I'd like to thank the guys who made it up to Moosic Mountain Preserve and rode with us on Sunday. It was a big day for me especially cause I've been at the front of this project since our meeting with Jenny Case (The Nature Conservancy) last August. We assembled a "comittee" of contacts which included Jenny(TNC), Gene Katapski, Lee Curry(NEPMTBA) and myself Rob Gregory(Hubbard Bike Club). After our meeting we met up at MMP several times and Gene and myself would find hi-lites and show eachother what we found. When Jenny came up in the spring she was amazed at the time and accuracy of the markings. We stayed out of the wet and noted any spots we would avoid or do rockwork to avoid future problems. Well, a combined total of 300hrs between Gene and I lead to the trails you rode on Sunday. Don't forget the several others like Paris, Ed, John, Jeff, JeffSkisMontana and Lee that also put in a combined total of over 120hrs and the other 25 or so that worked the initial trail day for 4-6hrs a piece. There's officially over 800hrs put in by 65+ volounteers to do clean up days including the removal of over 500 tires, referigerators, washers, couches and vehicle parts.
What made me feel the best out of all of this work was when Jenny called us (the trail builders) up to the front and I saw over 120 people there that supported the work that was done, not by me, but US the riders! This is the first time east of the Mississippi that the riders are not only allowed to ride on TNC land, but also be the leaders and officially lay out the trails and build them ourselves!
We had great press too. My brother works for two TV stations. One covers Scranton, the other Wilkes-Barre. He got us hooked up with them and they showed up to get us some air time. Ellen Lott from TNC had the Hazelton newspaper and the Scranton Times and Tribune call me for 3 interviews and a guy came up on the opening day from the Scranton Times to ask some questions also. We had some ink in Fridays paper, Sundays news stations and Mondays paper also. http://thetimes-tribune.com/articles/2008/10/06/news/sc_times_trib.20081...
We had riders from Hubbard Bike Club, Nepmtba, Lehigh Valley, Saracuse NY, and Mountain Top come and show their support.
I'd like to thank everyone who showed up for this event. It really shows TNC how tight of a user group we are and that we all come together for an event as special as this one. Hopefully we can do some more riding together. ttyl, Rob Gregory