Why the IMBA hating

I know the guys who are out there fixing the mess the IMBA clinic made couldn't give a shit about something in a book. They've been pretty measured in their response but I don't think I'd be out of line saying there's probably some desire to insert that book into a body orifice. This thread isn't about a book, it's about IMBA putting on a clinic, fucking up a trail and volunteer labour having to shut down the section and clean it up.

Maybe you should talk to the guys who built/maintain the trail before your come in shooting from the hip because you post is pure bullshit.

were all the doughnuts gone when you got to the office this morning?

how many world cup dh courses or trails similar to this has imba put together?

I'm not sure on the answer but I do know IMBA has had involvement in the education of builders either directly or indirectly with most lift accessed resorts in north america if not the world.

Building a WC DH course is one thing, if you are cutting a trail for the world best to race down for one weekend a year in a sanctioned area then you can get away with building a knarly course.

And I have to say that I have to completely agree with IP FreeLee's post. It seems as if everyone is jumping on the IMBA bashing band wagon here. I even think we may have found something people hate more than slow people on a-line.

I can't really go into detail here defending every single action and belief of IMBA because of just the sheer overwhelming number of posts as well as my lack of my actual knowledge on the situation of the organization of the day etc, and most of the people here should do the same cause a lot of these posts just sounds like mindless negative comments directed at IMBA with no real knowledge behind them.

im not exactly sure who has been behind the berms on some of the multiuser trails here on the ssc, but i think there has been some imba influence ..as FUN as it is to ride,to me its been very inappropriate and poorly thought out.

Lastly, what the do you mean by IMBA influence? As in the people who made them know Mark from IMBA? I know he doesn't do any building there unless it is with the class, and even then from my understanding they are now limited to sprockids park, a designated mountain bike area.

Are you talking about the work on guys gulch? I think that was done over the summer when said IMBA employee was on the other side of the country.

or black tower?… it sure is nice not to have the entire trail full of mud anymore and to see some drainage.

however, if you have a response, lets not derail this thread. PM me. However, I have been wrong before and am slightly out of the loop right now.

further thread derailment…^^^

if i am correct
black tower-was mbo students w/mark from imba as their instuctor ,then the work of vollies on a trail day to finish up the ground work

guys gulch,dudes bypass and tube were done by a private contractor stemming from the donations that were rec'd from private sector forestry companies.with a trail day on guys gulch afterwards to again finish the ground work.

^^^yup. i thought he was talking about recent activity not 10 months ago

I'm not sure on the answer but I do know IMBA has had involvement in the education of builders either directly or indirectly with most lift accessed resorts in north america if not the world.

Building a WC DH course is one thing, if you are cutting a trail for the world best to race down for one weekend a year in a sanctioned area then you can get away with building a knarly course.

And I have to say that I have to completely agree with IP FreeLee's post. It seems as if everyone is jumping on the IMBA bashing band wagon here. I even think we may have found something people hate more than slow people on a-line.

I can't really go into detail here defending every single action and belief of IMBA because of just the sheer overwhelming number of posts as well as my lack of my actual knowledge on the situation of the organization of the day etc, and most of the people here should do the same cause a lot of these posts just sounds like mindless negative comments directed at IMBA with no real knowledge behind them.

you're right that it seems there is a bit of a knee-jerk reaction here, but this thread was precipitated by an incident that happened out at the woodlot.

there is no denying that imba does great work, but imo you can't compare what we have/do locally with what the imba trail mandate is - the two simply don't mesh and are very different styles of riding. you can't deny that the imba standard is geared towards an x/c beginner type of trail.

gnarly steep trails really aren't sustable over the long run, especially when exposed to a high volume of riders who's skill level is below that of the trail. (sound like somewhere familiar?) so what are we supposed to do? stop riding what a lot of us really like?

i think that rotating trail closures are the way to go. sure you'll get people who will ride the closed trails anyway, but if new trails are put in their place or old lines are opened up again on a regular basis and riders will naturally gravitate towards the "new" lines.

what i don't like are the people who cry the mtb'ers destroy the envirnoment and turn a blind eye to all the other enviro carnage that happens on an infinitely larger scale - clear cut logging, strip mining, tar sands, hydroelctric power, etc. any trail thru the forest is not natural, and if enough people use it it's not really sustainable either.

