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Single Track Trails INC
Words by Greg Mazu
I sometimes have the luxury of sitting on the side of a hill that over looks a city or a town that is bustling with car traffic and people. Maybe I am sitting down for lunch. Most likely I am sitting down to take a break from fixing the machine, or because I have just moved a ton of rocks and still have another ton to go. It is usually during these frustrated time outs that I think to myself, “Why do I build trail?” Then I look down on the cars, the people, the office buildings, and the interstate in the distance and I know the answer.
Like many people, I was working a dead end job that was going down hill fast. Being an avid mountain biker and involved with the local mountain bike club, I was learning more about trail building on the weekends. During the work week, I could see the foothills out the window of my building and would lose productivity imagining new sustainable trails everywhere. As my job situation deteriorated, I searched for another job. I started building trail as a seasonal employee for Colorado State Parks in 2003. In 2006 after a couple years of doing contract work on the side, I started Singletrack Trails. For the first three years, Singletrack Trails was just me and a machine out in the woods creating a private reality.
Singletrack Trails now has four seasonal employees with a passion for mountain biking and trail building. We have partnered with non-profits such as Bicycle Colorado, the International Mountain Bicycling Association to build sweet singletrack in 15 different states across the United States. Adam, Justin, Matt, and Ryan are the driving force behind the work that Singletrack Trails sculpts into the earth these days. They interpret the trees and the rocks to create the flowy ribbon of dirt called a trail, but really what they are doing is leaving you a story what motivates them to ride a bicycle.
The story for each trail is different. Each project is setup different and some allow us more creativity than others. We are often asked which do we like best, trail layout or trail construction. The answer is both. The inner artist in each Singletrack Trails employee prefers to start with a clean slate to mold into the best finish product of any trail construction project. Trail construction is an art and just like any “true” artist, we would like to build our interpretation of the land for you and not mold our vision with that of four other people. But we will edit our chapter into an existing trail system. Don’t be surprised if that chapter becomes dog-eared and the most re-read portion of the book.
The passion for trails and mountain biking is the core of the work done by Singletrack Trails. The crew puts their heart in soul into creating each masterpiece that we create. Whether the trail is a introductory preface of a cross-country green trail or the climax of the book in a jump trail full of great lips and rock drops, the passion and dedication to creating a trail that each and every user will have fun on drives us from our sleeping bags each and everyday. It takes a special kind of person to put up with the months of travel, hot weather, or camping in the wintry conditions of Wyoming. The smiles we see on the faces of trail users reignites the fire of our passion to build singletrack.
Our work is more than just reading comprehension of the land. We are the sculptors and the painters that make your imagination soar into space with the possibilities that you never knew possible.
Over the last four years, Singletrack Trails has worked closely with Wyoming State Parks to construct new trails at Curt Gowdy State Park between Cheyenne and Laramie. The trail system now totals close to 35 miles and was designated an IMBA Epic Trail in 2009. Singletrack Trails has built half of the trail system over four years including the trailhead mountain bike skills park, the gnarly jump trail Nut-n-Butta, and the gnarly but scenic loop around Crystal Reservoir that includes the Portage de Muerto on Cliffhanger, the Demon Drop, and the Biblical walking on water section both on the Canyons Trail.
Partnering with Bicycle Colorado since 2007, Singletrack Trails has been spearheading the new trail construction at the Lunch Loops in Grand Junction, CO. Many people know Grand Junction as the city that is located near Fruita, but not as many tourists are familiar with the rocky trails of the Lunch Loops. As an existing trail system, many of the current favorites have been ridden for years. With the help of local riders and IMBA, Singletrack Trails successfully constructed the first sanctioned freeride trail on Bureau of Land Management land called Free Lunch. In 2009, Singletrack Trails constructed a jump trail extension of Free Lunch called Pucker Up.
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“You have the best job.”
This comment is typically spoken by a person on a bike, in boots, or on a horse on beautiful bluebird day. The trail user is under the influence of endorphins that are replacing the aggressions of being trapped in a cubicle or house for multiple days. What the commenter forgets is that the previous three days it has been snowing, wind blowing, and 30 degrees. The crew at Singletrack Trails was dressed to the point that they can’t bend any joints and that today’s 60 degrees is a short reprieve before winter returns tomorrow.
We may be grumpy at having to work in 30 degree weather with the wind blowing at 30mph. We may be unhappy at camping in the cold of the early spring or late fall. We may want to give up digging the trail when the thermometer hits 102 and there is no shade within a quarter mile. The thing is though; we would not have it any other way. Our passion for mountain biking and trail building forces us outside. Our sanity level requires us to be the dirt artists that we are. The reality of employees at Singletrack Trails is building the flowy goodness that you enjoy as an escape from you reality.
