If it was most likely there would have been greater erosion. Amateur opinion. The quietness and growing popularity [of bike parks] along with the age range of participation does intrigue me. Thanks for the links and following up.

Last night while riding my around-town bike in the area, I decided to take a closer look.  I was shocked to not see black dirt. So today I went back, took photos, and dug (heh) a little deeper. It appears that Councilor DeLong’s amateur opinion was correct.

First, some perspective:

Fargaze Meadows, Northfield - looking westFargaze Meadows, Northfield - looking southFargaze Meadows, Northfield - looking northFargaze Meadows, Northfield - looking north
The mound of dirt looking west, south, and north. Far right: looking north from atop the mound.

Fargaze Meadows outlined  - Google EarthFargaze Meadows dirt mound - Google Earth
Left: My markup of the Google Earth view of the Fargaze parcel. Right: satellite view of the neighborhood with the pond and the mound.

Fargaze dirt cutFargaze dirt washoutFargaze dirt mound showing dirt cuts/washouts - Google Earth
Left and center: two of several dirt cuts/washout areas that indicate that the mound is not made of black dirt. Right: the dirt cuts/washout areas viewable from Google Earth’s satellite.

Access point to Fargaze dirt moundFacing east at the bottom of the Fargaze dirt moundFacing west at the top of the Fargaze dirt mound Facing northwest at the top of the Fargaze dirt mound
Primary access to the dirt mound is at the corner of Ford St E and Brogan Dr. (left). Once on top, it appears that the mound is big enough to locate a significant portion of a bike park on top of it.  The dirt could easily be moved to build the bike park adjacent to / south of where the mound is. Or both.

As for the type of dirt needed for a bike park, I contacted Chance Glasford who’s working on the bike park in Cottage Grove and he wrote to me:

You want to be able to make a dirt ball, like a snow ball out of it. If it holds together, maybe bounce it a little to see how it holds up. If it does, that’s good. Also look for that reddish brown color. That is mineral soil.

Soil in the Fargaze dirt moundSoil in the Fargaze dirt mound Moistened soil from the Fargaze dirt mound
I scraped some some dirt from the side of the dirt cut, brought it home, mixed it with some water and made a ball. It split apart when I dropped it from a height of about a foot so it may not be perfect.  I put it in the sun and it was baked into a hard rock by day’s end. So it’s definitely promising and probably worth the money to have a company drill soil samples of the dirt mound.

I’ve begun having conversations about all this with Nathan Knutson, Chair of the Norrthfield Park & Recreation Advisory Board, Northfield City Administrator Tim Madigan, and Joe Stapf and Jaspar Kruggel from the Northfield Public Works Department.

Eagle ID bike park 1Eagle ID bike park 2Eagle ID bike park 3Eagle ID bike park 4 
The photos above are from a profile of a bike park in the city of Eagle, Idaho that was built by a company called Alpine Bike Parks. It has some similarities to the location and height of the Fargaze dirt mound here in Northfield:

Once the community was ready to develop the park, they reached out to Alpine Bike Parks to develop the full-service public bike park facility. Mechanized construction included slopestyle downhill trails, skills development areas, and competitive mountain cross and dual slalom courses. These trails raised the public profile of the project and assisted in developing capital for future project phases, including additional skills areas, and competitive BMX and mountain bike race courses.

  • Duration of Construction: Two months
  • Scope: Master planning, trail design, trail construction, community outreach.
  • Methods: Excavators, tracked loaders and skid steers, hand shaping
  • Budget: $130,000
  • Client: City of Eagle, Idaho

I’ll update this story as it develops by attaching comments to this blog post.

Advocacy Parks