Yo Ontario, stop fueling the fire… Don't make me have to spank you with a stanky dread!

Sorry, we already have our white Jamaican. All further visa's will be denied.

This IMBA lot sound a bit Team America to me ;)

We'll sort this trail out f**k yeah !

you're right that it seems there is a bit of a knee-jerk reaction here, but this thread was precipitated by an incident that happened out at the woodlot.

Probably means a few people needed to vent.

there is no denying that imba does great work, but imo you can't compare what we have/do locally with what the imba trail mandate is - the two simply don't mesh and are very different styles of riding. you can't deny that the imba standard is geared towards an x/c beginner type of trail.

IMBA does great work, especially when dealing with the politics. And that's what they seem to do the best.

there is no denying that imba does great work, but imo you can't compare what we have/do locally with what the imba trail mandate is - the two simply don't mesh and are very different styles of riding. you can't deny that the imba standard is geared towards an x/c beginner type of trail.

This is the real big challenge of the northshore style of building. I think its sad to say but I almost see us in the future with a bunch of 100[HTML_REMOVED]#37; legit and publicly funded tamer trails (blue/black) like pipeline, but we would also have a fair share of illegal steep trails that are kept underground and secret by the skilled riders than can actually ride them. Essentially always have a underground culture of knarly stuff with a happy law abiding face.

I think the IMBA standard works for most of the world except us, because we have always been riding steeper/ more challenging trails and therefore tend to have a higher level of skill than most and refuse to accept any less.

I think the north shore and surrounding trails can be built following the imba and whistler trail standards MOST of the time. If we build to this level (and I have over the past 2 years seen a major increase in quality of building) then the trails will require less maintenance. I'm not saying we have to follow every rule that they have in the book but we should know when we break one/ the consequences of breaking it and be able to build the trail accordingly. These rules aren't just about the grade of the trail etc. they also go into things like wood work (and the wood work getting done on the shore these days is beautiful like the stuff on Natural high, salvation, and pipeline's newest edition). They have recommendations on how to make the bridges last longer and how to support them, tips like that by removing all the bark on a log will allow it to last way longer before it rots.

Trust me, I have learned a lot from IMBA Mark about building to their guidelines, from when I was building with him as well when I worked for IMBA this spring. But because I grew up on the north shore and have always rode here I understand how much of a challenge this is to actually follow the IMBA guidelines while keeping the traditional north shore trail in mind.

what i don't like are the people who cry the mtb'ers destroy the envirnoment and turn a blind eye to all the other enviro carnage that happens on an infinitely larger scale - clear cut logging, strip mining, tar sands, hydroelctric power, etc. any trail thru the forest is not natural, and if enough people use it it's not really sustainable either.

I hate hypocrites as well. I ride my road bike to work, don't own a car, recycle and I almost voted green in the last election!!

I almost voted green in the last election!!

go sell your brand of crazy somewhere else

for the record i honestly think we could use a bit more of the imba standard type of trails here. the riding demographic has changed a lot from the first days of the shore and not everybody wants to ride the super crazy/gnarly lines. i think both the crazy and mellow riders would benefit; you'd have less inexperienced riders on the more difficult trails because they'd be riding the more mellow trails and overall the rider traffic would be spread out more causing less wear on the trails.

Holy Crap I've created a monster!

Some strong opinions voiced but there are a stack of good points raised too.

there's this perception that trail builders from bc love building wooden shit.

Yep there is. Its really strong. Now that I've lived here for a couple of years and gotten into the building scene I do realise that there is heaps more going on but really when the rest of the world thinks BC they think woodwork. Blame the filmmakers.

But they laughed because most of it was unnecessary. If local builders had just originally cut the trail properly then a lot of the work could have been avoided and we could ride on some dirt on certain trails instead of rock highways.

Technically perhaps. But then that which is unique and special would never have been created and I personally think that MTB is richer for what has happened on these three mountains. Yes it has created some additional requirements in terms of trail maintenance but its a price most local builders seem willing to pay.

Actually, they have a certain point. When I first rode the shore I was horrified at some of the erosion that I saw but its getting fixed up, trails pretty much aren't being built like that anymore and some of the worst old lines are blending back into the forest.

