060 - Be Nice. Say Hi. Mountain bike advocacy w/ SDMBA - San Diego Mountain Biking Association (Susie Murphy) - Mountain Cog

Episode Transcript
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Mike (00:11):
Josh, I hope you have the.
Can we dig it cute up here forthis episode?
I do.
Do you know what you're doing?
Well done, josh sometimesforgets which button.

Susie Murphy (00:24):
It does what.

Mike (00:26):
And our guest today is all about.
We're going to dig into some ofwhat they like to do and do
best, which is digging trails.
So, yeah, that's good Can?

Josh (00:35):
you dig it, can you dig it .
So we got, we've got.
Is it Susan or Susie?
What do you prefer?

Susie.

Josh (00:41):
Susie.
Susie Murphy, she's executivedirector of the SDMBA San Diego
Mountain Bike Association.
Thank you so much, susie.
How are you today?

I'm good, yeah, thanks you guys for having me.

Mike (00:55):
Thanks for making time.
We really appreciate it.
Would you mind kind of givingus a brief overview, a little
introduction of yourself?

Yeah, Um well, I live in San Diego.
I'm a native San Diego, whichis a rare breed.

Mike (01:07):
San Diego.

San Diego.
I live in Chula Vista, which isalmost down by the border, so
lots of good tacos.

Mike (01:14):
Right.

And um, I have been the executive director of
uh, we say SDMBA or STIMBA forshort.
I'm not to be confused withyour Sonoran Desert Mountbikes
Association in Arizona.
Uh, so STIMBA.
Um, I've been in this job asexecutive director for going for
eight years.

Josh (01:37):
Yeah, 2015,.
Right yeah.

Mm, hmm, I was the first ever staff person, and
before that I've always, um uh,been mountain biking for 30 plus
years.

Josh (01:50):
So you're OG from the beginning.
I am an old G, is that oldgrandma?
I'm not a grandma yet I thinkit stands for original gangster.

Original gangster, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, og,
whatever.
Um, I have been riding thatlong raced for some time.
We can talk, that's anotherthing, but, um, I was
volunteering with some variousorganizations that were involved
in some, you know, state parksand different things and kind of
got involved that way.
Um, uh have always been acamper and a was a backpacker

(02:26):
back in the day and, uh,different kinds of cycling and
different outdoor activities andum, yeah, Susie, have you done
the Pacific Coast Trail or partsof it?
Pacific Crest Trail on foot.
Yes, I have uh small parts of it.
I've never been a through hiker.
That's too much Too much.
I've never been a through hiker.

(02:47):
That's too long to be outside.

Mike (02:51):
Yeah.

Well, we have a lot of no, go ahead.
I don't want to cut you offfrom your uh, yeah, so I uh have
done other things in my life.
Uh, you know, I have done a lotof volunteering.
I uh taught elementary schoolfor 10 years.
No right on, I'm an art, I'm anart history major, so that
really comes in handy for trailadvocacy and, you know, erosion

(03:14):
control and hydrology.

Josh (03:17):
It's useful.
I can't tell if you're jokingor not this moment.
Are you being sarcastic?
Okay?

Mike (03:25):
So our history?

Josh (03:26):
I'm like there must be something I don't know about
this.

Did you major in core history?
No.

Mike (03:31):
Art, art history.
Okay so.

I've done a lot of things in my life but that kind
of lends itself to uh managing,uh, you know, quickly moving,
evolving nonprofit.

Mike (03:44):
I suppose you know so, yeah, wearing a lot of hats.

Yeah, wearing a lot of hats, being, um you know,
involved in in a lot ofdifferent aspects of nonprofit
management and fundraising andall that stuff.
I think it's good to be kind ofa jack of all trades you know
and planning all that stuff.

Josh (04:02):
So, yeah, I'm just amazed.
You know, I spent some timeperusing, perusing the website
and um, which actually is likeone of the most misused words in
the English language.
You know what?
What is it Cause?
Peruse like?
I think that, like the, theaccepted understanding is it
like to briefly look through,but it actually means to read in
depth.

Mike (04:17):
Oh, I didn't know that I'm not kidding, it's actually huh.
Okay, well, it's good.

Josh (04:20):
Yeah, maybe we taught something here.

Mike (04:21):
Yeah.

Josh (04:22):
Susie, do you have a nickname?

I don't know nothing.
I don't really.
I mean, you know the usualeverybody.
You know I have a few peoplethat might call me Susie Q, but
that's pretty cute.

Josh (04:33):
No one calls you Murph or anything like that.

For the Murph, murph, I know not so much.

Mike (04:38):
I have a friend back in Wisconsin named Dave Murphy and
that was his nickname Murph,yeah, oh, the Murph.
Yeah.

And then I, actually my husband, I mean I
married in, I married into theMurphy clan, I married into the
Murph.
You know, my husband and hisbrothers have all those Murph
nicknames.

Mike (04:55):
Yeah, sure, yeah.

Josh (04:57):
Living here in, living here in the Sonoran desert.
You know San Diego is kind oflike our summertime retreat,
right?
I'm sure you guys get sick ofall the Arizona's.
I am, I am aware so much sothat we actually did an episode
on Mission Beach and talkedabout why you should vacation
and Mission Beach, drive there,park your car and never ride.

(05:19):
Never, you know, never.
Take your car out again,because you can ride your bike
everywhere.

Because everybody will razz you if you have zoner
plates.

Mike (05:26):
Oh yeah, Well, I've never thought about that but, that is
probably part, but no, the wholething was really cool because
literally they parked their carand didn't have to worry about
parking the whole time.

Josh (05:37):
And you guys got around everywhere on a bike.
That's great and they could see.

Mike (05:41):
Yeah, the perspective is so much better on two wheels
right, the air blowing throughyour hair under your helmet,
whatever.

Yeah Well, you have to worry about trying to
park your car down there.
Yeah, I mean, if you want to goto a restaurant or a bar or
whatever, like much easier.

Mike (05:53):
Speaking of bars, I don't know if you heard the the the
polar bear that walked into thebar and he he said to the
bartender he says he says can,can, can I have a rum and coke?
And the bartender says why thepause?
And the polar bear says I wasborn with them.
I was born with them, sorry.

Josh (06:16):
Dad jokes are one of our things on this podcast and Mike
Mike's like the dad joke guy.
So if you haven't even want tothrow in at any time, you don't,
you don't need to let us know.

Mike (06:23):
But, Josh, you already knew that one, josh you were
just talking about, you werevery impressed about when you
were perusing the website, andthen we went down a rabbit hole.
Yeah, no, yeah, absolutely yeah.

Josh (06:35):
No, I was.
I was amazed at the depth andbreadth of of Stimba and
everything that you guys areinvolved in, in how small your
staff is and how you're able tomanage all that and I got to
imagine that's crazy and I wantto get all.
I want to learn all aboutStimba.
But before we get there, maybefor our listeners who are from
all over the world, you can giveus a little bit of a overview

(06:56):
on, like, what's mountain bikinglike, what are the trails like
in your in San Diego?

Oh, okay.
Well, San Diego is a reallyunique place.
Obviously, we're, you know,Southwest corner of the United
States.
We always tease, but it's truewe live in a desert.
Yep, you know, it's pretty,pretty arid here.
We had a very wet winter lastwinter, but you know things, it
never seems to just rain theright amount, right.

Josh (07:23):
It's either way too much or way too little, not enough or
way too much all at the sametime.

So but it is, you know, for just like a summary of
the area, it is the desert, andI just was.
I spent the night out inAnzabarago Desert last night and
it was beautiful beginning ofthe desert season, gorgeous, and
rode our bikes around a littlebit checking out some things,
but our obviously we have thebeach and then different

(07:48):
ecosystems that go up to, youknow, into the inland valleys
and then the foothills and theneventually, even just an hour
from my house, I can reachtrailhead up in the Cleveland
National Forest which has pinetrees and meadows and nice
campgrounds and nice singletrack, including the Noble
Canyon Trail, which is kind ofour premier trail, which is

(08:11):
within the forest and a lot ofpeople shuttle it.
It's about a 10 and a half miledownhill.

