March 2024 Recap
ARR Ride leaders Renee Mocha, Lara O’Neal Bridges, Stephanie Martinez, Rose Ruffino and Abel Pardo receive BICP Level 1 training from coach Cindy Abbott, March 2024.
One of our members had a pretty good joke: “ARR stands for always rescheduling rides”. Indeed, the beginning of the year has been rough, and it sometimes seems as if the weather is plotting against us.
Our Meetup.com group is the best way to stay informed regarding our Sunday AM and PM group rides, Saturday monthly group rides, and our Trail Crew workdays. Any cancellations due to weather will be noted there first, before it makes it way to our social media channels. Be sure to RSVP to events, and if your contact info is correct, you will get email notification of cancellations.
Central Texas Rider Survey
The ARR Board of Directors would like to hear from you! It has been a little while since we’ve surveyed our membership, so we’ve put together a comprehensive questionnaire to gather feedback from the community. This information will help guide us and establish a baseline for questionnaires going forward, so we are asking that you set aside a few minutes to complete it.
At the end of the survey there is an opportunity for you to provide your contact information which is totally optional. We are not selling your information to anyone; however, we may decide to reach out to you based on responses for additional feedback or to offer certain opportunities should they arise.
ARR Merch Store Coming Soon
We are preparing to launch our online store this month starting with our jerseys and adding products throughout the year!
Upcoming April Events
Grip Hoist Training, April 5th
Join our Trail Crew this Friday, April 5th for a Grip Hoist training session open to anyone who wants to learn how to move large boulders with relative ease! We don’t bring this tool out often so if you do have an opportunity to join you should. Here is a quick video from one of our workdays last summer. Please RSVP if you can make it!
Sunday group Rides
Our first Sunday Group Ride of each month happens at an alternate location and this time we head to Brushy Creek on April 7th. This will of course be an opportunity to check out the new connector trail “Billy Goat”. Sunday AM group rides will also shift an hour earlier to 8am to beat the heat now that we are getting closer to summer.
Advanced / Intermediate Ride | Mt. Lakeway, April 13th
Calling all advanced and intermediate riders! We are hosting our first ever group ride for intermediate and advanced level riders at Mt Lakeway on April 13th! This is a fantastic place to ride but it is technically challenging and there is significant elevation so this will not be a good option for beginners. This won’t be our only advanced level ride; however, we do not intend to do them during the hot summer months.
Five Finger Discount, April 14th
Note: Austin Ridge Riders is helping to raise funds for the trail work that has been completed, and we are matching your donations up to $1500 so please contribute anything you can, and then mark your calendar for Sunday, April 14th.
This is a party you don’t want to miss. This will be the second year Best Side Trails has hosted this event - produced by Driveway Series, Specialized Austin, and Best Side Trails- and it will be even better this time around with totally revamped jumps including a true beginner’s line. Be sure to register for the CX race – any bike is welcome!
Annual Ride Lead / Sweep review, April 20th
Join us for our Ride Leader and Sweeps protocol review on April 20th at Walnut Creek at 11am. This is a refresher to get new and existing volunteers on the same page with group ride protocol, ensuring we are making these rides the best experience possible for everyone. Here is a link to the meetup event.
Monthly Group Ride | Forrest Creek Ranch, April 27th
Our Monthly Ride will be on Saturday, April 27th at Forrest Creek Ranch - a relatively new venue southeast of Austin in Dale, Texas. The topography is rolling with hardly a rock to be found anywhere along the nine-mile loop. There’s lots of tree cover, as well as a roller coaster of a segment cut by KOM trails.
Todd Eric with Endura Race has been putting in a ton of work with routine maintenance, adding miles, building berms and drainage, and helping the ranch owner run the open ride days. There will be a small $10 fee in the form of a donation to Restoring Hope Charity, requested by the ranch owner. Also, please make sure to sign the ranch’s waiver in addition to the ARR waiver. Reminder: we provide lunch at these events courtesy of Brooks Lawson, so please RSVP if you are coming so we know how much to order.
