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The deadline is Tuesday, September 27, 2022, by 9:00pm.
Parks & Rec staff have asked for a list of local “subject matter experts” from the mountain biking community to attend a 1.5-hour meeting to provide input and feedback on the 2022 Municipal Bond Citywide Bicycle Projects. These projects include the OP Schnabel Bike Park, McAllister Park skills area improvements, Pearsall Park trails, and Eisenhower Park downhill trails.
Continue reading “Focus Group Opportunity”Howdy San Antonio MTB Community! At long last we have some good news to share with all of you! After a series of logistical and schedule challenges Sean Christoper, Jeff Jordan, and Brenda Gonzales were able to meet with SAPAR and got approval on the final design for the Mac Jumps Rebuild project! We appreciate your patience with the delay – several folks were unavailable to meet at various times since the lines were flagged a few weeks ago. Thankfully we now have approval to move forward, and we anticipate posting dig days very soon.
Continue reading “McAllister Park Jump Project – 24 Sep 2022”Weekend of September 24-25, 2022
SHOP FOR GOOD!
Join South Texas Off Road Mountain-Bikers & Columbia Sportswear this weekend at our Alamo Quarry Location! (Google Maps link)
by Steve Barish
Howdy to all my fellow San Antonio MTB addicts and welcome to the weekly #MacJumps update! We are a little late in getting back to the community due to some personal issues and the need to incorporate additional feedback we received over the past week. Huge thanks to everyone who came out or made comments on social media – please keep it up! We want this to be a very rider-centered rebuild, and while we probably can’t accommodate every suggestion we still want to try, and definitely want your voice to be heard.
That said, Sean has incorporated a lot of feedback and posted new designs:
Latest McAllister Park Jumps Design (PDF)
Latest McAllister Park Jumps Site Plan
Latest McAllister Park Jumps Site Plan (PDF)
As you can see, there are four lines proposed along with a re-route of the return line. The idea is to provide progression from easiest (at rider’s right) to most difficult (rider’s left) with the ability to ride in different ways. There is a hip added on Line 3 with doubles that can be gapped, and we are working on adding a shark-fin into the berm to spice that up a bit.
This is just where we are right now. Sean and several others will be at the site tomorrow (Sunday, August 14th) taking measurements and conducting additional surveys at 2:00 PM. I know it is short notice, but if you have time please drop by and give some feedback! Otherwise please add your comments on social media, send an email to info@stormmtb.org, or contact any of the project team and we will make sure your thoughts and concerns are heard!
More info will follow here as things develop, so please stay tuned! Updates can also be found on the STORM Trail Projects page.
Read the July 30, 2022 blog post on the McAllister Park Jumps
#mtblife #sendit #storm_mtb #stoke
Sean Christopher and the Build Crew held a meeting on Sunday, July 30th to solicit feedback from the community on the project. The meeting was well attended by a cross section of riders from multiple disciplines (XC, Enduro racers, Freeriders/DJ, and BMX) as well as by representatives of Friends of McAllister Park (FOMP) and San Antonio Parks and Recreation (SAPAR). We got a lot of great feedback about the kind of design people are looking for as well as some practical advice on erosion control and armoring to aid in preserving the trail and the jumps. It was great having FOMP and Parks representatives there with us, so they could see the passion the community has for the location and that we are sensitive to preserving the natural area and using it responsibly. Sandy Jenkins (SAPAR) took some time to explain the miscommunication within Parks that led to the demolition before a rebuild plan was in place and assured us that Parks is looking forward to seeing the completed design. Marjesca Brown from FOMP was also supportive, especially when we started talking about preserving some of the trees damaged from erosion and the demolition. Most importantly, the rider attendees were engaged, active, and had great ideas to get the build designed and moving forward.
So, what’s planned for the Mac Jumps Project? First – let’s be clear, it’s more than just the jumps. We also need to armor certain areas of the trail to prevent further erosion, and see what we can do about sustainable use of the entire section of the trail where the drops are. It’s going to be a big project. The biggest part of that project is rebuilding the jumps themselves. For that we are planning at least four directional lines, plus a return. There will be signage at the site indicating these are directional trails and signs at each drop-in showing the name and degree of difficulty of each line. The lines will run downhill into the creek as they used to, with easier features to rider’s right facing the drop. We are planning on working with the terrain of the creekbed versus massive reshaping, which means most of the jumps will look like tables. On the largest jump line (the far left) we are planning multiple connected features of varying sizes after the initial table. This should provide potential to build gapable rollers for more advanced riders. The returns will be sculpted to include rollers similar to what you would see on a pump track to avoid the need to pedal back to the hill.
Those of you who asked for a chairlift – that is not going to happen. You know who you are!
Sean is drafting revisions to the drawings for the site plan and should post those within the next week. We’ll update this spot with the link and want to get feedback from the community prior to submitting to the City and conducting a walk-through. If all goes well, we hope to have that done by mid-August, and be ready to break ground shortly after. There’s a lot of logistics we have to work out – how to shape the flow of runoff away from the drop ins, and deal with ponding in the creek for instance – but we think we can be ready by then. More info will follow here as things develop, so please stay tuned! Updates can also be found on the STORM Trail Projects page.