Josh (08:16):
Yeah, we had.
We had Joanna Yates on who is.
I don't know if you know thatname, but she's like a pretty
familiar.

Yeah.

Josh (08:25):
So she's out of Sedona, arizona.
We had her and her husband onand we asked them what their top
10 trails in the whole UnitedStates.
They travel all over the US andCanada and Noble was was in the
top five for sure.

Nice, yeah, it's, it's, it's rugged and it goes
from the pine forest and youfeel like you go through.
I technically I don't know howmany, it's probably like a three
or four distinct, you know,kind of ecosystems that does
vegetation and yeah, it's super,it's super great, it's very
popular.

Josh (08:57):
How long does it, how long does Noble take to get through?

Well, the fast guys probably do it, and they do
it in under two hours for sure.

Josh (09:05):
What about like average Joe's, like like an?

average Joe.
Yeah, I three to three and ahalf hours.
I would say Cool, especially ifyou stop.
There's some nice shady placeswith some water going through
and you know, stop to takepictures, or whatever.

Mike (09:19):
Sounds like a bucket list ride, for sure.

Some people do that I hear.
So anyway, that's kind of ourpremier big, you know, downhill
trail in the forest and we havetrails of all different kinds
that are managed by federalagencies, state agencies and
then local jurisdictions andother agencies.

(09:44):
So it's, it's a San DiegoCounty is a big place.

Mike (09:47):
Yep.

Right From North County to you know, the middle
of the county, down to SouthCounty, where I live, and then
East County, all the way out tothe desert, out towards, you
know like.
Yuma all the way ends at theriver Right.

Josh (10:00):
So is San Diego County go that far?
Does it go all the way out pastAlpine and Imperial.

Imperial County is our county to the east and so,
yeah, as you're driving easttowards you guys, towards
Arizona, you run across theborder out there near Yuma.
So, yeah, it is a big place.
It's very diverse in a lot ofdifferent ways Just habitat,
vegetation, terrain, yeah, andand then all the people who

(10:30):
manage those lands in between,and another thing, that's we.
This will lead to otherconversations.
We have all these differentagencies and land managers.
We also have the most Indianreservations for any county in
the country.

Mike (10:45):
Oh wow, no idea.

Most designated Indian reservations and we also
have and I haven't checked thislately, but I've always heard I
don't know how these thingschange, how quickly these change
but we also have the mostfederally listed endangered
species.

Josh (11:00):
Oh, wow.

Both plants and animals of any county in the
country.

Josh (11:03):
Oh gosh, so that's that's fine.

Mike (11:05):
I can't imagine.
Yeah, and and.

So the ramifications of those things
are fairly predictable when itcomes to trying to build new
trails.

Mike (11:15):
Yeah, that's where your art history major comes in.

Right For trail advocacy yeah.
Federally listed endangeredspecies yes.

Josh (11:23):
And they're growing through the 26 projects they
have.
I kept scrolling.

Mike (11:28):
So I was like how many are there?

Josh (11:30):
In there you list out all the different land managers and
I'm like, oh my God, that iscrazy.
How many differentorganizations.
It's a lot.

I mean, you've talked to some other advocacy
organizations and there's somethat may work with two or three
different jurisdictions, like acounty in a city or, you know,
maybe State Park or something ora regional park or something.
Or maybe there's some that justwork with the Forest Service,
like in our area.
That's it, and we have over 20.

Josh (11:57):
So yeah, I mean in Tucson, like in Southern Arizona
anyways, the way we have it kindof broken up is there's like
one organization, Torica, thatworks with the Forest Service
and one organization that kindof works with the county and
everything else, and theyspecialize in that and maintain
that relationship.
I can't imagine the job ofdealing with all the different
land.
How do you even keep it allstraight?

Yeah, it's a lot just keeping track of where you
are in advocating and talkingabout future plans.
You know short term plans, longterm plans, keeping track of
staff changes, which is alwaysan issue at any anywhere.

Josh (12:31):
Yeah, because relationships, relationships
matter.

And yeah, yeah, as people change out.

Josh (12:36):
You got to develop new relationships and that's then
you're starting over a lot oftimes and that's tough.

Yeah, yeah.
So so yeah, does that kind ofgive you guys an overview?

Josh (12:45):
No, that helps a lot, yeah before you go to this question,
I just I've got some buddiesthat I stole from San Diego,
pulled them to Tucson and we'vegot a.
We've got a major employer hereand I was able to keep them in
the desert, like the SonoranDesert, for a couple years.
But then they eventually wantto migrate back to the beach.
But they tell me, and we gotthem infected with the mountain

(13:05):
bike bug and they tell me thatthe trails are like real steep,
like a lot of up, a lot of down.
Is that fair?
Is that a fair assessment?

Yeah, we have a lot of topography here, like
it's just the terrain Once youget it away from the beach and
get it Pretty much immediately,I mean even just along the five
corridor, right.
So the interstate five goesnorth and south.
Just getting out of PacificBeach and then heading into the
canyons, the finger canyons thatlead up into Claremont, for

(13:37):
people litter, yep Heading.
Most of the canyons are arefacing East to west, right.
So all these finger canyons andthat's really the what makes
the character of San Diegoneighborhoods what they are, and
communities is these fingercanyons everywhere.
And so there's, you know,there's, formal parks that are

(14:02):
Open space, parks that are, youknow, these canyons are made up
of and there's been, you know,decades of different sorts of
uses, over a hundred hundreds ofyears or land uses 150 years,
land uses, rain, you know cattlerange agriculture, sand mining.
You know awful things that havehappened in these canyons, and

(14:23):
some of them have Gottenpreserved, thank goodness.
And so we have this east towest connectivity.
So, yeah, just literally eastof Pacific Beach, across on the
east side of the five, you startseeing these canyons and, and
there's trails there that peopleUse for recreation, for all you
know for, but most all, thetrails are multi-use right.

(14:45):
So biking, hiking, dog walking,trail running, equestrian use
here and there, not everywhere,but Some places have equestrian
use allowable as well, and so weare a lot of the time working
in these, these urban canyons,when we're working close to town
urban canyons.

Mike (15:06):
That's very because, we are when we're driving, you know
, as a tourist, right, we'redriving through and I didn't put
my finger on Not pun intendedthe on the finger canyons, but I
was trying to figure out likewhat those were.
And that's what they arethey're finger canyons in the
urban setting, and so whatyou're saying is there's
actually trails up in there thatI just didn't see at times and

(15:28):
I'm driving along I5 most likely.

I mean, you know, when I, when I go to a new town
and I'm a passenger and myhusband's driving, I just turn
on trail forks and I look I'mlike, oh, there's trails over
there, there's trails over there, and then sometimes we'll stop
if we have time.

Mike (15:42):
Yeah.

So in San Diego if you drive up and you know north
to south on well, on anyhighway really they 805 or the
five and you would turn on trailforks.
I mean you can see where thetrails are and they are.
Some are connected through.
I Mean obviously the canyonsare formed.

(16:04):
Again my art history majorcomes in handy.
They're usually watersheds.
Right there's a stream or or ariver, san Diego River or the.
San Diego River or PenisquitosCreek or whatever it is that Ota
river that are that form these,these Watershed valleys or

(16:25):
canyons, even Mission Valley,the middle of San Diego.
Mission Valley is a San DiegoRiver, right, you know, it's
watershed, sure?
So so the canyons that aren'tdeveloped?
Mission Valley is developedbecause there's, you know, an
Ikea and a snapdragon stadiumand you, you mentioned one thing
and we've got a pretty healthy.

