Athens Bicycle Club Meeting, January 14, 2003

Present: Tracy Kitts, Tina Hall, Peter Kotses, Meredith Erlewine, Kaleb McCutcheon, Chip Krieg, Malcolm Idleman, Aaron Burke, Tim Creamer, Mac Stricklen, Bob West

1. Tom’s Trillium Tour

· Set for April 19. Same route as last year. Tom Wolf would like to allocate $10 for a bike calendar listing. Club voted yes. Bike rodeo in Athens is the same day. More info to come from Tom next month.

2. Strouds Run State Park

· John Knouse of the Athens Trails organization has compiled a comprehensive plan regarding Strouds Run trails and hiker/biker use of them. The plan is only a proposal at this point, open for comment, etc. Pete and other club members will evaluate this plan after hiking some of the trails and provide comments ASAP to both Randy Wachter and John Knouse, but this will take a bit. Tracy, Chip, Mac, Kaleb and Aaron volunteered to help with this.

· There will be a meeting to discuss a work party for these trails system at Wild Mercantile this week, and a work party on Sunday. Club members agreed that we should send anyone we can to both activities.

· Mac has encouraged the OU mountain bike club to send a letter to Randy Wachter at Strouds Run indicating support and willingness to help with any trail projects.

3. Web Site

· Tim and Tracy have kept the site at Frognet, and have put together a listserv of mountain bike club member e-mails. Tracy suggested that we make designated point people for each project with which the club is involved. This will help us respond to requests from park managers, etc., in a timely manner and possible move on important items between our monthly meetings.
· Strouds Run/Athens Trails Project: Pete
· Lake Hope State Park: Malcolm
· Tom’s Tour: Tom
· OU MTB Club: Mac
· OU Road Club: Tim
· Tour of the Hocking: to be decided at next meeting
· Tour of Zaleski: to be decided at next meeting

Point people are responsible for answering queries relative to their projects and for reporting out to the group in between and at monthly meetings.

4. Lake Hope State Park

· Malcolm reported that after many hours of scouting there is a feasible route from the group campground road (Wildcat intersection) to Habron Trail at the Red Oak intersection. Will have one bridge and two climbing turns. Should we call this Wildcat Trail? Or name it something else? Dave Sapienza has already given the go-ahead to start on this new trailbuilding project.

· The park has made available to the club four chainsaws, safety equipment, and matching funds if the club wishes to purchase more tools for use at the park. Does club want to buy tools this way? There are plenty of fire rakes available at Lake Hope for club use, so we need Pulaskis and McClouds. Chip volunteered to come up with a proposed tool list that would include enough tools for 10 people, price those tools, and e-mail it out to the club before the next meeting.

· Work party (w/chainsaws) set for Sat., Jan. 25. Meet at 10 a.m. at the Sidewinder Trailhead Parking Lot.

5. Next Meeting

· Tues., Feb. 11 at 7 p.m. at Athens Public Library