087 – Gravity Trail Building in Arizona: How the Tonto Gravity Riders are Transforming Mountain Biking at Sunrise Bike Park and Pinal Mountains. (Chris Johnson) - Mountain Cog

Episode Transcript
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Dane (00:12):
Hey Josh.

Josh (00:13):
Hey, buddy, I got something to tell you.
No, I was going to tell you oh,you're going to go first.
Okay, go ahead.

Dane (00:18):
I decided to start a pro hide and seek league.
Oh you, did.

Josh (00:24):
Okay, you decided to to start.
What made you decide to start apro hide and go seek league?

Dane (00:28):
well, it failed, it failed , yeah, yeah why did it fail?
You're successful uh, goodplayers were so hard to find.
Oh, you got the buttons verygood.
I like it very it.
I like it Very good and.

Josh (00:44):
Chris is not laughing at all and he's like what the hell
are these guys talking about?

Dane (00:49):
So every episode we start with a dad joke.
So do you have any good dadjokes?

Chris Johnson (00:55):
No.

Dane (00:55):
I do not.
I'm normally the worst.
I'm reading this off of a sheet.

Josh (01:00):
So that's the only way I can remember.
Yeah, I'm going to stop writingthem down for you.

Dane (01:02):
Yeah, oh, yeah you stole my dad joke.
I know I saw.
I just I saw you going into itand I just wanted to take it.

Josh (01:07):
It's the second time.
That's the second dad jokeinterruption you've done in two
podcasts, Chris.
I got to tell you, brother,you've got a great voice for
podcasts.
All right so we're here withChris Johnson.
He is the CEO and president ofthe Tonto Gravity Riders, which
is a nonprofit organization bornwith the mission to provide

(01:30):
volunteer resources to ease theburden of maintenance of the
Pinal Mountain Trail System forthe Tonto National Forest, but
they also do work in like kindof other places as well.
Yeah, chris, how are you doingtoday?
Buddy Doing good, you Doingawesome man.
I mean it's much better thatI'm drinking whiskey talking to
you guys about bikes and trailbuilding than I am working.

Dane (01:51):
We had like under 100 degrees today.

Josh (01:53):
That's awesome.

Dane (01:53):
That was great.

Josh (01:55):
Gorgeous.

Dane (01:56):
I know I'm so excited we're starting to go into good
weather.

Josh (02:00):
Chris, where are you at physically in the world?

I am in Mesa.

Dane (02:05):
Oh cool.

I'm out by the Haas Trail system and about 10
minutes away from NRA Pit.

Dane (02:12):
Nice, that's awesome.
I love that area man.

Josh (02:14):
That is awesome.
We very much enjoy Haas.
The last time I rode it we wentup and rode with Brian Mason,
the president of Pivot Brian.

Dane (02:25):
Yeah, he met us out there and brought some bikes and took
us, and took us on a tour of thee-bikes.
Yes, of course.

Josh (02:29):
Yeah, uh, not that we're exclusively e-bikers, but um.
I'm getting there that day.
That day I enjoyed that superexpensive pivot e-bike.
Yes, oh yeah, um, right onChris.

Well, hey, man, you know, just to start out,
maybe tell us in your words alittle bit about TGR, its
history and like what you thinkthe mission is mountain bikers

(03:06):
and basically it started out asa grass, grassroots, no dig, no
ride kind of group of people and, uh, when your options are
limited, sometimes you tend totake things uh kind of in your
own hands.
Uh, so probably started around2010, uh, when nra it which I'm
not sure if everybody's aware of, but it was a popular jumping

(03:28):
area out at the Haas trailsystem was under heavy scrutiny
and well, it was time to kind ofgo low key for a while, so kind
of disappeared and a lot ofpeople that were involved
disappeared with me.
A lot of people that wereinvolved disappeared with me and
we kind of disappeared into thewoods to kind of create a new

(03:49):
future and to make a new plan onhow to provide a certain type
of writing that had limitedoptions in the state and from
there it kind of grew and beforeyou knew it, 10 years had
passed and we had beenencountered by the Forest

(04:10):
Service and they had encounteredsome of these gyms that we may
talk about a little bit later,the construction and the work
that they actually wanted todevelop a working relationship
and utilize that amount ofeffort and uh dedication into

(04:31):
actually expanding and takingcare of the Pinnell mountain
trail system.

Dane (04:37):
Holy crap, that's amazing.
Like usually, it's just you getyour hands slapped and fingers
wagged at you and stuff, andthese guys are like you did a
good job.
Let's do more of this.
You know that's awesome.

Yeah, the, the, the goals from the early days
and it's.
It's one of those things thatyou'd sit around with your
buddies and you joke about itand you'd be like you know we'll
do something, but we'll do itso good that when that time
comes, that it kind of forces inthe direction of where we're at
today.
And it was kind of an eyeopener when it actually was like

(05:11):
one of those things where youjoke about, you hope dreams will
come true and eventually ithappens the exact same way that
you had envisioned.
You know, uh, kind of unfoldingwhen that time arose.

Dane (05:25):
That's, that's pretty amazing.
So we hit the NRA pit long timeago when, with no breaks and,
uh, I feel like it, it wasaround before Hawes, like oh
yeah, absolutely Uh yeah, my myfirst uh shovel full of dirt out
there was in 2005.
Oh, that makes sense, causethat's when we were racing and
then, uh, it was huge, like itwas.

(05:47):
That's where you went.
I mean you either found somerandom lot where kids had built
dirt jumps, you know in themiddle of the desert, or the nra
pit.
There was like nothing else inin all of arizona.

Josh (06:01):
So I want to double click on the nra pit for a second.
But before we do that, let's um.
So, chris, our, our podcast iskind of all around the world, so
I want to orient ourinternational audience and the
domestic audience that's not inthe desert southwest to the
towns and the areas that we'retalking about.
So Phoenix is the biggest cityin Arizona.
Mesa is a suburb of Phoenix.
That's just east of that.

(06:21):
In Mesa there's a couple ofgreat HAWs.
There's a couple of great trailsystems.
We talked about haws.
You talked about the NRA pit.
We'll, we'll double click onthat.
If you go a little bit, I thinkNortheast is it Northeast of of
no South Southeast of Phoenix,you'll get to globe.

Dane (06:37):
Uh yeah, God, is it North or South?

Josh (06:39):
I can't remember it's East of glow, it's.

Dane (06:40):
East of.

Josh (06:40):
Mesa, but I don't know.
And then if you go a littlesouth of there, you get to the
Pinal Mountain.

Dane (06:46):
Trail System.

Josh (06:46):
Pinal Mountains, but that's all in the Tonto National
Forest.

Dane (06:51):
Chris, how did I do with that?
Is that about right?

I did pretty good .
Tonto National Forest isactually I think don't quote me
on it like the fourth or fifthlargest national forest in the
United.

Dane (07:01):
States.
Wow, I didn't know that.
Yeah, I didn't know that either, In fact, I had no idea they
were the same, like I thoughtthey were now in Tonto.
I didn't either.

Josh (07:09):
And I was looking it up, I was like, why are these guys
called the Tonto gravity riders?
Yeah, they're taking care ofPennell.
And then I was like, oh shit,because it that's awesome.
Well, that makes a lot of sense.

(07:29):
I was going to ask you wherethe name came from.
All right, so, chris, doubleclick on the NRA jumps a little
bit for us.
What is that?
What was that?
How did that come to be?
What is it?

like.
There was no place in thevalley at the time outside of a
place that was called thePlayground, which was a lot that
was by an SRP plant off of Pimaand Princess, which is in
Scottsdale.
It had nothing on the east side.
And when I was getting backinto serious mountain biking I

(08:00):
was inspired and caught the bugof free riding and jumping
because of Darren Bearclaw andhis uh, his videos.
So it was like, oh God, we wantsomething like this somewhere.
We need to do something.
So you know, being kind ofyoung and naive I think I was in
my mid twenties at the time and, uh, we're like, oh, you know,

(08:21):
let's find a place to, you know,to kind of create something and
doing some research and stuff.
There had been some old schoolguys that also had dug out there
at the NRA pit, but it had beensomething that had kind of went

(08:41):
to the wayside and become inserious disrepair.
But at the time there was likefour jumps there on what's still
called A-line.
But at the time there was likefour jumps there on what's still
called A-Line.
So when me and one of my ridingbuddies showed up, we started
going out there and digging andfunny story is, we had built our
first feature out there, whichwas a ladder bridge kind of jump
out in the upper reaches of theNRA area out in the upper

(09:03):
reaches of the NRA area.
It wasn't no more than a weekafter we built that I had heard
from our local bike shop at thetime, dna Cycles.
Hey, the city of Mesa saysthere's something going on out
here on this side of themountain.
I was like, oh geez, what couldthat?