Josh (16:45):
I don't know why, but I do know why we have a pretty
healthy listeners crew of likeBMX listeners, and you mentioned
Claremont and so I just want togive a shout out to the
Claremont YMCA with their skatercross.
If you Haven't been there, ifyou're a BMX rider, you should
go check it out.
It's pretty amazing.

I'm Kearney, kearney BMX, tyler Brown he's,
he kills it.
Tyler Brown runs the KearneyBMX, then chelivista BMX as well
, and he's amazing.

Josh (17:12):
Oh, that's awesome.
And then and then also like theOB skate park, I think there's
a, there's like I don't know.
There's a ton of skate parks inSan Diego.
You guys are it's prettyamazing.

Your skate park is seen.

Josh (17:20):
Tony Hawk, yeah, but OB is great, actually went in our
last trip there scanner was myson, was Ryan's BMX bike and
that's a great.
They get some great bulls thereand then the skater is a super
unique.

Yeah, we can talk about bike parks too, because we
have a lot of BMXers that hangout at the bike parks that we
yes, I've been to one of yourbike parks down south.

Josh (17:41):
Sweetwater I think so, yeah, and it's kind of like
built on a hill and you kind ofclimb up and then go down and
yeah, it was a blast.

Mike (17:49):
Yeah, so are there trails like you manage, like do you
have any like number, like howmany miles of trail, do you guys
?

I would love for somebody to take on that project
.
And it's just, there's so manyjurisdictions and they all have
their own numbers.
Like the county, I'll give anumber.
But the problem we always have,like if the county says we have
x hundred miles of trail, or aregional park says we have X
number miles of trail, theproblem is we don't.

(18:20):
They count old ranch roads,double track, fire roads, energy
easement roads and we're likewe don't, that's not a trail.

Josh (18:31):
We're talking about a single track.

Mike (18:32):
Mmm yeah, so there's two different questions, right, yeah
, for sure, so yeah on yourwebsite you have it says over
1800 members have joined the SanDiego Mountain Biking
Association.
So I mean, that is quite aforce multiplier there of all
those folks.
And I and you mentioned likethe short-term and long-term
projects.
So are you?
Are you guys?

(18:53):
You're building new trails allthe time, but you're also
Maintaining what's already there.

So so actually, when we do every couple of years
will do like a member surveyand a put would you like a
member survey?
And then we'll put the samequestions out to the public.
Yeah so we have kind of two.
You know two separateperspectives data.
Yeah, and Always, people reallywant us to maintain the trails

(19:22):
we already have because they'vebeen neglected.
I mean, they're neglected bythe agencies, by the cities that
don't value them for theamenity that they are, and so
it's always a high priority thatpeople want us to help maintain
the things that already existand make them better, and every
once in a while.
I mean, obviously we'd all likenew trails and we'd love to,
you know, be building new trailall the time, but it's very.

(19:44):
Building new trails here isdifficult.
The plans take a long time.
We're in the middle of many, youknow, several different
multi-year plans that are youknow six, seven, eight, ten
years in, yeah, and one of oneof these days like and they come
like a small connector.
This past year, the beginningof the beginning of this year,

(20:05):
we built a small connector whichhad been in the plans for Eight
or nine years and, because ofdevelopment and different things
, this is in pennies, kitos andone of the canyons and it's just
, it's nothing glamorous, it'snothing sexy like, it's just a
small connector that allowspeople to make a different loop
than they were able to dolegally before.

Josh (20:24):
That's a big deal.

And it is a big deal but it's not like it's some
you know, jump line in themiddle of it's just to connect.
It's a connector trail.
Yeah, that's important for thepeople who live in those
neighborhoods, who want to getup there to wherever they're
going.

Josh (20:38):
Yeah, I mean we hear this time and time again from the
trail builders, trailmaintainers, trail developers
you know land, you know folksthat work with land managers
that maintaining the existinginfrastructure is like such a
huge priority Because it, I mean, they can get out of, they can
get, like you know, out of shapereally, really quickly.
And it's it's, it's a mountainof work just to keep them, you
know, in good shape it is, andwe have a lot of our Areas that

(21:04):
have these.

We're the bane of our existence.
Is these old ranch roads rightthat the county or the city or
whoever wants to call themtrails?
And they're on awful alignmentsthat were dug into the ground
by probably a Old truck orsomething a hundred years ago.
Yep and and they're terrible.
Yeah, they shouldn't be there,they shouldn't be trails, they

(21:28):
should be shut down and then areroute made, somehow like a
Nice alignment, to go up or downthe terrain.
That would be enjoyable insteadof a straight up and down scar
on the land, right.
So we have that problem in alot of areas and we're we try,
mmm.
The other problem is sometimesthose roads are energy.

(21:52):
They're like SDG knee, which isour, you know.

Josh (21:55):
You energy company.

Yeah, yeah, san Diego, gas and electric, like
those, are their access roads,so they have to be a road
because the trucks have to getto the power lines.

Mike (22:03):
Yep sir.

So those are unavoidable, but sometimes they
let us have the connectors toride.
You know the easement to rideon those roads, but yeah, so
maintenance is super importantand for us we're making some
inroads, especially with thecity of San Diego, on some
things that have been neglectedfor a very long time, um,

(22:24):
alignments that are bad.
So we're big, we're, we'restarting to be able to do some
reroutes in certain places andMake things more enjoyable and
safer and even a little more funfor everybody, like you know,
for everybody that's using thetrails also level.

Josh (22:39):
Susie, you've used the word a couple times.
You've used a realignment.
Can you define that for us?
I haven't heard that before.

So if you're planning a new trail or you're
planning a reroute or justtalking about an existing trail,
the alignment is just thecorridor of the trail on the
ground okay.
So if it's a single track,you're only talking like it's.
You know, 24 to 36 inches wide,hopefully, and it's just the
alignment that it takes throughthe topography and the plants

(23:07):
and you know how it gets whereit's going.

Josh (23:10):
So I think that's an art history, that's an art history
term.

Mike (23:13):
I think that's a.

Josh (23:16):
Applied our history to trail?
I think it is.

It transfers a lot .
Um so, but in planning a newtrail, if you've ever been out
on a project where, where trailplanners and builders are
marking a new trail or a reroute, they'll use the little pin
flags.
You know the little coloredflags and you know they'll.
They'll mark it out.
They'll use a Clonometer, whichis a little a thing.

(23:40):
You have to have two people andyou're measuring the grade to
make sure the grade isn't toosteep.
Make sure you have for one likeyeah, not more than a six or
seven percent grade over acertain stretch.
I'm going up and down.
So yeah, it's, it's technicaland and but building a new trail
.
If you've written in placesthat are able to big build, you

(24:03):
know larger expanses of newtrail, like you know.

Josh (24:06):
Then For the record.
For the record in their face.

It's super fun.

Josh (24:15):
I haven't been there yet is worth it.

Yeah, it's very fun, I was.

Josh (24:19):
I was planning on taking the summer and and moving my
family to Bentonville for sixweeks.

There you go.

Josh (24:24):
Just to go check it out, and but I think we were a lot to
do I think we're gonna get adog, and if we get a dog, I'm a
little worried about bringing apuppy across the country so.

Yeah, that's cool We'll see Um, anyway, it's fun.
But if you ride any trail andthere may be some in Arizona I'd
have to kind of look for one.
But Uh, a trail that's builtwith modern sort of
specifications and attention tothe grade reversals and the
erosion and the drainage, itshouldn't really require a lot

(24:56):
of maintenance over time.
Yeah right, that's the wholegoal.

Mike (24:58):
If you build right the first time right.

If you build it right the first time, it doesn't
require a lot of maintenanceand we have a couple of examples
here in town.
There's a trail up in ourCuyamaca State Park.
That's about it's probably it'sclose to three miles long and
it was built a collaborationwith some SDNBA people and state
park people and that trail wasbuilt using, you know, really

(25:23):
good planning and goodalignments and good grade
reversals and Drainage and ithas one bridge in it and it
doesn't really work except fortrimming.