Ride Like a Girl
Looking ahead to next month, we will launch our 2024 Ride Like a Girl season on International Women’s Mountain Biking Day (May the 4th) with a group ride at Pace Bend Park! You may note that this is also Star Wars Day and Pace Bend has a trail named Wookie Way. None of this is a coincidence! More details regarding the May 4th event will be posted later this month.
Do you have a passion for helping others? Do you thrive on helping others fall in love with mountain biking? Do you enjoy hanging out with and helping others with their riding and know local trails enough to make that happen? We are looking for members of the women's mountain biking community in the Austin area who are interested in being ride leads and sweeps for our Ride Like a Girl program. If interested, email program director Lara O’Neal Bridges: rlag@austinridgeriders.com
Welcome New Members
Please help us welcome these 16 new members who joined in March:
Alvin Agana, Jacob Angus, Jessica Bercen, Evan Berdis, Steven Cyrway, Riley Engemoen, Julio Ferrer, Alyssa Goodger, Todd Helms, Quao Hill, Neil Mendelson, Teal Might, Garrett Nafzinger, Jeff Stark, Kenneth Tolbert, Sara Weaver.
Welcome aboard and thank you for your contribution to our trails and local riding community! Are you interested in becoming an Austin Ridge Riders member? Visit our membership page to learn more.
What Happened in March
Trail Crew at Walnut Creek
Trail Crew volunteers completed a major tune up of Rat Snake Berm on Windy Loop at Walnut Creek! We also moved a significant number of large logs to the main parking lot area as a favor to our friends at Keep Walnut Creek Wild who will use them for their native plant gardens near trail heads.
Georgetown Trails Foundation
If you have not seen what our friends at Georgetown Trails Foundation have been cooking up along the banks of the San Gabriel River, you should set aside a day to make the trip and explore. That is what we did at the start of the month with a 15-miler heading out from San Gabriel Park. They have a little bit of everything including some technical features and great flowy goodness like Katy Crossing, Magic Meadow, and Pirates Booty.
We finished up at The Palomino – they opened early for us, and we can confirm this is a choice spot to end your ride. Shout out to Cove McCormick, and the rest of the Board of Directors at GTF as well as their members and volunteer trail builders. Y’all got something special there.
Party in The Pines
We had a lot of fun at Freeride 512’s Smithville location in the beginning of the month. This spot is home to numerous jump lines, a drop zone, and incredible skinnies that need to be seen in person to be appreciated. They also have an airbag which is an inflatable landing zone for practicing jumping and tricks.
The skinnies are particularly progressive, with the easiest line just a foot or two off the ground, and the tallest one appears close to 8’ tall. The super skinny is literally just 3.5” wide, the width of a 2x4.
For some of our members this was a unique opportunity to experience features we don’t have elsewhere in Central Texas, and plenty of people joined rider coach Marty Dolan for a drop clinic. We had the crews from Dialed Bike Co and The Peddler, and photographer Manny Pandya offered free rider+bike portraits before finding himself shooting the action on “Six Pac” trail.
You can view Manny’s gallery here! (Password: SupportARR )
Shout out to our Director of Special Events, Brooks Lawson, and to Rob Stepnoski, Brad Kammerer, and John Goldman at Freeride 512 for getting everything planned out and running smoothly. Thank you to FR512 members James Wilson, Ivan Wright, Jay Gao, Nick Vozza, Darren Murray, Amelia Stepnoski, Don Maze-England, and ARR Members Brian Preston and Mike Shapard for volunteering to help with preparation and the event itself.
More information about Freeride 512 including how you can become a member is available here.
Level 1 Certified Instructors
Congratulations to ARR Ride Leaders Renee Mocha, Lara D O'Neal Bridges, Abel Pardo, Rose Ruffino, and Stephanie Martinez for completing their BICP Level 1 Certification! Training involved 24 hours of online coursework followed by a three-day, 30-hour program led by local pro shredder Cindy Abbott.
They are now certified as Level 1 Fundamental Skills Instructors who have mastered body position and bike body separation, braking and shifting, ratcheting, switchbacks and tight turn radius, seated climbs and climb restarts, rolls, dismounts, wheel lifts and more.
We are currently considering options to offer skills clinics on the weekends to members of ARR. Stay tuned for more!