Josh (09:20):
be.
Oh, really Interesting.

It was like immediate but, you know, nothing
ever came of it.
And of course we continued togo out there and to build and
basically we were building aprogression area that we kept
adding on to and basicallywanted to have a place for
ourselves to progress and forothers to progress.
And the main thing is you can'thave a sport or develop a niche

(09:45):
of a sport if there aren'tother people that are interested
in it.
So you need to be able to havethat level of progression to
work.
You don't just build somethingthat you want and you want only,
but you know you need to buildstuff that attracts people out
and, you know, gives thatability for people to kind of
progress.
And uh, that actually startedkind of like a downhill free

(10:09):
ride kind of boom, becauseremember cactus bikes at the
time they were actually becomingoverwhelmed by the amount of
all mountain riders that werecoming in seeking downhill and
free ride rigs because theywanted to go jump and learn how
to jump out of the inter-ray pitshout out to fish.

Dane (10:29):
So yes, yeah yeah, so.

Josh (10:30):
Okay.
So you say darren bearcloth andI just see him jumping off.
Like you know, 40 foot cliffsand stuff.
I mean like how big is thestuff out there you guys built?

uh, there's everything that ranges from you,
you know, five, 10 foot gaps upto you know, got some 40 foot
gaps that are hidden out thereon the sides and some pretty
technical kind of uh hits that.
Uh, you know you, you have tohave some kind of skill to get
through the initial part of therun in, just to get into the
feature and then out of it.

(11:01):
Was, that was that first ladderone, that was that over like a
little uh little like a uh, itcame off of it, fed off of a
rock and actually jumped acrossa uh, uh, a wash.

Dane (11:15):
So yeah, yeah, I remember that man it's.
Is that still there?
I haven't been out there in awhile.

No, that was a flat bridge uh type uh
installation and at one point intime, when the Forest Service
was in a very disgruntled moodof headhunting, we had removed
it and replaced it with a dirtstep-up feature that later on I
actually came back and replacedit with a curved ramp and

(11:43):
replaced it with a curved ramp.
However, curved ramp didn'tlast as long as the original
feature, which had gone likeprobably eight years.
When you say curved ramp, youmean like a shark fin, no kind
of like a curved BMX jump.
So instead of just having likea bridge that's flat, going
across and you carry your speedoff of, this was like a ladder

(12:04):
bridge that had a curve at theend, so it was like a lip, kind
of like a street ramp, but builtin midair.

Josh (12:10):
Yeah, I got you, so is that?
Is that system still activetoday?

oh yeah, the the nra pit has actually finally is
adopted and a legit area withinthe haas trail system and has no
plans of going anywhere now.

Josh (12:24):
Wow, I didn't know that was part of how progressive.

Dane (12:27):
Is it now?
Is there like a, can you goslowly build up your skillset,
or is it all gaps right away?

No, no, there there's plenty of room for
building up your skillset fromjumps that have natural landings
to small tables that are, youknow, in different places out
there, and just a lot of naturalhits that give you the
confidence of going further andfurther, because you can land
pretty much anywhere.

Dane (12:54):
That's pretty amazing, man .
So when you did all this likeso, initially, you kind of went
out and just were like, hey, I'dlike to have something, and you
kind of made it happen.
And it wasn't really supposedto.
The land managers weren't likeon board and, uh, what, what do
you think like?
At what point did they just go?
Yeah, let's keep this.

(13:15):
You know like what?
Did you have an advocacy groupthat helped you, or was it just
you and a couple guys, or what?

you're talking about nra pin now yeah, yeah
yeah, well, there's kind of twosides, uh, two different stages
to it.
So the nra pit, as truckingalong 2008 is, like you know,
high heaven times.
You go out there.
There's 30 mountain bikers outthere at any given time, uh,
enjoying, and we actually startmaking headway.

(13:44):
And I had made contact with theForest Service and was
developing a relationship withthe rec ranger Mesa at the time,
and it looked like things weregoing to be promising.
So I initially started wasstarting a group called East
Valley Mountain BikersAssociation some long thing in

(14:06):
order to be able to work withthem in working towards
legitimizing NRA.
We were moving in a gooddirection and we had a group of
riders that wouldn't stop tryingto modify and add new stuff out
there when our agreement was,hey, we'll stop everything

(14:29):
except for maintenance to makethis stuff happen, kind of build
the relations and the trust.
We did a big NRA cleanup wherebasically, we raped the whole
bottom of the pit, sifted itthrough sifters, got out the
glass, the bowl of casings, youname it, the rest of the garbage
, and things were going quitewell.
However, this other group ofmountain bikers didn't heed and

(14:54):
didn't have, I guess, therespect for the process that was
happening to make that arealegitimate.
And unfortunately we also had awreck ranger change and this is
one thing that I found with theforest service over the years
is, if somebody changes officeof position, the new person that

(15:16):
comes in may not see eye to eyewith what was going on with the
previous and can absolutelyjust crush it and basically it
died.
They bulldozed the inner a pit.
Uh, our guys, we took off, wedisappeared, we're like okay,
we're done, that's kind of done.
And then, uh, that's when, uh,the pinell mountain thing

(15:38):
started and ton of gravitywriters was born around 2010 in
lieu of that, because didn'tmatter if we were at Hawes or if
we were up at the Pinnells, wewere still in the Tonto National
Forest and we were stillbasically that was the focus was
riding in Tonto areas all theway up until 2020.

(16:03):
And that's when, like causetrail Alliance had started
getting their getting theirfooting and started moving with
getting the Haas trail systemadopted, get new trails and
stuff like that.
And during that process is whenthe NRA pit was truly adopted.

(16:23):
The revival of NRA pit happenedin a bad snow year, I think it
was like 2017 or 2018.
And I was bored and went backout there to see how bad the
damage looked, after they hadbulldozed it and honestly, they
just kind of didn't reallybulldoze it.

(16:44):
They dismantled and all thematerial was still there.
So I was like, okay, well,let's start throwing shovels
again.
Within probably a few weeks Ihad a majority of the stuff that
was, uh, destroyed kind ofrebuilt back up, which kind of
brought it back into thelimelight, which kind of made it

(17:05):
a thing that needed to be takencare of or something needed to
be figured for the area, becauseobviously in the Forest
Service's eyes it wasn't goinganywhere and it had risen from
the dead.
So, with the help of HTA andsome of their gravity riders

(17:29):
that were also loosely relatedto our group, kind of pushed to
make things happen, and that wassomething that they worked hard

(17:54):
at and still work hard atkeeping it, you know, keeping it
as a riding place too.

Dane (18:00):
whole area has been kind of like green lit to do some
really fun stuff and it's not,you know, some wide open, like,
you know, tame trail for youknow yeah, it's got lots of
progression.

Josh (18:15):
It's a flow trail.
They allow e-bikes there's.
There's really techie stuff.
There's really techie stuff.
There's mellow stuff.

Dane (18:20):
It's got it all yeah, and so it's really cool to see it's.
You know, I I know in our areawe have a lot of wildcat trails
that are have been here foreverand we all ride them and and
they're starting to get adopted.

Josh (18:33):
Finally slowly, yeah, especially on mount graham yeah,
well, and in mount lemon soyeah, mount lemon and uh.

Dane (18:39):
So it's kind of, you know, you don't want to encourage
people to go out and buildtrails without permission but at
the same time if you have aland manager that realizes that
it's a good, viable place forrecreation and people like it
and they are open to that andthey, you know they kind of work
, figure out a way to make ithappen, that is really
encouraging.