Josh (25:35):
Yeah, yeah, brushing, brushing.

Yeah, except for trimming and brushing, it really
doesn't need a lot of treadwork.

Josh (25:41):
Yeah, we're lucky, We've got, we've got both.
We've got a lot of great trailsthat have been designed and
built according to all thestandards that you just
mentioned.
That don't require a lot.
You know, you can talk aboutthem in Kinsey a lot of us out
there doing things on the trail,everything they're doing on
Tucson Mountain.
Park, that stuff like it justbuilt really well.
But then we've got the trailsthat for the most part, started
out as what we call socialtrails.
I don't know if you guys usethe same term, but, like you

(26:03):
know, guys that didn't know howto build trail went and built
trails and, like Fantasy Islandis an example.

Mike (26:08):
It's a hot mess.
It's a hot mess.

Josh (26:10):
Yeah, yeah for maintenance .

Mike (26:13):
It can almost be dangerous as well.

Josh (26:16):
You know you show up one time after a big rain.

Mike (26:20):
Yeah, you can get hurt.

Josh (26:21):
Susan, you've got 26 projects listed on your site.
Are there a couple that you'reexcited about?
Maybe could cherry pick andtell us a little bit about one
or two.

Yeah, I mean some of those.
Everything we do, things can bereally short term.
Yep, like just planning forthis winter season, which is
starting right now with our.
We have a two person full timepaid trail crew, right, so we
have a trails coordinator and atrail specialist.
So that is great becausethey're working on projects.

(26:54):
You know they plan a year agofor projects that are now going
to happen this winter, right?
So they're always working onthese and those, for us, are
fairly short term, right.
If you know, if we're in thespring and we're like what are
we going to work on when therain comes, right, those have to
be planned months out so we canschedule everything.

Josh (27:15):
So you get more rain, like in the fall time and the winter
time.
Yeah, and so you guys want todo you want to do trail
maintenance or trail any kind oftrail work at that time,
because it's easier to work withthe land than when it's dry.

Okay, and we have to worry about bird nesting
season and all kinds of funthings.

Josh (27:30):
So yeah, so talk me through that.
What do you mean by that birdnesting?

season.
So the biologists, if we'reworking on a project where we're
building you know, building anew trail or even building a
bridge or doing a reroute orwhatever we have to, you know
everything has to go through thecity specialists, right.
So the biologists or thearcheologists or the public
works or the hydrologists orwhatever, so they come in.

(27:57):
You know they all look at theproject.
And if it's February 15th forus these days is when bird
nesting season starts, oh wow.
And it's not to say that youcan't do a project during that
season, but you have to have abird monitor checking.

Mike (28:15):
Like a person watching for the birds.

A person checking to see if it Make sure you're
not disturbing the nesting birds, basically, and that can stop
the work if the bird decides tobe in the wrong or to make its
home.

Josh (28:28):
Well, that's something we've never heard on this
podcast Bird nestinginterrupting.

Mike (28:34):
But yeah, Interruptions.
We haven't heard thatInteresting.
Yeah, Okay.
The collaboration is incredible, which you have to pull
together.

It's yeah.
When you you know peoplespeaking of social trails, we
call them unsanctioned.

Josh (28:48):
Okay.

We try to use the word unsanctioned because we
hope that someday they may besanctioned.

Josh (28:53):
Yes.

Because that's kind of a push sometimes to say
like, look, these trails havebeen here for 35 years.
They're before all these rulesand regulations and everything
came up, and so sometimes thatcan work.
It's working in other parts ofCalifornia to say, like you know
this, if we're gonna do atrails inventory or trails plan,
trails master plan, like thesetrails should be considered the

(29:15):
sanction.
So that's why we use the termunsanctioned.

Josh (29:18):
Unsanctioned okay.

So we do have that here in San Diego and yeah,
like you said, sometimes they'rethey're well well done and
sometimes they're not well done.

Mike (29:33):
So Susie, who is writing your?
You know, forgive my ignorance,but when we go to to San Diego,
it's it's because we're in areal I mean a desert.
Desert, right.
No, no water around, right.
So we go.
It's like we want to go to thebeach.
You're making fun of her desert.

Josh (29:47):
Now I know I'm not, I'm sorry.
I mean, it's like a real desert, disparaging her desert, that's
not cool.

Mike (29:53):
I mean, it's a come on like that.

Josh (29:54):
Yeah, like like we're trying to get out of the desert.
I was just last night in ourAnthem Barago State Park desert.
That's a swing up desert.
That's a real desert.
It's like 30 miles east of thebeach.
You're in the desert, right.
So it's not that hard.
It doesn't have saguaro.

It doesn't have saguaro cactus, it has lots of
cholla and acotios.

Mike (30:12):
Yeah, All that so but we go, we visit to San Diego.

Josh (30:16):
We're trying to get out of the desert.
We go to San Diego, yeah.

Mike (30:19):
And so who is riding your trails?
I mean, it's a local communityof mountain bikers.
There are a lot of peopletourists, yeah, from around the
world that know about yourawesome bike scene, or everybody
.

It's a little bit of everything.
I mean I don't you know, Idon't know everybody, but I mean
you were saying we have about1800 members but it's estimated
there's 50,000 mountain bikersin San Diego County.

Josh (30:42):
So all those people who are in San Diego.
How many people are in SanDiego?
How big is that population?

Three and a half million.

Josh (30:47):
Three and a half million 50,000.
That is a huge population.

Yeah.
So all you guys out there thataren't guys and girls that
aren't members yet that live inSan Diego, sign up.

Josh (30:59):
Hey, so, so, so, so by the way, there's all kinds of perks
.
It's $49 a year, so do I havethat right?
And then also, if you're under18, it's $15 a year, and there's
a whole bunch of VIP packagesthat you can get that have like,
like, like scaling level oflike awesomeness that come along
with them.

Yeah, and we do fun things with our regular
members and special offers andbenefits and discounts, and and
then fun things with our VIPmembers as well through the year
as we as we can.
So that's fun.
So, yeah, I mean we have lotsof great support, but I we we
could always use more.
So membership is one of theways that we raise money to pay

(31:39):
for things.
But as far as who's writing, Imean, we have a lot of all
different kinds of writers, lotsof new people into the sport
for the obvious reasons I'm sureyou've talked about it on other
episodes with COVID like lotsof new people out on the trails,
yep, and lots of people like mewho have been writing for over

(32:01):
30 years.
So we have quite a combination.
We have more than several.
You know Nica or youth cyclinghigh school teams in town as
well.

Josh (32:11):
That's awesome, isn't it?
That's an awesome, like recentup, like that's come on.

My husband and I coached for a bit, a bit a few
years ago, even though we didn'thave our kids were older.
We didn't have kids on the team.

Josh (32:21):
We both.
We both coached as well, it'sso fun.

So we have, you know, those families and kids,
students, athletes gettinginvolved.
And we have.
We have a big women's scene,women's group with a group
called girls gone writing Okay,which is a has eight chapters
around the West and the one inKingman Arizona as well.
So, but just that women's group.

(32:46):
We have a private Facebookgroup page for our San Diego
chapter and it's 1500 women andthat's all.
Mountain biking, no road biking, no other things, that's all
mountain biking, 1500 women.
So, and then we have lots ofsmaller, you know, smaller, you
know just riding groups in townthat organize their rides
through their own Facebookgroups or their own meetup pages

(33:08):
or whatever.
So you know, and I try to stayin touch with those leaders,
like people who are, you know,influencers and have a big
following on their Facebookpages, like I stay in touch with
those guys and if they havequestions I try to answer them.
And you know there's a lot ofstuff going on that we don't
plan necessarily SDMDA, butthere's always lots going on.

(33:31):
We have a kids group, anothernonprofit, called Sprott Kids
here in San Diego, and they do.
They're kind of catering to thekids that are not quite old
enough to be in the high schoolleagues yet.

Josh (33:45):
Okay, so elementary school and middle school age.

