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Group rides

CROCT’s Global Fat Bike Day ride is scheduled for Dec. 5

Global Fat Bike Day 2015

A fun ride to celebrate the greatest of all the winter holidays: Global Fat Bike Day 2015!

CROCT GFBD2014

#GFBD2015 is one of those contrived holidays that’s still a lot of fun: a day to get out and ride fat bikes in the conditions they love most – winter.

PARTICULARS:

GFBD rides are happening all over state, the country, and the world (seriously: it’s crazy), but here’s the plan for our Northfield event:

  1. Meet up at 1:30 at Bridge Square.
  2. Ride some of our fair city’s best fatbike terrain, like Sechler Park, the St. Olaf Natural Lands, maybe Odd Fellows or Lashbrook parks, and other points t.b.d.
  3. After about 90 minutes of riding, we will finish up with refreshments at Downtown Bikes – hot coffee from our friends at Stoke, cold beer from some local spots, and other tasty treats.

MORE NOTES:

A. This is all for fun! Everyone is welcome as long as they have a fat bike or a tough enough MTB to handle the conditions – kids, beginners, recreational riders, experts and racers. Feel free to invite “outsiders,” but make sure they know that they’re then obliged to ride our trails a least once a month for the rest of their lives.

B. We’ll hang together so that nobody gets dropped, though if the group’s big enough, riders might sort themselves out into faster/further and slower/closer. The route will be easy to follow so it’ll be easy to cut if or when your bike gets tired and needs to go home.

C. This ride will happen in rain, snow, sun, or shade, because fat bikes!

WHEN
WHERE
Meet at Bridge Square. Convene afterwards at Downtown Bicycles LLC – 321 Division Street Northfield, MN 55057

Register (free) here!

Trail work

Fall 2015 trail work schedule, Caron Park

Helllllooo all trail lovers! It’s in the air again. The bugs are low and disappearing. The weeds are dying off. It’s time to get back into the woods and build more trails!

Our Caron Park mtb trail is the prime target right now. We need some volunteers to get out there and rake the existing trail. This can be done by anyone, at anytime, no permission required. If you have an hour, if you have four. Every little bit helps for that!

Scheduled days for trail work:

  • Sundays: 10 am and on
  • Wednesdays: 3pm to dark thirty
  • Fridays: 10 or 11 am and on

This year, instead of meeting in the Caron Park parking lot, mosey down to the creek. We’ll be working on the far side this fall. We’ve made good progress so far, but a little help goes a long ways!

Once Caron is closer to complete, we’ll start in Northfield again on the east side of the River.

Subscribe to updates on our CROCT Facebook page and/or follow our @CROCTmtb Twitter feed for weather updates and tighter time starts as each day approaches!

Trail work

Trail workers needed for Apr 18 Sechler bridge work; also a generator, Sawzalls, chainsaws

Trail Season is upon us! Hooray! While you get out and enjoy Sechler Park, we will be shifting our trail building focus. But FIRST!

flood-damaged Mill Towns Trail bridge flood-damaged Mill Towns Trail bridge

We will be installing some bridges in Sechler Park that will take care of the two water crossings we have there. THIS Saturday (April 18) we’ll be inspecting the old Mill Towns Trail bridge for salvageable materials, and possibly cutting them and getting the ready to transport to the sites on the trail. Next Wednesday night, we’ll do installation.

What we need: Someone with a generator, a sawzall or two and a nice sharp chainsaw. Other than that, some muscle! Bring work gloves and sturdy or steel toe boots, you really will need to bring out your best work boots!

This year, we will be doing the bulk of our trail work out at Caron Park with. So much time was spent in this off season window shopping on sites like www.thetoolboss.com, that now we are more than adequately geared up. The schedule thus far will be the same as last year: Wednesday evenings from 5:00pm to dark, and Saturdays from 10:00am to whenever. I will put up a more detailed schedule once the bridge project at Sechler is complete.