Josh (19:00):
So tell us a little bit, so you know the time that they
bulldozed it.
And then you guys, effectively,2010 established TGR and you
went out into the PinalMountains First of all how far
is that from Mesa For me?

I am at 7,800 feet, in about an hour and 15
minutes from my doorstep.

Dane (19:18):
Okay, yeah, so it's not too bad yeah.

Josh (19:22):
Not too bad, and then so tell us how that went and tell
us like what the trails are likeout there.

The Pinellas Mountains was actually thanks to
Ray Cosmic.
Ray's book was one of my firstareas that I went to.

Dane (19:36):
I had that book Me too.
Yeah.

Went to for big mountain descents and, you know,
started riding up there,probably in you know 2005 and
stuff, and fell in love with itbecause it was like such a
vastness of mountain, like whenyou're on the mountain in middle
, you actually feel like you arein the middle of nowhere and
you know, being close to theValley and, uh, originally I'm

(20:01):
from Colorado, so I'm I'm usedto the mountains and being out
in the desert.
I was kind of missing my fix.
And well, I found my fix therewhen we had disappeared in 2010,
.
Up that direction was basicallykind of had a dream that I
wanted to take, like all thefeatures that had been built out

(20:23):
in array and, instead of havingall these different lines
everywhere, you squeeze thatinto one line, one trail, and uh
, have, uh, you know somethingthat uh provided an extended uh,
uh duration of fun and uhchallenge.
So basically spent a bunch oftime up there and if was going

(20:48):
to do it, was going to do itright, which meant there was a
lot of time that went into doingmy own kind of ecological
studies, finding out, makingsure that I didn't repeat the
mistakes that lots of trailbuilders in the state of arizona
had previously made.
Uh, for instance, don't buildthrough an owl pack.

Josh (21:09):
Yeah yeah, endangered owls , that's.
That's a big deal here, becausethey made they made, I guess in
the summertime yep and itcauses you, know you.

Dane (21:18):
The forest service has to respect that yeah and then it
causes a lot of problems.
You know, either delays oryou're not allowed to, or you
have certain times when you cango out.
So so.

Josh (21:29):
So, chris, have you been formally trained in trail
building, or just figure thisout as you were going along?

uh, a lot of it was, uh, figuring out, you know,
figuring out as you go along.
Of course there's lots of bookslike natural trail surface
designs and emBA books of earlydays, but they give you concepts
.
What it doesn't give you is asite-to-site basis.
So really it comes down todepending on your location.

(21:57):
While certain principles work,the method of getting to that
outcome is much different indifferent environments.
So a lot of it actually hascome from early days out at HAWS
and early days at NRA andbasically when taking that step

(22:19):
was also taking the step tolearn quite a bit more.
Before you know, just making anugly scar down the side of the
mountain that turns into a twofoot deep channel, uh, erosion
nightmare.

Josh (22:32):
Yeah, Once the once the monsoons come.

Dane (22:34):
Yeah, so you, you gotta have an eye for it, but you
gotta follow some basics.
It sounds like.
So yeah, yeah.

Josh (22:41):
So so tell us a little bit about the trails out there at
Pinal and I had mentionedearlier that you've got four on
your website that you've listedTelephone Six Shooter Ice Canyon
and Keller.
Maybe tell us about those.
And then I know you've got someothers that you think may get
adopted in the master plan inthe future.

Yeah, most of the trails on the Pinnells.
You got your main ones, whichis going to be Six Shooter.
That is the most renowned one.
Everybody's pretty much heardof it.
Whether they can put a place towhere Six Shooter is is a
different story, but they'veheard of it.

(23:25):
The peak and run to the northend of the mountain and give you
a range of anywhere betweenseven miles and five miles of uh
riding to uh get down themountain.
And we're talking.
You start, start up at 7 800feet and you finish off down
around like 4 500 feet in the4,000 range and you go through
quite a few different life zoneson each one of these trails,

(23:48):
from anything from you seeaspens at the top and you're
kicking cactus at the bottom,which is really cool to go
through all those different lifezones as you go, as you ride a
trail, just because it providesquite a unique experience in
each one of those life zones andvarying uh trail

(24:10):
characteristics.
Six Shooter is by far the mostpopular due to its length and
its notoriety.
It's been the trail that's seenprobably the most amount of
trail maintenance over the yearsand even previous to our
involvement, which meant it wasalways the one that you know you

(24:33):
had the best chance of gettingdown without crawling over a ton
of trees.

Josh (24:38):
So, um, you know, tell us, like like if, uh, if, you're a
prospective rider coming up fromTucson, like tell me about the
trails, like what are thedifficulty of the trails?
What would I experience on six?
Or what would I experience onon ice house, what would I
experience on Kelner?
I know that I can see on trailforks that I think I think six

(24:58):
shooter and ice house, at leastin the trail house, in the trail
fork system, they've they'vegraded as black, and then Kelner
they've graded as blue.

Yeah, so I also do the the trail forks,
maintenance, so some of that isuh, has been on me.
At one point in time they hadsix shooters, double black, and
ice house is double black andcounter is black.
But uh and and honestly, uh,you know, uh, ratings on the

(25:27):
trails and the panels actuallyare more, I want to say, speed
related than they are a lot oftimes technical related.
We've ridden, you know, in theearly days I've ridden a hard
tail down six shooter and Iwould have called it a double
black back then.
At this day and age I woulddefinitely consider like six

(25:50):
shooter is a solid block and thereason why it's black is there
are areas where there's a lot ofoff camber, skinny single track
that meanders on, uh, on thehillsides, the rocky technical
features that are short-livedwithin certain areas, depending
if they're steps, check dams orjust uh erosion kind of features

(26:12):
.
Uh, I would expect, you know,if it's first time riding
six-shooter, you know it'dprobably take you an hour, hour
and a half to get down.
If you didn't have anymechanicals or anything like
that, I would say that anybodycould ride them, just a matter
of how fast or how much of thetechnical features that you

(26:35):
choose to walk or to navigatearound.

Josh (26:42):
So, chris, we joke that like there's Arizona blacks and
then there's blacks everywhereelse in the country and our
blacks in Arizona are more likedouble blacks in other parts of
the country.

Dane (26:53):
Yeah, I feel like you're maybe one of the first people
we've talked to that actuallyhas rated trails, so like do you
?
Do you have like a way thatlike, do they give you
guidelines?
Like, if you're maintaining thetrail forks, for that do they
say okay, you have to have.
I heard once that if it's afeature, like if it's a drop
above like 12 inches, you haveto go to a different rating or

(27:15):
something.
Is there some guidelines theygive you?

Well, not really, you know giving guidelines.
You kind of choose whether youwant to use, like, an EMBA type
system to rate trails or if youwant to use a system that's
based on the area so yeah, solike uh, how did you, how did
you come up with that like uh,do you have like criteria?

Dane (27:41):
uh, that like it.
So I guess, I, I guess what Iwant to ask is can you have one
feature in the trail that willmake it a black?
But if that feature wasn'tthere, would it be a blue kind
of deal or no?

not necessarily no uh, one feature isn't gonna
dictate the entire trails uhrating.
You know if, if you have atrail that is the majority of it
is is green, except for it'sgot three blue bits, and out of
those three blue bits it's likethree percent bits and out of
those three blue bits it's like3% of the trail.
Those are just those typicalareas, that where you would have

(28:19):
that variation.
But the goal is the overallfeel of the trail from top to
bottom.

Dane (28:28):
That's that.
That is, I find that superfascinating Cause.
Again, like Josh said, we, youknow, uh, you know, I raced
downhill and we go from here toother places and the Arizona
riders always do well, because,except when there's roots in
water, but we always dirt, yeah,yeah, and actual dirt.

Yeah.

Dane (28:50):
So, um, because we're so used to this roughness that
we're on and then you go to ablack somewhere else, like a.
Even some of the stuff in SanDiego we ride is not not super
hard compared to here.
So it's kinda.
It's kinda cool to hear howpeople figure out what makes a
trail a podcast.