Right.
So they're doing, you know,family rides, guided rides,
clinics.
We do a thing called Shred Festand we kind of share equipment,
like we have some things thatwe share back and forth, and so
that's awesome because they'rereally expanding.
And the exciting thing isthey're expanding in the
neighborhoods through somegrants that we've worked on

(34:08):
together to get their program.
They have a big trailer full ofbikes right so they can go to a
park in other parts of SanDiego that maybe don't have
access.
And so getting some kids onbikes, it's really great.

Mike (34:19):
Yeah, very inclusive.
And like you mentioned before,trying to keep the different
levels like this, was it skilllevels from beginning up to
advanced?

Like our guided rides or things like that.

Mike (34:31):
No like just your trails that you have set up from, even
like the bike parks.
You know pretty advanced.

Yeah, I mean, san Diego has a little bit of
something for everybody.
There's super easy trails forbeginners in various parts of
the county.
There's beginner trails,there's intermediate stuff.
There's plenty of stuff to workup to that's rugged and more
chunky In some of the city parks.

(35:01):
Black Mountain is probably anarea that's known as being a
little more solid, intermediateor advanced.
Just depends on.
You know, people have their ownopinions about what's black and
what's blue.

Mike (35:13):
Yeah right.
We know that, so you mentionedsome of your experiences as an
OG rider from racing up to now,what's your thing, camp
Bikepacking, bikepacking.

Yeah, I just barely dabble.
I really just admire the peoplewho bikepack.
I think it's just so great.

Mike (35:33):
What was so?
How was your racing experienceLike?
How far did you get Any goodstories from that?

Well, my husband in the mid 90s we were on
vacation and he had just beenriding so much when our daughter
was little and we had just beenriding our local trails and
meeting people and we had afriend who ran the local bike
shop.
His family ran the bike shopand we started kind of hanging
out down there a lot.
And we were going on vacationand we were coming back through

(36:01):
Utah and there was this race atBrian Head and I signed my
husband up and paid for it andI'm like, oh, I paid for it, so
we have to be there on a raceday.

Josh (36:10):
Josh loves Brian.
I love Brian Head.
That's like my snowboarddestination.

The altitude is the altitude.

Josh (36:15):
I get altitude sickness every time I go there.

Oh it's so high.
So anyway, he did the race,signed up a beginner, you know
whatever age category he was.
Signed him up beginner and hewon the race by like 10 minutes
Sandbagger.

Mike (36:27):
Sandbagger.

Yeah, no, all these local guys, all these
local Utah guys are likeSandbagger.
He was this guy from ChulaVista.

Mike (36:38):
And so he's like no, I never really raced.

He used to race some road, but anyway, he did
really great and he won someprizes and we were all excited.
Well, right after the race, hesays I'm never doing that again.
And then, 10 years later, wewere still.
You know still racing.
So he he's a cross country guy.
We were both cross country guysand I started racing in about
95 and did some really easyraces to start, and then we

(37:04):
started with the bike shop.
We started racing down in Baja.
Baja has the whole Campinatoseries and so we were.
Those were once a month andthey were super fun and really
cheap.
Like for 10 bucks you got yougot your race entry, you got a
t-shirt, you got tacos, you gotbeer, wow.

Mike (37:20):
Tacos and beer and a t-shirt say no more.
They had some amazing trophies.

Like the clubs, each club would have a, like the
Tijuana clubs and the Ensenadaclubs in Tocati.
They would, they would try to,they would compete on who could
have the best race course andthe best tacos and the best you
know t-shirts.

Mike (37:35):
It sounds like a fun environment.

The trophies were all handmade.
No, kidding.

Josh (37:39):
I'm like there's two people, Are they?

still doing these.
Yeah, interesting, okay.
So it's very grassroots, it'svery fun, and my husband grew up
in TJ when he was little and sohe speaks Spanish and we would
just had a ball.
We would all take caravans ofpeople down to go race down
there.
Now, racing and racing therewhen I kind of cut my teeth down
there, the courses are rugged,they are rough, usually cut in

(38:02):
by a motorcycle, and they're notgroomed in anything.

Mike (38:06):
So it's gnarly.

They are.
They are rugged, old ranchsomewhere, you know.
And so when I came up here andthen I started racing more in
like Big Bear or differentplaces I was, I felt like, oh,
these are like, they removed allthe rocks, these are groomed,
you know groomed trails, so thatkind of gave me a little bit of
a heads up and but I neverreally, I mean I, got up to the

(38:31):
sport category.
I never went far beyond that.
My husband raced for the likecommunity grassroots team of
Cannondale and so we got to goaround, went to Sea Otter every
year.
We still go to Sea Otter everyyear.
See, everybody is super fun.
And I got pulled into doing alittle bit of downhill.
And then this is, and how old Iam, they invented this thing

(38:53):
called Super D, shouldn't youguys have?

Josh (38:55):
heard of Super D For sure.

So Super D was kind of the precursor to Enduro.
Yeah, and I realized I could doa downhill race and be done in
like you know three or fourminutes, or a super D race and
be done in like seven or eightor nine minutes and across
country race.
You're out there for like twoand a half hours.
I'm like, oh, just yeah.
So super D was great, it wasright up my alley because it's a

(39:20):
little bit of pedaling, butmostly down and I.
That was really perfect for me,like I can, I could do that.

Josh (39:27):
And you did some 24 racing as well.
Is that right?

And 24 hours.
Yeah, we used to do 24 hourraces as well, and those are
always just a.
They're a hoot like so much fun.

Josh (39:37):
Did you ever do the 24 hours in the old Pueblo, here in
two centers you?

know what we never did, and I know I just had
lunch recently with Todd Sado.
Todd Sado, yeah, he lives herein San Diego now, so we had
lunch a month ago or so.

Josh (39:52):
Yeah.

Talking about event planning and things.
But he, yeah, no, we have hadfriends.
I don't know why we just thisis one we never hit.

Josh (39:59):
I don't know why, Cause it's great, you gotta come out.
It's in February.
You guys should come out and doit.
Yeah, that's amazing.

Yeah, that would be fun, that would be fun.
So anyway, that was kind of myrace thing and I just had a good
time that.
Lots of friends that we stillride and we're still friends.
Women that were just amazingracers, some who went on to be
pro downhillers and dual solemnracers and things and still see
them, you know, and people thatI idolized back in the day Lee

(40:25):
Donovan, and these people thatnow I get to, you know.
I, I can talk to her and shehelps me with things and we kind
of collaborate on things.
Like people like that that youknow, you think that you know 20
years ago or 25 years ago youlook up to them like, oh,
there's such amazing women, youknow female role models doing
these things.
And now they're working in theindustry or they're coaching or

(40:47):
they're doing these differentthings and we run across each
other and it's just so.
It's just so fun to be aroundsuch a great group of people for
so long.

Josh (40:55):
That's awesome.
That's one of the questionsthat I had for you was do you do
any?
And it sounds like you do, butmaybe, maybe there's more.
You talked about Todd and someof the other amazing women in
the sport that you've workedwith.
I was curious, like how muchbenchmarking partnership you
know, like experience sharing,do you do with, like other folks
from other areas that are inyour same kind of role?

Loads, loads, loads of work, and there's even
some people in Arizona that Italked to about different things
, including e-bikes.
But don't, let's not go downthat rabbit hole right now we
don't want to talk about e-bikes.
I had that question, but it waslike, it was like way at the
bottom.

Josh (41:32):
If I ran out of questions, e-bikes was going to be the
question.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll justleave it alone.

Bikes are bikes, bikes are bikes.
Let's just talk about trails,but yeah, but yeah.
Even I talked to some people inArizona that are working on
different things and go to, youknow, seattle and see a lot of
advocates and industry people goto.
Like, we have a conferenceevery year in California that's

(41:58):
put on by state parks, that'scalled the California Trails and
Greenways Conference, and so alot of trail organizations and
people, advocates go there andwe, you know all the important
conversations happen when we're,you know, having lunch or
having a beer, yeah.