Give them a chance. Give Mark your feed back on what you thought went well and what you thought didn't. There is no way somebody can fix what you think they are doing wrong if they don't know. [email protected]

This is true. I think Mark is a pretty impressive bloke who does a massive amount of good work for MTB and he deserves some respect.

oh and Straya. what kind of specific north shore building techniques were you looking for? Check out imba's book Trail Solutions along with the whistler trail building guidelines. Those two pieces are a really good starting point.Cavan

Thanks mate. I should clarify that it was someone else asking the question. I have the book and standard myself already and they are excellent IMO. Some of the locals around here have been good enough to show me a heap of stuff too which I am very grateful for.

A better solution would have been to call a week in advance and ask to walk the trail with local builders. There are spots on the trail they worked on that could have benefited from a big crew of people and we could have pointed those areas out. From the sounds of it, everybody just drove to the top of the trail, parked their vehicles there, and went nuts.

This sounds to me like the crux of the whole situation. A little bit more time beforehand and some communication with the locals can prevent a lot of headaches later on.

IMBA's idea of trail building is to build easy boring shit. Period. The reason why the BC area is THE BEST PLACE to ride in the world is because the trails here were built without IMBA's bullshit "guidelines". There's a reason why the North Shore is imitated the world over, and no part of that reason is IMBA.-m

That's the problem with you Matt, too wishy washy and always sitting on the fence :)

Would someone please erase this retarded bashing thread!

As I said earlier there have been some strong opinions voiced but some good things said as well. Some people are not a fan of organised groups and do their own thing. I would not be surprised if some people would try and pick holes in an organised IMBA day even if the work done was exemplary. Its just the way things are. Others however can voice their opinions in a calm way so that things can be done better next time (eg Robot below) so that's why I haven't killed the thread. If it gets worse I'll nuke it but hopefully good things can come from this.

i still support imba's poltical position as an advocate for mountain bikers. i'm not sure i can support trail building clinics in areas that i'm involved with directly.

And I have to say that I have to completely agree with IP FreeLee's post. It seems as if everyone is jumping on the IMBA bashing band wagon here. I even think we may have found something people hate more than slow people on a-line.

I think most people can recognise that IMBA does a fantastic job worldwide on a heap of matters.

Its just that the shore is a special case. Like I might have mentioned both times I've done one of their clinics IMBA people have been very specific about stating that the shore and shore building is a special case and haven't tried to claim that know everything about it. Coming to the home of this kind of thing was always going to be a tough gig.

Otherwise a few other comments.

Those traildays are, as far as I can tell, designed to cater to people without a heap of experience. Mega experienced locals are probably not going to get a whole lot out of it around here as the usual emphasis of IMBA stuff is more on other kinds of riding. Having said that in an ideal world it would have been good to have some locals around and have them provide a higher level of input and instruction than might otherwise happen during a standard IMBA trailday. Next time hopefully.

The Whistler standard thing. I think the reason its trotted out so often is because its pretty much the only one out there (This is apart from the fact that its excellent). When people are dealing with land managers they need formal standards etc to deal with liability as Enduramil pointed out so out comes the Whistler standard. Unfortunately the library for that kind of document is pretty small. Hopefully it grows.

I think the north shore and surrounding trails can be built following the imba and whistler trail standards MOST of the time.

for the record i honestly think we could use a bit more of the imba standard type of trails here. the riding demographic has changed a lot from the first days of the shore and not everybody wants to ride the super crazy/gnarly lines. i think both the crazy and mellow riders would benefit; you'd have less inexperienced riders on the more difficult trails because they'd be riding the more mellow trails and overall the rider traffic would be spread out more causing less wear on the trails.

Great points too.

I rode something the other day that was newish and had some bench cuts on it but that still had all the other attributes that people round here want. It was fantastic, technical etc with lots of features but looks like it will last well and require minimal maintenance (this is my personal definition of a sustainable trail).

You might laugh about this straya and I know I'll never able to find it. Back in about 1999 or so, i worked with digger and input from danger and Jeremy Powers on some sort of trail standard.

It was a bit ridiculous. Something like "if you build a ladder bridge 10 feet high it should at least be 4 inches wide".

I'm pretty sure my draft copies are all lost and gone. But it just goes to show how messed up our view of the world is especially mine having learned to bike in North Van. It also shows how good the Whistler Standards are.