Josh (29:05):
You know, uh, fan but uh, there's a podcast called trail
effect and it's spelled a E, F,F, E, C, T.
I don't know why he spells itthat way, but it does the trail
effect.
And uh, a great podcast fortrail builders, uh, trail
advocacy groups, anyoneinterested in, like, in, in, in

(29:27):
kind of the art and science andand and work around trails.
Uh, I think Josh Blum is the um, is the podcast host there, but
he's got a great episode on aon a group of guys I want to say
they're from Norway, maybe fromSweden but the European.
European and they've developedsomething they call the ITRS the
international trail ratingsystem, and they've got like a.
They rated on four differentgrades and they're trying to get

(29:49):
it.
Like you know, adopted prettyinteresting podcast and they
talk a lot about trail ratingand how it goes, and one of the
things that they talk about isthis scenario where every
municipality wants to show thatthey have diversity of their
trails, so they want to havegreen, blues, blacks, double
blacks, they want to haveeverything, and so in some areas
, if the topography or the landfeatures or the trails

(30:12):
themselves just don't lend it toit, sometimes they'll have
something marked like black.
And it's like we would be likethat's a green trail.

Dane (30:17):
Like what are you doing?

Josh (30:21):
Because they want to show like they want to show that
they've got diversity in theirarea and so that can really
impact how trails are great orhow rated.
And it's so hard to go to tell,you know, city to city, state
to state, country to country,like what you're actually in for
yeah, it's definitely.

Dane (30:34):
it's always confusing.
Whenever we go somewhere, it'salways a question of is this a
real black or is this?

Josh (30:41):
like a blue, yeah for sure .

Dane (30:44):
So we used to ride Six Shooter, probably 2005.
I don't know if you were outthere then, but I had a buddy
who lived in Globe and I don'tthink he built that trail, but
he definitely wrote it he's theone that showed me and uh, so,
and then I wrote it recently andit's so much different.
You can tell the amount of workthat's been put into it that

(31:04):
I'm sure you guys are doing.
Chris.

Josh (31:08):
So so what about the other trails, chris?
What about?
What about, uh, ice house andkilner?

So, yeah, yeah, out of uh all those trails, uh,
ice house, that is adownhiller's favorite.
That is down, pure down.
There is no climbing within.
Uh the ice house trail itself,it is steep, it has some sharp
switchbacks that have been kindof worked over the years to be a
little bit more bike-renewableand it's great.

(31:38):
I mean, it's in a dark canyon,there's aspens, the whole top is
aspens, like this time of yearright now.
Ice House and Six Shooter arejust showing the colors and
coming in to probably peakcolors within probably the next
week and a half or two weeks upthere, especially with this

(31:58):
moisture system and this coldfront that's getting ready to
push through.

Dane (32:02):
finally, yeah, yeah.
How long do you think we havetill that thing's got snow on it
?

Well, it varies year to year.
A long time ago we used toabandon the mountain in the
middle of June because of heatand we wouldn't come back until
about September If we were luckyand it was still warm, and then
around December, january wewould see snow up there and a

(32:30):
lot of times people wouldactually stop riding it up there
around mid-November and notcome back till March.
I have found personally beingon the mountain a ton for the
last 14 years is it's really hitor miss.
If snow flies, most of the timeit's only a few weeks before

(32:51):
you're able to get back in again.
It is unless we get some reallyheavy cold fronts and snow
years that actually gets lockedout until about March when it
thaws back out.
But we've been pretty luckyover the last five years and I
think out of those maybe notbeen able to ride up there a

(33:12):
total of like four or five weeksout of those years combined
it's arizona still, but we doget some we get some bad weather
sometimes.

Josh (33:22):
Yeah, yeah, up in the high elevation yeah sure so what
about keldner chris?

keldner canyon that one is is probably the more
mellow, tame trail on themountain.
Its grade's more favorable.
It has a little bit of pedalingin it, but nothing like the
famous six-shooter hike-a-bike,so it provides more saddle time
for a lot of riders.

(33:47):
After the Telegraph fire a lotof the manzanita has been burned
off so it's quite exposed.
So it has quite a differentcharacter than, say, six-year
where you're going from Right inthe woods and in open areas in
Manzanita.
Kellner Canyon Trail is prettyexposed from probably a mile

(34:14):
down all the way down to thebottom.
But it's a wide trail, wideopen, fast.
It has some rocky bits andtechnical.
The most technical portion ofKelner is just the top half mile
that traverses through adrainage that had gotten beat up
by post-fire floods prettyheavily.

(34:36):
But we rebuilt that about ayear ago and it's actually by
Trail Forks.
It's been getting more use thanSix-Year has.
That's cool.

Josh (34:48):
Oh, wow interesting.

Dane (34:49):
Yeah, are these marked or easy to find, or Trail Forks?
Is really the way to go, or isthere any signage?

There's signage and a lot of the signage has
been replaced on the mountainand some of the inaccuracies
with mileage and junctions havebeen also fixed.
But Trail Forks is pretty spoton too Cool, that's awesome.
That's awesome.

Josh (35:10):
So I noticed that TGR won a 2013 USDS Forest Service
Southwest Region Service Awardfor Citizen Stewardship and
Partnerships.
Was that for your work in Pinal?
That definitely is Well, tellus about that process.
How did that come, did they?

just contact you and let you know, or did you
guys have to submit something,or how did that work?
No, I was contacted, probablyabout four months ago, in
preparation for this, that theyhad planned on awarding us that
award.

Josh (35:45):
Oh, that's pretty awesome.

Dane (35:46):
Yeah, that is really awesome.
I mean, I got to tell you likeit's like a Cinderella story,
you've got going on there.
Like you know, you just startedlike kind of making stuff cause
people wanted it, and then allof a sudden land managers
recognized not only the the needand the want but the talent,
and then now you're winningawards.
That's pretty amazing, man.
So that's really impressive.

Josh (36:09):
We haven't shot, we haven't talked about this in the
podcast, but I just want togive a quick shout out to Nathan
Gordon as well, from STMB, whoalso won one of these awards for
his work down on Mount Grahamhave you been to Mount Graham
yet, Chris.
Yeah.

Dane (36:25):
I saw James down there.
I was going to say I know Jamesis a fan and he's done a lot of
work there, so I didn't know ifhe'd drug you down there yet.
So it's a pretty cool trail.

Oh yeah, no, that's a big mountain as well
and has a bit more of the bigmountain field than, say,
pinnell does, mainly because ithas the old growth and kind of
has that older character to it,right, yeah?

Dane (36:52):
Now I want to talk to him about my favorite, which is
sunrise.
All right, go for it because,because you took all of these
skills that you learned in theserelationships and you, I.
How did you bring them tosunrise?
How did you get involvedworking at sunrise ski resort up
in in the white mountains?

oh hi, I had been trying for so long to get into
Sunrise back before the majorityof mountain bikers had kind of
rode off the place.
Torise got the perfectmanagement in place that has
been able to make things happen.
And I had been disheartened inthe past because I had

(37:49):
approached them and say, hey, Ido have all this experience, do
have all these supporters andthese people, let us help you.
And they weren't taking any ofthe bait at any point in time
and when they finally did, theyweren't willing to support that.
So it ended up not happening.
And it was when Brian and Toddboth came on board and a lot of

(38:17):
it goes to Brian Zonker up there.
James had always had a foot inthe door, was well-known up
there because he's been going upthere for half a decade or so
more than I have, half a decadeor so more than I have.

(38:42):
And he, uh, he came to me,approached me at work one day
and said, hey, ryan says, uh,they're not going to turn down
any, uh, any, free, uh, free,help on the mountain.
And I was like, hmm, I was like, well, I guess we'll try this
again.
And I decided, well, it's kindof one of those things, either
you go big or you go home, kindof deal.
I told James.

(39:04):
I was like, well, relay toBrian.
I was like tell him I willdesign, build and fund them a
green flow trail, and that'swhat turned into Yage right.
Yep, that's what turned intoYage, and the reason for my
proposal of not saying hey,let's build the gnarliest black

(39:26):
trail with the coolest jumps andthe raddest features is Sunrise
, as an area was lacking.