Josh (42:11):
Over a beer, yeah.
Do you miss interbike?

Do I miss interbike?
No, not really.
See you out, this runner.

Josh (42:19):
Oh see I mean we've got that, we were going to go this
year.
We didn't go, we'll go.
Oh, you have to go.

Yeah, I mean, I went to interbike.
I didn't go in the early days,I went the last three years.
That was in Vegas and I went tothe one they had in Reno.

Josh (42:34):
Was the one I didn't go to , the one in Reno.
Was that any good?

We went to a good party.
We went to a good party, it was100%.
It was really great, it wasweird.
Everybody thought it was weird,so yeah, Interesting.

Josh (42:51):
But, you partner a lot with other advocacy groups and
share notes and figure outwhat's working and what's not
working.

Yep, and then a thing that happened during COVID
, when we were, all you know,thinking of things that we were
going to work on, since wecouldn't really, you know, go
anywhere, we, a lot of us thatwould run across each other and
knew of each other working youknow, groups that work in LA or
work in Santa Cruz or work inthe Bay Area or whatever.

(43:19):
We would talk and we kind ofknew each other.
We're friends on Facebook andwe're like we would go to the
conference every year and wewould for like two or three
years leading up to before COVID.
We were like, you know,california Inba's really not
covering California.
They never have, they don'tseem to have the capacity to
take on California, becauseCalifornia is just a beast for

(43:40):
many reasons.
And so we're, you know.
We would sit around and be like, well, California should just
have its own, you know, statelevel advocacy group.
And then we were like, well, Iguess we're the ones that have
to do that.

Josh (43:55):
So in 2020,.

we formed another nonprofit called the California
Mountbiking Coalition, and sowe're going on our fourth year
on that, and CAMTBorg.
Yep, camtborg, and it is.
We have 30 member organizations, so 30 trail organizations,
mountain biking organizationsfrom around the state that are

(44:18):
now chapters of CMTB.
We've worked closely with Inbaon really planning this thing
and it's based on models.
I mean Washington State hasevergreen.
That's a statewide advocacyorganization.
Sorba is in the Southeast right.
And they have multiple chapters.

(44:40):
In the Southeast there's NEMBA,which is New England Mountain
Bike Association, and we're allall of those regional
organizations or statewideorganizations most of them, not
all, are in some ways stillworking collaboratively with
Inba.
Right, inba is focusing onfederal legislation on really
high level things that affectthe entire country, and some

(45:01):
funding and grant programs andthings like that.
But California, we've beenreally excited at the that
people are really excited abouthaving a louder voice for
mountain biking and for trailsin Sacramento.
Right, I'm going having we havean executive director, paid
executive director forCalifornia, having him be able

(45:21):
to go around and meet all thedifferent organizations, find
out their needs, help them, helpthese organizations which are,
you know, small, medium andlarge, with their just
organizational questions when dowe get insurance?

Mike (45:31):
Right, If we want to hire?

if we want to hire an executive director, what do
we have to work towards?
Like?
What do we have to do?
But besides that, justadvocating for more and better
trails for California, workingon legislation that that will
help provide more funding, orjust work through some of the
red tape, especially with stateparks?
California state parks needs toget their act together and

(45:55):
we're trying to light a fireunder their butt to to make that
happen.
And we have some initiativesworking on with the local, the
local organizations, on some bigthings in state parks, things
like bringing unsanctionedtrails into the system.
Right, if, if, if there's atrail that's been used for 35
years, like, let's put it into aplan and and make sure that
people are riding it anyways,you might as well sanction it.

(46:16):
Exactly, exactly.
So CMTB has been really greatand it really energizes me to
talk to all these differentpeople from around the state and
learn what they're doing andtell them what we're doing and
we can share all kinds ofinformation.
So it's just raising everybodyup and we kind of talk about it

(46:37):
like CMTB.
It's not really like anumbrella.
We don't want to talk about uslike an umbrella.
We're more like trying toprovide the foundation for for
these organizations to do thework in their neighborhood, like
me and San Diego, but then workwith state parks and the Forest
Service at a really high levelat the state level right.
Yeah, and work in Sacramento,talk to the elected officials,

(46:58):
talk to the assemblymen and thecongressman about why trails are
important, why they shouldinvest, and there's a lot of
money coming in.
There's a lot of money comingin for trail stuff.

Josh (47:06):
So you're, so you're, you're basically helping them
with the playbook to set uptheir kind of grassroots local
place, but then also amplifyingtheir voice, you know, in a
bigger way to represent a biggerpart of the community which we
know just in in California, justin San Diego, is 50,000
throughout California.
Who knows?

Oh yeah, it's millions of people, millions of
people.

Mike (47:24):
I love how you worded that .
You want to raise everybody up.
You know which benefits thecommunity, yeah, and you know
riders and everybody involvedwith super cool, so love that.

Yeah, it's good, we just had a.
We just had a retreat up inSanta Cruz.
There's a famous that soundsrough.

Josh (47:43):
It was pretty rough.

There's in the mountains.

Josh (47:47):
I love Santa Cruz.
It's like.
I I well, so I was a.
I was a linguist in the AirForce, and so I I went to school
in Monterey, california, at thePresidio of Monterey, and
learned foreign languages, andso I spent a lot of time in
Monterey, santa Cruz, that wholearea.

Well up in the mountains out of Santa Cruz,
there's a place called theSoquel demonstration forest, and
so it's managed by Cal Fire andthe mountain beggars of Santa
Cruz, the group there which isnow known as the trail
stewardship of Santa or SantaCruz mountain trail stewardship.

Josh (48:17):
They got to work on their name there.
They need something to doAnyway they.

they are a great group, very well funded, highly
functioning, and they builtthese trails in the demo forest.
Usually people just call it thedemo forest, but these super
purpose built directional biggiant berms is redwoods Like.
It's just amazing.

Josh (48:39):
Oh, it sounds awesome.

So, anyway, we just had a retreat up there and
we had about 15 or so of ourCalifornia you know
organizations there and we hadforest service staff there.
We had one of our lobbyistfriends there to talk about
legislation and it was great.
It was very productive and funtime.

Mike (48:57):
That sounds awesome.
You mentioned partnerships andthe collaborative approach to
this, which is awesome.
On your website, you, youmentioned something that was
really kind of a cool conceptand I don't know if maybe a
member of like your group thatdoes this, so if you can't speak
to that, don't put you in thespot.
But the love trails LUV trailswebsite yeah, can you, can you

(49:19):
talk a little bit about whatthat is?

Yeah, they're great.
You can find them on Facebookor Instagram.
It's LUV right, love trails,and they they're a group that
it's a fundraising mechanismwhere you can sign up and if you
ride anywhere like if I say Iwent to Sedona and I rode Sedona
and I had a really great day Ican go into Love Trails and I

(49:44):
can make a donation to the localgroup.
so Verdi Valley or whoever- youknow, Sedona is, and I can make
a donation through Love Trailsand say, hey, I was visiting
Sedona, I rode this, it wasgreat.
Here's 20 bucks, like whatever,and so people can do that here
for San Diego too, and they havea couple of different
mechanisms that they use for youto be able to make these micro

(50:04):
donations.

Josh (50:07):
I saw that you could actually say hey, listen, I'm
going to do a dollar a mile andI can link it to my Strava, and
when I go ride it'll add it up,just like some of the bowling
things we've done, or whatever.

Yeah, it's super fun.
I'm sure that some of yourArizona groups I know they are
for a fact, verdi Valley forsure, and probably your Sonoran
Desert folks they're hooked inwith Love Trails.
If they're not, they should be,because it's you get a little
bit of money every month.
You know it just comes in, it'ssuper easy.

Josh (50:38):
So, speaking of money, let's talk about some things for
Stimba that you do, so like youhave, obviously, your
membership we've talked aboutthat already and then you run
different things, and right nowyou're running a donation,
fundraiser, fundraiser.
But it's not just you're givingyour money away.

(50:59):
You have a chance to win one oftwo TurboLevo carbon
specialized e-bikes which, bythe way, I actually went on and
put 40 bucks to the TTIS.

So we're really honored when a company like
specialized or any of the otheryou know companies bigger, small
appreciate the work that theadvocacy groups do, and so these
bike giveaways are awesome, andso I've been talking with
Specialized for a while and,yeah, they gave us two TurboLevo

(51:37):
carbon bikes, a medium and alarge, so when you make your
donation you can pick if youwant to pick one of the two
medium or the large.

Josh (51:44):
Yep, and I picked the medium for my wife because I'm
an extra large.
But I was like, hey, yeah, mywife is an ab in my son.

Yeah, so anyway, yeah, that runs through December
20th and it's five bucks, youget one entry and if you put in,
every $20 donation gets youfive entries.

Mike (52:02):
Good luck.

Josh (52:02):
Josh, yeah, thanks, we're gonna, we're gonna.

It's on the front page of our website.
It's pinned on our Facebook andInstagram pages, so people.

Josh (52:11):
And what's your, what's your website?
Again?

It's SDMBAcom.

Josh (52:17):
SDMBAcom.

Anybody.
Anybody can enter that in theUnited States, so it doesn't
have to be somebody to win fromSan Diego.

Mike (52:25):
Awesome.
Right on, Josh and I did anepisode about being prepared I
don't know if we crashed once orsomething, so like being
prepared out in the desert orwhatever trail you're on in bike
maintenance and stuff like that.
And we mentioned resources onyour website that that are there

(52:45):
.
One of them is just outstandingand that is your trail
preparedness list, and so Idon't I don't care who you are,
wherever you ride like that issuch a thorough list.
And then you've got like wettrail ratings.

Josh (52:58):
Yeah, and just which is something that's totally foreign
to us in the real desert, yeah,we have to.

We just have certain trails here in San Diego
that dry better than others andif it rains any significant
amount, even sometimes just aquarter of an inch or a half an
inch in some of the soils whereit's more clay, full of clay,
they just don't dry out as fastand there, but there are places
that are more like decomposedgranite like you know, kind of

(53:25):
like you guys have in the desert, that drains much better.
So we just want people to know,like if you need, if you just
absolutely have to go ride afterit rains go right on the
granite trail.
Go to these other places anddon't go to these places.

Mike (53:35):
That's really smart and that's really for the new people
.

You know the new people because we don't messes
up the trails and it messes upyour bike and like, yeah, don't
do that.
But yeah the preparedness thingwas is something very important
to me and that was anotherCOVID we were.
I have a couple of members, acouple of gals, that helped me
one who's a doctor and one who'swas a PA and so they helped me

(54:01):
kind of with that whole thingand we did a couple of podcasts
and talked about preparednessand what's your podcast?

Josh (54:08):
What's your podcast called ?

It's just called Trail News.

Josh (54:12):
Trail News and it's linked .

It's linked on our website as well, and one of the
tabs the communications.

Josh (54:17):
Is it?
Is it is it out like where,anywhere, like Spotify, yeah
it's on Apple and all thedifferent places.
Yeah, so check out Trail News.
We'll put links.
We'll put links.
All this in the show notes, forsure.

Oh, thank you so much yeah.
So yeah the preparedness thingis important because I'm sure,
like you guys, hear stories ofpeople who get out and they
don't have enough water or theyget lost or they yeah.

Mike (54:39):
But they're done that, we've all done that.

Yeah with it, with a few simple things and just
knowing.
If you're not you know, ifyou've never been an outdoor
person or you're new to beingout in you know a place that's
even if it's the canyon by yourhouse, you still still should
let somebody know where you areand have the things you need to
help yourself.

Josh (54:59):
That's all, yeah for sure, and where I thought you were
going with the Be Prepared wasthe Trail courtesy pledge.

Mike (55:06):
It's my favorite, I would right, it's on there.

Josh (55:08):
It's on there.
It's on there.
So it's because Be Prepared isone of them, but there's there's
six or five things on there.
The first one Be Nice, Say Hi,I freaking love that.
That's awesome.

Mike (55:19):
Last time we rode, josh, I don't know if you knew this,
but we uh someone, we pulledover for somebody and I said
good morning, hi, you know, andno response.
That's so annoying and I Ididn't, you know not a big deal
right, but just like you said,smile, say hi, be nice, go a
long ways Be Nice, say Hi, leaveno trace.

Josh (55:39):
Love that Like like leave the trail the way that you
entered the trail yeah.
Share, share and be aware.
Okay, what is it Share?
So so multi-use trails, so yougotta you gotta be, you know,
you gotta be aware Like.
We've learned a lot.
We have a lot of equestrian outhere in Arizona, and so there's
a certain way that you shoulddeal with the question With

(56:01):
horses.
You can spook them on your bikevery easily, so how you
approach them, how you do withthat Stop and just listen to the
rider.

Let the rider give you instructions about what
they want you to do.

Josh (56:09):
That is exactly Sometimes they'll wave.

sometimes they'll wave you on, they don't care.
They're like well, where's this?
Fine, go Sometimes, butsometimes not.
So it's better to give them awide berth.

Josh (56:18):
Yeah.

But, yeah, share and be aware.
It's also, you know, we triedto write those not only for
mountain bikers but for otherpeople who are out on the trail,
like you know, people who tendto wear both earbuds for some
reason when they're outside innature.
That can't hear anything.

Josh (56:31):
We did a whole episode on this.
Should you listen?
Should you play it out loud?
How should you have?

your music.
A little situational awarenessgoes a long way.

Mike (56:39):
Yeah, it sure does.
All right.
So, from the folks coming fromour side of the country to your
beautiful side of the country,one of my favorite things is
driving over, is it?
I five at that point overAlpine.
Yeah, it's.

Josh (56:54):
I eight.

Mike (56:55):
Thank you, I aka eight, and one of your 26 projects is
if you could reprioritize it,it'd be awesome to be number one
.
But Anderson truck trail, thatsounds very exciting.
Can you kind of walk us through?
Like, what does it take to dolike a trail like that?

Well, Anderson truck trail is an area that's
been around for a long, longtime and the main part of the
land is part of the ClevelandNational Forest.
Okay, and the trails there havealways been fairly advanced,
Like it's not an easy place toride number one because you have
to climb up there in the firstplace, but then when you turn

(57:36):
around and come back down thetrails are they're advanced.
I mean, to me I would call themblack for the most part.

Mike (57:44):
Okay.

Josh (57:45):
Black trails.

Mike (57:45):
Yep.

So the like most all things in San Diego, it's a
longer story and it's also multijurisdictional.
Okay, yeah, so even though mostof the area where the trails
are that people like to go to isCleveland National Forest, and
they are, for the most part, ona map and they're legal trails-

(58:09):
sanctioned.
It's the sanctioned, it's the,it's the access into the forest
from the bottom right down bythe highway.
Yeah, get up there.
That's not quite Okay.
There's some private property.
And then several years ago morethan several years ago, I want

(58:29):
to say it was even before Istarted this job there's also
Indian tribal land at the topand there was, there used to be
some, there were trails thatwere on tribal land, so people
would go all the way into thetribal land to get to the very
sort of, I guess, what wasconsidered the top of the trails
and then come down through theforest land and the tribe at a

(58:50):
certain point said that's nothappening anymore.
And and those trails were,honestly, they were very, they
were famous.
I'm not going to even say thename of them, but they were very
famous and people would comefrom all over to write them.
Oh wow, you know, and we'vegrown some pros here in town.
You know Kyle straight Kyle andRachel straight live in Alpine

(59:11):
and we actually, we actuallyknow them from from from
Claremont.