Josh (39:36):
Was lacking.
That was lacking moreaccessible trail for riders with
less skill.

Dane (39:40):
Yeah, it's always been a hard, hard mountain.

Exactly so.
You know, the story with mostpeople is people take their
friends there.
The friends ride that Sunrise.
The first time they get theirbutts handed to them, they have
a rough time.
They get eaten up by themountain, they get eaten up by
fall line trails and they nevercome back yeah, yeah, that's
true don't never even mountainbike again, because yes, it's

(40:05):
traumatic so the idea was isneed to build something at
sunrise that draws in riders,riders that provide fun and give
that ability for people thatcome to have a place to progress
on.
They could start off on thistrail, get used to the mountain,

(40:26):
get used to the dirt, themarbles, the dust, whatever it
may be, and would bring themback.
I've taken both my kids toSunrise in the past and would
bring them back.
I've taken both my kids tosunrise in the past and we're
talking like the years 2008,2009, 10.
No-transcript child ridertrying to enjoy themselves at

(40:50):
sunrise wasn't really going tohappen?

Dane (40:52):
no, there's no way.
I mean, I'm, I'm taking my kidsnow and if it weren't for yage,
I I wouldn't take them.
They would not be on thatmountain but that trail is.
But they loved it, they did andthey're getting so into it
because of the, you know, the,the um accessibility to an
entry-level rider, you know, andit's still fun, like you know I

(41:14):
had a great time.

Josh (41:15):
You got a lot of features and stuff off the sides that we
rode so.
So, chris, we did a family tripwhere dane's family, my family
and then two other nick andeddie and all those people
brought their kids and their.
Their age range from like nineto what's jilly like 13 years
old and man.
They just absolutely loved it,man.

Dane (41:34):
Yeah, it was, it was great and that's you know.
We we talked a little bitbefore this podcast started
recording and I had mentioned toyou that at first.
You know, as somebody who'sbeen going to sunrise for
decades, you know.
Oh, by the way, I wanted toshout out to James we we've
talked, mentioned his name acouple of times James Van Horst.
He's, um, been kind of afixture at sunrise for almost as

(41:56):
long as I've been going upthere and, um, he's been helping
you.
He's, uh, what is it?
He is a trail volunteer crewleader and director and director
, uh, for TRG.

Josh (42:08):
Yeah, how'd you get hooked up?
How'd you get hooked up?
How'd you get hooked up withjames chris?

yeah, oh, I, I met james a long time ago and
mainly it was through the, youknow the, through the short bus,
yeah, so the short bus, yeah,that's his that's his nickname,
so short bus, james.

Dane (42:22):
So okay, so a little little background on.
James is, uh, one of the theonly places we could practice
downhill in Arizona, uh, wasSouth mountain and James had
this rickety he still has itrickety old uh airport bus that
he's converted.

Josh (42:37):
He's got a short bus.
He's got a short bus.
Yeah, I thought there wasanother reason.
You guys were calling him shortbus.
James, I was like he's sonormal to me and he has been
like this guy.

Dane (42:46):
I mean, he is, you know, he he's pretty much a mountain
bike saint in my eyes.
He has been driving that buswith a trailer and shuttling
people in South Mountain for Imean I always say decades, but
it's no joke at least 20 years,if not more.

Josh (43:04):
Wow.

Dane (43:04):
I can't believe.
The bus is still going.

Josh (43:06):
So you met him through catching a ride on his bus.

Yeah, yep, yeah, actually, yeah, one.
So you met him through, throughcatching a ride on his bus.
Yeah, yep, yeah, actually yeah,and I probably met him or it's
probably like 2006 or somethinglike that uh, of course, uh, you
know searching for places,right, it's like, oh, you got
south mountain, you can ridethere, and there's this guy that
drives this bus up.
You give him a donation and,you know, get a ride up to the
top and go down and uh, uh,that's kind of where I met him.

(43:30):
I've driven that bus, uh,multiple times in order for him
to get his runs into yeah, whichis cool, that's.

Dane (43:37):
That's one of the things that's cool about james is he's
always doing this for otherpeople and then he gets one or
two runs in and somebody willdrive, you know that's cool um,
yeah, I think my first contacthigh was from that bus.
Uh, so cause you get hot boxlike crazy.

Josh (43:56):
So tell us more about sunrise.
I want to keep double clicking.

Dane (43:58):
Oh yeah, so what else did you guys shout out?
But then we were talking aboutYage which is amazing.

Josh (44:02):
So so what else have you guys done up there?

Um, well, yeah, it's actually.
We're finished up with a yearthree now and done tons.
We built Jage, which was quitean undertaking and actually the
first machine build that I hadbeen involved in, because I've
always built things by hand.
My building curriculum toinclude machines, because that's

(44:35):
all plays part in a ton ofgravity, writers, master plan
and stuff which we can get intoa little bit later.

Dane (44:39):
Well you, you went out and bought the machine right, Like
you didn't just borrow it orrent it, Didn't you buy one?

Well, the the first year I did a go fund me to
cover the costs that werecoming out of my pocket for the
machine rental.

Dane (44:53):
Yeah.

And we actually did pretty good.
The GoFundMe was able to getenough that actually paid for
the machine rental Nice, whichwas really cool, and we had a
lot of mountain bike support.
Sunrise, uh had put in 1500towards the GoFundMe for that

(45:15):
year, which was the biggestinput of uh anybody that had put
in.
And it wasn't until the secondyear at sunrise that uh, I went
out and decided okay, this isdefinitely what I want to do and
I definitely want to be able touse a machine up in the Pinell
Mountains.
So I kind of even though notfinancially off, I decided I

(45:37):
would take the hit on buying anexcavator.
I was lucky and I found a goodlow hour excavator that I was
able to pick up with the trailer.
However, sometimes some thingsare too good to be true.
Uh-oh, that was one of thoseinstances.

(45:59):
Come to find out after the endof the sunrise year that that
excavator was stolen oh, no way,oh wow, it was stolen.
Oh no way, oh wow.
It was a guy had rented it fromHome Depot and he had
immediately sold it, and the guythat I bought it off of, which

(46:19):
lived in a million dollar homeand had a yard full of
construction equipment, sold itto me, and then it wasn't until
a month after it was due backfrom rental that Home Depot
finally reported it stolen.
And long story short, they cameand collected it from me and,
based on everything that went on, I basically had no recourse.

Dane (46:43):
Oh, man, that is wow.
I had no idea I was.
I was so like envious that yougot this machine and you're out
there and just living the dream.
And what a sucky situation, man, I'm sorry to hear that.

Yeah, that was a painful lesson there.
So I didn't let that sway meand we were coming up on this
season, which was season threeof Sunrise, and I didn't want to
rent a machine and I still wantto do my pinell mountain stuff.
So I bit the bullet and boughta brand new machine directly

(47:19):
from the dealership.
Wow, so that way?
Uh, well, there's no, there'sno questions.

Dane (47:24):
Yeah, you know, it's not.
That's crazy, because it's notlike you register those things
or whatever.
They don't need a license plate.

You're not driving them on the street, so
yeah right, they are just apiece of construction equipment.
Buying a shovel like nobody'slike you know.

Dane (47:41):
So that is crazy man, uh.

So that brought us to year three and, of course,
the machine I had up there thisyear was a brand new machine
that I got a beat up on, andover the last three years at
Sunrise we built a Jog.
A Identity Crisis followed.

Josh (48:01):
the next year Also a great trail.

Yeah, really enjoyed that had enough time
left in the season that uhdecided to do a complete rebuild
of pinedale and turned it intopinedale flow trail, which it is
now.

Dane (48:17):
Yeah, make it more fun, more green that's the trail that
turner always calls to base,because it used to have a sign
that said to base so going tothe base of the thing, after
you're coming out and you goback down, yeah, it's the
switchbacks and the little biglittle jumps yeah that's cool,
yeah, so that's actually calledpinedale.
They changed the signage so Ijust went up there this last

(48:40):
sunday so it says pinedale nowyeah, and so the signage is
getting better.
And I think we talked to colby.
We talked to colby, who's doinguh colby, you know colby land?

Josh (48:47):
yeah, absolutely.

Dane (48:49):
Yeah, and so he was saying they were working on their
signage and they are.
You can see a bunch of newsigns up and uh.
But my son has called Pinedaleto base forever, cause that's
what it used to say.
You know, it's interesting,chris.

Josh (49:00):
So, like we got turned on to Colby through Instagram cause
he's pretty prolific in his inhis posting up there, and then
we went we actually were upthere when we took the family
trip and we reached out to Colbyand we said, hey, we're up here
, can we?
You know, we'd love to do apodcast with you.
And so we recorded one withColby and put that out two, two
or three episodes ago.
And he turned us on to you guysand said, hey, you got to talk

(49:23):
to tunnel gravity guys.
They're like doing a lot ofstuff up here.
You, yeah, it's cool how youguys have divided and conquered
that mountain.

Dane (49:34):
He's doing his thing.
He's building lips and jumpsand kind of these sculpted
features, and you guys areactually going into the forest
and creating actual trails andnew, actual trails and he's then
adding on to those.

It's really cool trails and he's then, you know,
adding on to those.
It's really cool.
So, yeah, eventually, uh,hopefully someday that we'll
actually work together on thesame types of trail and have two
different machines, uh, youknow, building something like a
I'd love a hungry hippo styletrail.
Oh, yeah, oh that would be fun.

Josh (50:05):
You know what that hungry hippo so that Fire.

Dane (50:08):
Yeah, you've been to Angel Fire, I'm guessing.

Oh yeah, that was that when, back when uh, most
uh mountain bikers had basicallyrode off sunrise for quite some
time, Angel Fire became mysecond home and I basically was
making weekend drive trips.
I was doing seven day weekstays.
I think, uh, in the 10 years Iwas going to angel fire, uh, on

(50:34):
average I would get about 60days oh my gosh, that's like my
dream is to spend 60 days atangel fire.

Josh (50:42):
I know I've had years where I've spent maybe a dozen
days and not even that maybe 10days there, but I've never done
more than that, yeah just onetrip this year, unfortunately
yeah, at one point in time Ifelt like a local there because
I rode there so much.

Oh, wow, that's crazy.

Dane (50:56):
So, um, I, you built a new trail that I rode.
Um, it's really new, it'scalled squirrel catcher and it
it took us.
Um, I'm trying to think so wego past yage and then we
basically get onto squirrelcatcher and it took us over and
kind of intersected to Loma Zona, if I remember correctly, it
spits out at the Geronimo liftdown, so you can take Batro or

(51:22):
Loma Zona.
Yay, yeah, and that was my firsttime on that mountain.
So basically Sunrise has twopeaks with two big high speed
quads during the winter, butduring the mountain bike season
they only run one high speedquad.
This year, this year, and thenColby was telling us that there

(51:42):
we were pretty sure that they'replanning on next year trying to
open the second mountain.

Josh (51:47):
Is that?
Is that your understanding?

Dane (51:48):
as well, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.
There was talks early in theseason of possibly opening up a
lift or something up to ApachePeak so that way riders can
access the raw trails that Brianand his crew cut in.
And during that the gearsstarted turning in my head and

(52:10):
was like, okay, you know,outside of what we're already
doing, what other things can wedo in the future?
And you know, looking at thebig picture and kind of like the
overall plan for the mountain,and when it was mentioned that
they possibly wanted to run thatlift, it became kind of
logistics, okay, do they run thelift from cyclone base to

(52:34):
geronimo and the geronimo up tothe top, or find a way to be
able to get riders to thegeronimo lift?
And that's kind of where it uhcame to mind to uh replace
boccio.
Uh, boccio, upper boccio hadalready been taken off of the
sunrise map map because itbasically was a maintenance

(52:54):
nightmare, erased off themountain due to erosion and out
in the open.
So the idea was to be able toreplace Bacho while providing an
option that would actually takemountain bikers to this lift in
order for them to ride up.
So the plan is, as far as Iknow, and it still seems to be

(53:18):
in place and it's more of asunrise thing is that you'll be
able to ride up the sunrise peak.
You'll be able to ride down andif you take squirrel catcher
and reason why I called itsquirrel catcher is wanted it to
give you a taste of what theraws were like before you got
there.
So if you don't get downsquirrel catcher clean, you feel

(53:39):
uneasy because it's off camber,it's loamy, it's not built up
like park standard style flowtrail, then Patchy Mountain
might not be the place for youto continue exploring the loma
zona that we did the lower partwhere squirrel catcher comes in,
and it was beautiful.

Dane (53:55):
It's along a creek and it's definitely different.
I know, uh, colby had mentionedhow it's different, different
riding yeah and uh, it'sdefinitely different over there
and you know, on sunrise mountside it's, you know, a lot of uh
, drainage, a lot of.
If you go onto the blacks andstuff, it's pretty eroded and
it's nasty to tell you the truth.
And then you have, you know,like Yage and Identity, which

(54:17):
are built and really greattrails for getting people into
it, and then you go over thereand it's very different.
It wasn't easy, but it wasn'thard and but the trail was just
totally different.

Josh (54:29):
So, chris, you mentioned that you guys had named this
trail squirrel catcher andthat's actually a common tour, a
common term that we've comeacross which he just yeah, he
just said that the trailbuilders use.

Dane (54:38):
Did you just say that?

Josh (54:39):
Well, so what he said was that it's he they named a
squirrel catcher, because itgets you ready for the type of
writing that you're going to bedoing so oftentimes, and maybe,
chris, I'll have you like, like,have you instead of me, have
you, because our listeners keeptelling us to shut the F up and
let the guest talk.

Dane (54:57):
We wouldn't do this if we didn't talk a lot.

Josh (55:01):
Right, what's in general like what is the concept of a
squirrel catcher and how dotrail builders use it on trails?

So the concept of a squirrel catcher comes from
basically a lot of trailbuilders.
You would get people going downtrails where they don't belong.
So the idea of a squirrelcatcher is actually a feature
that would be the gateway tosaid trail.
So you would put your hardestfeature on a lot of trails would

(55:32):
be your first feature.
If you can't get past it, thereain't no business in riding the
rest of the trail.
So basically it's.
You know the squirrel catcheris the way to knock off unneeded
riders.

Dane (55:44):
Uh, that don't belong that way uh, or just tell them, tell
them what's coming, you know.
So they're like if, if you'rewalking the first feature, like
when we did portal trail andwe're on um in moab, uh, when we
were on gold rim trail therewas a, a feature, just like he's
saying, and if it says right onthe sign, if you walk this

(56:05):
feature, you probably shouldn'tride this trail.

Josh (56:08):
Well, hey, like if those are squirrel catchers, I am the
squirrel.

Thanks for catching me and keeping me from
dying man, yeah so that was kindof the idea of why that trail
got called that, because itactually the trail acts like the
entire trail acts as thecatcher for the apache mountain
so is apache?

Josh (56:30):
is apache like rougher than oh yeah, just more
technical, or what do you thinkit's?

definitely more technical, it's steeper, it's,
uh, you know, old school kind oftrail, built in a new school
attitude.
Uh, they use those trails forthe bme courses oh, did they the
big mountain enduro.

Josh (56:49):
Oh, no way that's awesome.

So that kind of already gives you an idea that,
uh, these aren't your, you knowrun-of-the-mill blacks.
Uh, and double blacks comingdown that side of the, the
mountain I've been putting itoff because I didn't want to
climb.

Josh (57:05):
You know I didn't want to climb up to the top and then go
down.

Dane (57:07):
I did, I actually didn't write it no, I ended up hurting
my hand because I was going tolast two runs.
I was going to do that mountainand uh ended up hurting my hand
and like ruining that.
But uh, but now I gotta get.
I.
I only have like one moreweekend before they're closed.
Uh, this year right is itreally?

Josh (57:23):
is it just this?