Mike (59:16):
Oh really, yeah, Okay going, yeah, I just know it's
such a beautiful area and yeahyeah.

So so what's happening there and this is a
very long term thing is thatgradually, the, the county and
another organization that wework with, the San Diego River
Park Foundation, because it'swithin the watershed of the
river are slowly trying toacquire work.
They have acquired some privateparcels in there, but there's

(59:45):
more that need to be acquired,and anytime that an entity wants
to acquire a property, you canunderstand the complexity, you
know the complications withwhoever owns it, the family,
what their intentions are withthe land, and so those things
can take years of you know thecounty sending a letter every

(01:00:07):
year and being like, hey, we'dreally, if you're thinking about
selling, we'd like to get thisproperty so we can improve
access to you know, this openspace.
Blah, blah, blah.
So that's what's going on there, okay, do people still do,
people still write it, sure,they do.

Mike (01:00:20):
Like you said, it's a long term project.

Susie Murphy (01:00:22):
Yeah, so they are crossing through private
property and we have, you know,we have the buy in of the river
park to open that up, becausepeople do hike up there too and
it has a, you know, beautifulviews and and the Forest Service
is, is in there, you knowthey're, they're good with it
and the county, eventually, thecounty has said, you know, that

(01:00:44):
they wouldn't be opposed toplanning to build like a staging
area at the bottom, you know,parking and stuff.
Oh very cool.
So that's a long, it's a longterm thing Sounds like it.

Josh (01:00:56):
So so, Susie, I've got one like final question for maybe
two final questions for you.
What is something that we, as amountain bike community, what
is something that we're doingthat's distracting from your
mission of trail advocacy andgiving us the best like options

(01:01:20):
to have to ride?
Like what, what, what, what canwe change about our behavior as
a mountain bike community?

Oh, I think that.
How honest, can I?

Josh (01:01:33):
be.
You could be as honest as youwant to.

I just would like, when anyone is out on a public
trail and they're interactingwith other trail users or
potentially may run across aranger at some point, I know
people say they never see aranger, but they're out there,
but they're there, you know,stop and say hi and get to know.

(01:01:59):
Any mountain biker can get toknow who the land manager is and
you'll learn a lot about what'sgoing on.
But day to day trail use, likecan I just say like, don't be a.

Josh (01:02:11):
Don't be a jerk.

Don't be a jerk.

Josh (01:02:14):
Like be nice, say hi, just like you're.
Yeah, like be nice, say hi,it's so easy to just slow down
and smile Like it's not hard.

Don't scare people .
Like don't go too fast.
If you're near a trailhead,like if you're within a quarter
mile, when you're riding in anarea and you leave the parking
area, you know you're gonna runinto hikers and stuff in the
first maybe quarter mile andthen they're gonna kinda they're
not gonna be out farther.
So just slow down when you'rewithin a quarter mile.

Josh (01:02:42):
Don't worry about your Strava segment in the first mile
of a ride.

No, and so I just you know I can't make everybody
do that, but if just peoplewould just realize that they're
outside in public with otherpeople, and it would just go a
lot farther for them to just,you know, be considerate.

Mike (01:03:03):
Little things can go a long way.

It's a lot to ask.
And then I just, I think theother thing that I learned being
, you know, I did teachelementary school for a while,
and that does come in handy both, as I was pretty good at I was
pretty good at recess duty, youknow so yeah, it's pretty much
like mountain bikers.

Josh (01:03:22):
Yeah, I have to call on those skills.

But just education , like the, education never
stops.
And when you have even somebodywho may have been a trail user
for a long time or a mountainbiker sometime, it's very
difficult to understand whatland is federal, what land is
state, what land is county.
And a lot of the time peoplejust don't really, they don't
care, they just wanna ride theirbike Like they don't care.

(01:03:47):
And that's why you should buy amembership to your local trail
organization, because we do careand we know those people and we
talk to them.
So it's hard when people I'llmention the e-bike thing just
real quick again the e-bikerules and classes and all that
from state to state, from parkto park, from open space to open

(01:04:09):
space, are so inconsistent andso confusing.
And at this point people havetheir e-bike, mine's sitting
right here, right here it's.
The road is today in the desert, on roads where they're allowed
, throw up their hands andthey're like I'm just gonna ride
my bike, I just wanna ride mybike, you know.
And so it's hard to tell thestory of advocacy.

(01:04:33):
So, like Anderson Truck Trail,for example, it's a long story,
right, it's been going on fordecades and it still has to come
to a resolution at some point.
But people like they ask aquestion and you wanna give them
as short as you can, but itmight be a 10 minute explanation
of why a place is complicatedor why it's contentious or why

(01:04:54):
it has issues and thepersonalities involved and the
rules involved and the landacquisitions and people start to
glaze over right.

Mike (01:05:02):
Like people.

Yeah, it's just, it's very detailed, it's very
nuanced.
Very, very little in thisbusiness is black and white
really everything.

Josh (01:05:12):
What would be safe to say hey, listen, like, like, be nice
, say hi and like, take a minuteto understand, like the
environment and the rules ofwhere you're riding especially
if it's your local trails.
Like you should know all therules and regulations of your
local trails and if you'rebranching out, take a minute to
like do some research and figureout what's okay and what's not

(01:05:33):
Cause you might be messing it upfor you know other trail users,
right, and I don't?

you know, I don't have any.
All I can do is say these arethe what the land manager would
like you to do, and then that'swhere I stop.
Like I'm, I can educate you onwhat, what the rules are, but
I'm not saying yes or no, don'tdo this or don't do that.
It's just that this is, this iswhat it is.
And I will say another thingthat for people to keep in mind,

(01:05:59):
as me being an advocate andworking now, even at the state
level, there is a huge.
We have a huge battle in SanDiego, here and in a lot of
other places, with conservationgroups, right.
So Sierra club, other variousconservation groups,

(01:06:20):
preservation groups, land trustswho do not like mountain biking
in their areas.
Some are fine, some are greatpartners, awesome partners, but
others have this old bias, thisold, very discriminatory,
discriminatory attitude.
Right, 20 years ago, thismountain biker knocked me off my

(01:06:44):
horse and I'm going to tellthat story for the next 50 years
, right.

Mike (01:06:48):
Yeah, right.

And so we have a real battle of trying to impress
upon the powers that be thatmost mountain bikers are nature
lovers.
We are environmentalists, we docare, we care about the plants
and the animals and the habitat,but we want to be out in nature
enjoying it.
That's why we do this activity.

Mike (01:07:09):
On a bike.

Right, and that story is very hard for some of
these people to understand,right?
And so we are trying to poundthat drum to say I can be a
mountain biker and anenvironmentalist at the same
time.
Yeah, for sure, so be nice, sayhi.

Josh (01:07:28):
Don't give them another excuse to battle Right.
Yeah, be super cool, cause itpays back in dividends.
Well, susie, I can't tell youhow much we appreciate you
spending an hour with us here,or an hour and a little bit more
than that.
Thank you so much.
We know you just got off a rideand you just got back and we
screwed up the time zones andall that stuff, but we figured
it out together.
Hey, thank you so much.

(01:07:50):
We appreciate you.
Any final thoughts you want toleave our listeners with?

No, I think that's it.
Wherever you guys are listening, I bet there's a trail
organization in your area.
So if you're not a member, Signup.
Find out where they are andsign up.
The membership fees are verylow and it really just helps
your organization and yourneighborhood have a bigger voice
with their local city councilor their board of supervisors or

(01:08:14):
whoever it is.
So do that and honestly just benice and say hi all the time on
the trail.
Just smile and say hello, nice.

Josh (01:08:23):
Susie, thank you so much.
Thanks, Susie.

Yeah, thanks, you guys.

Josh (01:08:36):
Can you dig it?
Can you dig it, can you dig it.

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060 - Be Nice. Say Hi. Mountain bike advocacy w/ SDMBA - San Diego Mountain Biking Association (Susie Murphy)

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