Dane (57:24):
weekend, uh, this weekend, and maybe maybe two, maybe two
yeah, uh, saturday october 26this the last day.
They're not going to be open.
On the 27th sunday they are notgoing to be open on the sunday
following that.

Josh (57:36):
Wow, that's crazy shit so I'll go up this weekend you
should.

Dane (57:40):
There's a bunch of people going up I wish I could, but I
can't.

So that's your warm weather, dear.

Josh (57:45):
Yeah, yeah, I got no problem with that man, I'm like
I'm still wearing shorts and,like you know, a bikini, bikini
down here in Tucson right now.

Dane (57:52):
Jesus.

Josh (57:53):
So so, chris, we've kind of we haven't talked, talked in
any detail about about Tonto,gravity and the other people
that are in that organizationand how that organization is is
working.
So maybe you could like doubleclick on that a little bit.

Tell us a little bit more about Tonto Gravity,
your other members and like, andhow it works.
Uh, our, uh our main coreconsists of uh people that have
been around with us for a longtime.
So James is uh within, uhwithin our core.
Uh.
Another buddy, daniel Kim Kimmy.
He's in with our Corps.
He's been actually buildingwith me since 2005.

(58:35):
So he's been around for a verylong time and the majority of
our people are volunteers A lotof people that we've just made
friends with and uh continue tocome back, and a lot of people
that are multi-faceted, uh,either riders or people that are

(58:59):
just uh hikers.
Uh, is?

Josh (59:03):
is matt shannon still involved?

yep, maddie boy, maddie boy and kristel Kristen
yeah.
She's a relative newcomerthat's kind of joined us in the
last couple years and has founda nice outlet for getting up on
the mountain and being able togive back while expanding her

(59:27):
riding horizons.
She's mainly from a next nextsea kind of racing background
and she's getting into the, therougher stuff yep, getting into
the the rougher stuff and thatthe gravity side of things yeah,
that's what I'm doing too.

Josh (59:43):
Dane keeps pushing me, like you can do this.
I'm like no, I can't.
Yeah, he's like you can do this.

Dane (59:47):
We got to do a whole podcast no, I can't progression
I'm getting better, though Ithink I'm getting better.
Well, you said you walk most ofbugs, so that's good, that's a
start.
Is that a good?
Is that good?

Josh (59:56):
yeah, at least you were up there.
That's scary, that trail'sfucking scary.
Have you ever ridden?
Bug springs in tucson, chris oh, yeah, yeah yeah, it's, it's
awesome, is it?
Scary, or am I just a squirrel?

Dane (01:00:07):
no, it's awesome yeah, I, I, I think.
I think it's a rough trail andthe fact that you even went up
there and attempted, attemptedit means you've made big
progress.

Josh (01:00:16):
I probably rode more than I'm letting on, but I didn't,
but but you know the guys fromhomegrown are like a lot of
people talk about riding bugsbut they don't actually ride it.
Yeah, so I didn't want torepresent that.
I was riding it.
I'm like listen, I walked a tonof shit.
I gotta look at the lines andfigure it out.

Dane (01:00:30):
Yep, yeah, that's how you do it, though that's how you get
better.

Josh (01:00:33):
So and lacy goes, blasting down the waterfall, taking like
the hardest line you know?

Dane (01:00:37):
yeah, I still need to work on that, it's yeah chris, my
life sucks.

Josh (01:00:40):
My wife is better than me on a mountain bike that's
actually amazing.

Dane (01:00:44):
It is awesome, it is.
You are lucky.

Josh (01:00:46):
It is awesome yeah, uh because I have no problem with
my confidence.
So that's a good thing If alesser man could not be married
to her.

Dane (01:00:53):
Yeah, Well it's kind of nice cause you've got a somebody
who understands your stuff.
My wife was asking me questionsthe other day about biking in a
way that showed real interestand I I can't tell you like my,
you ever watched the Grinchwhere his heart grows at the end
of the movie.
That's how mine did like myheart got bigger like five times

(01:01:14):
bigger.

Josh (01:01:15):
Whatever, all you have to do to make his heart bigger,
because I was like to ask himquestions about biking.

Dane (01:01:19):
Yeah, and I was like oh my god, she actually cares it was
like it was.
It was the most heartwarmingthing.

Josh (01:01:25):
It was awesome so, hey, chris, what's next for for tgr,
what do you guys?

Chris Johnson (01:01:29):
recommend.
When we started off, we startedoff strong.
We had our adopted trailsrunning like the best they'd
ever run.
They were beautiful.
And then, come 2021, we had theTelegraph fire come through and
literally kick the mountains,mountains.

(01:01:54):
But I've seen a lot of fires onthe mountain but none, none did
the amount of damage that thetelegraph fire did to the
mountain, and you're talkingabout pinell at this point.
Yeah, pinell mountain.
So we've spent the last threeyears doing restoration work.
I can say that the end is insight as far as restoration work
goes, which means a lot of ourfocus and energy can go into
basic maintenance of the trailsand keep them running good.

(01:02:17):
But it allows us to focus andto turn our attention to our
Pinell Mountain master plan,which is big stuff for Pinell
Mountain because the currentsystem mileage on the mountain
is about 35 miles of trails.
However, out of those 35 miles,17 of those which about half is

(01:02:42):
in bad shape, disrepair or justunused.
Within our master plan, 17miles of trail is going to be
decommissioned on the mountain.
I know a lot of people are likeoh god, losing trail.
But the idea is, in lieu oflosing trail that doesn't get

(01:03:03):
used and, as we all know, trailsdon't get used.
They don't get maintained.
Usage is maintenance as well.

Josh (01:03:11):
Yeah, can you?
Can you double click on thatfor a minute?
What does that mean, chris Wellusage is maintenance, usage is
maintenance.

So by trail scene traffic, vegetation is being
held back at bay because it'sgetting foot traffic and bike
traffic.
The actual surface tread of thetrail is in better shape with
trails that are being usedversus non-used.
So when it comes to storms andstuff like that, they have less

(01:03:41):
effect on the trails due to thetrails being used.
Trails that don't get used getovergrown, get cluttered with
rocks that roll off themountainside, get cluttered with
downfall and eventually justdisappear entirely.
So there's a reason why some ofthese trails are in those types

(01:04:03):
of conditions outside of thefire, and that's due to either
the location or they're just notdesirable to either the
location or they're just notdesirable.
So the plan is to removeundesirable, unused trails and
turn those resources, whetherit's ours or the Forest Services
, and have it go towards trailsthat people want to use.

Josh (01:04:26):
And I'd imagine you got some social trails up there or
wildcat trails up there that aregoing to be adopted as part of
this.
You want to get adopted as partof the master plan, is that
true?

Oh, absolutely.
Some of TGR's first loves areup there.
Can't really divulge onlocations or anything like that
because we're in agreement notto really publicize and generate
the hype that's going to comebehind these.
But I can say, and from mostpeople's comments, these are the

(01:04:59):
type of trails that Arizona hasbeen waiting for and been on
the hunt for.

Josh (01:05:05):
So where are you guys at with the Forest Service and the
master plan process?
What phase of that process areyou in?
Bureaucracy is quite slow.
With the Forest Service and themaster plan process, what phase
of that process are you in?

Bureaucracy is quite slow with the Forest
Service, as anybody knows.

Josh (01:05:18):
Not just the Forest Service, but any government
agency.
Right, oh yeah, For sure.

But we've made actually a lot of progress and,
if all goes well, not only willwe have adoption of the social
trails, we will have clearanceto start construction of a new
trail on the top of the PinellMountains about this time next

(01:05:45):
year.

Josh (01:05:45):
Oh, wow.
So you've got to be then pastlike the public comment phase,
or you guys are not in that yet.

Public comment has been done on one portion of
it already and it looks likeit's going to go again.
For just because, since thisplan was initially proposed to
them plan was initially proposedto them, some changes have been
made to the overall view of theplan and kind of what manner

(01:06:22):
that it wants to be attacked in.
A lot of times when you proposetrails.

Josh (01:06:25):
It's on a trail by trail kind of basis yep, absolutely.

Luckily, because of the fire, we're able to lump
a whole bunch of stuff in undera bigger agreement and a bigger
EA, which basically it knocks alot of time off of the entire
plan.
So, whether everything comes tofruit or not, it's being

(01:06:47):
covered from the get-go.

Josh (01:06:49):
So, chris, do you know neck nathan gordon from stmb?
I do okay and we'll talk alittle bit off the off air, but,
um, he's done some interestingthings down there.
I want to make sure you knowwhat he's done down there to
help get more support and makesure I got a question for for
you.

Dane (01:07:04):
Uh, so we've been talking to a lot of people about trail
builds.
Uh, we've done a lot ofpodcasts on trails because,
without trails you can't ridebikes.
And advocacy and such so it, andwe asked this of torca, and I
think we asked this at sdmb andum, so I'll ask you the same
torca, are the guys that areworking up on mount lemon?
Mount lemon, yep, yeah, and so,and sdmb does lower, uh, tucson

(01:07:26):
area?
And then you talked to sdmba insan diego and we've talked to a
lot of groups and one of thethings that I just I want to
know, because a lot of peopleall over the world are listening
to this podcast and maybe,maybe they're out there doing
wildcat trails and they want tomake them legit, or maybe
they're trying to advocate, ormaybe they're trying to build

(01:07:46):
trails or what have you.
What's the best advice that youcould give somebody who wants
to make a difference, wants toto see trails in their area?
What, what is something thatthat you feel like really made a
difference?
Uh, there you go.
Is that a good question?

Josh (01:08:02):
That's a good question.
I'm giving you a clap.

Dane (01:08:04):
Chris can't hear the music , but you didn't hear the
cheering, so but yeah, so likeif you, if you were going to
tell somebody one thing thatreally made the biggest
difference for you, that thatwants to do what you've done and
accomplish stuff, what wouldyou?
What would you say is the best?

Like the amount of work that has gone in to get
us to this point, to ourrelationship with the Forest
Service.
A lot of I've been involved inis to leave something and
provide for, provide for otherpeople.
So it's never been like it'snever been goals but never
really about what I want.
It's more about developingcommunity and having people work
together towards the same goal.
And if you have a passionate,dedicated group of people, it
doesn't matter.

(01:09:18):
I think what situation thatyou're in, you can make that
into a very big positive withyour local agencies, land
managers and stuff like that,your local agencies, land
managers and stuff like that.
If you were to go at it with anattitude of me, me, me, I built
this for me and just me and mybuddies kind of deal and didn't

(01:09:40):
really have that outlook of howit benefits others or benefits
the sport, then it's really notgoing to go anywhere.

Josh (01:09:50):
So bring the passion and make sure you're taking all
users into consideration whenyou're advocating.

Dane (01:09:56):
Yeah, is that kind of what you're saying?
Absolutely, and it's a lot ofwork.

Josh (01:10:02):
Yeah, Chris, do you have like?
Do you have a day job?
Jesus?

Luckily, I have a good day job that appreciates
my passion for improvingrecreation for users and allows
me to take the time off neededto fulfill my own goals and my
own passions.

Josh (01:10:26):
On behalf of like every rider in Arizona I can tell you,
and really in the Southwest andmaybe in the US, like I just
want to say like a big thank youfor the work that you've done.
I saw the smiles.
So I've ridden some of thetrails at Sunrise that you've
worked on personally and they'reamazing.
And I saw the smile.
You talk about like the nextgeneration.

(01:10:54):
I saw the smiles and the driveand the stoke and the flow and
everything on my 11, 11 year oldson and on all the buddies that
he had out there with him.
They were just loving it and,uh, like that day at sunrise
turned him into someone who waslike casually interested in
mountain biking, to someonewho's like, hey, this is badass,
let's go do that again.
And and you did that man.

No, that gives goosebumps, because that's
exactly what it's about.
I mean, I'm getting up there inage.
I can't do this forever.
There needs to be people thatpick up the torch and there
needs to be writers thatcontinue the tradition of

(01:11:28):
writing.
You know, basically, you know,and the more people that get in
the sport, stay in the sport,bring their kids in the sport,
the more the sport grows and itjust continues the movement.
So that's that's really what itcomes boils down to.
Yeah, like the hoots andhollers are payment enough when
it comes to, you know, everybodyenjoying anything.

Dane (01:11:52):
that's, uh, that I've built and if you don't have the
the time to to spearheadsomething like this, just giving
one day a year in trailmaintenance and volunteering,
and they can go to your uhwebsite and and volunteer, or
how do you?
If somebody wants to help youguys out, is there a channel for
them to do that?

Oh, absolutely.
Uh, on the website we have avolunteer tab uh, which will
have a calendar and a link thatuh brings you to our Facebook
volunteer page.
Uh, we have a our standardFacebook business phone or page
for tunnel gravity writers, butwe have a page called uh tunnel
gravity writers volunteer page.

(01:12:34):
That's where all of our traildates and events go into and
kind of where people are able toto stay more up to date than,
say, a website that's updated uhbi-weekly or monthly or
something like that so we'll putlinks to all this in the show
notes, but just so to give placepeople an entrance like what's
your website?

Josh (01:12:55):
They can get to your Facebook from there.
What's your website, chris.

Chris John (01:12:59):
Tonogravityridersorg .
Awesome man Well.

Josh (01:13:01):
Chris dude, we just want to thank you for spending an
hour or so with us here.
Do you have any final thoughtsfor our listeners?

Well, get excited , because the plans and the
amount of trails that we have instore for the Pinell Mountains
is quite impressive.
The very first project thatwe're starting on will be an
upper lollipop loop.
Basically, this lollipop loopis going to keep you at 7,000
feet for the entire duration ofthe trail and provide a
connection to all the othersystem trails.

(01:13:35):
So we talked about six shooter,counter and ice house, yeah,
and social trails.
This trail will be able toconnect to all those.
Give you a way to get from thecampgrounds, give you a way to
get from the campgrounds allaround the top, and the reason
why it's such a big deal isbecause right now, there's

(01:13:56):
currently nothing on themountain that keeps you on the
mountain.
There's trails that take youdown the mountain, but then that
actually has any right, and soif you camp up top, you don't
have any place to really hikearound.
You have these short littlequarter mile old logging roads
in between campsites and stufflike that.

(01:14:17):
This will provide six and ahalf miles of undulating terrain
that keeps you at 7000 feet.
So when it comes to summertime,there'll actually be something,
somewhere where you can ride inthe pines for the entire day,
or you can hike or you can rideyour horse or whatever it may be

(01:14:39):
, but it's uh, that multi-usetrail.
That's gonna really kind of bethe kicking point of uh opening
up pinell mountain along withthe social trails.
And who doesn't love 1700 feetof elevation loss in two miles?
That's awesome.

Josh (01:14:54):
That's sweet.

Dane (01:14:55):
We need that.
We need more of these skyislands that we have out here to
have more places to get out ofthe heat and yeah, for sure
that's awesome, and that's a lotcloser than some of the other
ones.

So and overall we have just under 40 miles of
proposed new trail to add toPinell Mountain Jesus I know,
wow, yeah.

Dane (01:15:17):
So if you're interested, get to that website, hit that
volunteer.
Go help these guys the soonerthat they get built.

Josh (01:15:23):
Yeah, and I think you've got donation for funds as well,
right?
So folks are not able to donatetime.
They can donate money to youguys, is that right?

Yeah, absolutely.
We have a PayPal links on ourwebsite and then, if you see us
in person, we generally have aQR codes.
Uh handy for people to be ableto make donations.

Josh (01:15:44):
Oh, that's awesome man.

Chris.

Josh (01:15:45):
I mean, I can't say thank you, Thank you, thank you, thank
you, thank you Absolutely.
We so appreciate everything youcan put on.
I'm going to go off here.
You can stay on with us though.
Okay, buddy.

Yeah, that's fine .

Josh (01:15:55):
Thanks, buddy.

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087 – Gravity Trail Building in Arizona: How the Tonto Gravity Riders are Transforming Mountain Biking at Sunrise Bike Park and Pinal Mountains. (Chris Johnson)

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