Jim Hasenauer: SBMBC Guest Speaker July, 1999

Our guest speaker at the July 1999 club meeting was none other than the mountain biking guru, Jim Hasenauer. It was a great pleasure to have him at our meeting. He has devoted so much of his time to the issues that deal with the mountain biking community in our regional, state, national, and international arena. Our gratitude and appreciation goes to Jim Hasenauer for many years of hard work and dedication. He spoke about the history of mountain biking.

In 1998, Jim was inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame for his efforts on behalf of trail riders everywhere.

In the Santa Monica Mountains, In the early years of '80s, dirt Mulholland was the central road to a few other dirt roads and single tracks, especially the Will Rogers' single track that was, and still is, the most popular one. Mountain biking was such a new phenomenon that riders would be able to tell who has been on the trails by the tire tracks left behind. If there were new tire prints on the dirt road, other riders would seek the newcomer to the area. Furthermore, hikers would be in awe when they would see a mountain biker sharing the road with them. Comments like “you are actually riding a bike on dirt,” “what kind of bike is this?,” and “you rode that hill that we just passed” (we wish to hear these comments now!) were signs of bewildered hikers upon seeing a mountain biker, and usually the bikers would let hikers test ride their bikes.

There were no clubs and not many organized rides then (there were some out of bike shops like Europa in Van Nuys), and the few who were riding off road were staying in quasi contact with one another. As the popularity of mountain biking was rising so was the antagonistic mentality against bikers because “mountain bikers were taking over the trails and were thought to be dangerous” to other trail users (sounds very familiar!) The conflict reached its peak in '87 when, upon pressure from other trail users, the Will Rogers' single track had a sign at the trail head where it connects to fire road and bore these words: “No Bikes” (looks familiar!!!) Fortunately, people who loved this trail and were concerned about its closure had found out about a meeting put together by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy that would deal with the issue of closing down trails to mountain bikers and setting up a new standard as to who and what can use the existing trails. At the meeting, city/state land conservancy wanted to deal with a body, an organization, or an entity that could answer to them and bring forward the mountain bikers issues rather than a bunch of individuals, but there was no organization there to represent mountain bikers. This is when mountain bikers hastily exchanged phone numbers and set up their own meeting to discuss the issues at hand. This meeting and the consequential meetings led to establishment of Concerned Off-Road Bicyclists Association (CORBA). Mind you, these people hardly knew one another prior to the shut down of Will Rogers' single track, but it took a crisis to bring them together (we do not have to wait for a crisis to deal with our issues, hopefully) to voice their opinion and express their concerns. The first steering committee was consisted of Jim Hasenauer, Mark Langton, Kurt Loheit, Peter Heumann, and Matt Landis.

The outcome of the Land Conservancy meeting was to close down the trails to bikers except the fire road (can you imagine that we cannot use the single tracks anymore; it would be devastating!!!) To show how dedicated people at CORBA have been since its inception, it took them nine years of hard work, attending meeting after meeting, and convincing a lot of people in the decision making process to re-open the Will Rogers' single track in '96.

International Mountain Biking Association (IMBA) came about as the result trails being closed to bicyclists all around the country and the need for California clubs to organize regarding a proposed state park policy. The same issues that brought closure to the single tracks in the Santa Monica Mountains caused closure of trails statewide and nationwide. By now, people working in CORBA had accumulated many years of experience dealing with keeping trails open to bikers came to help and assist other concerned people and groups in the state and nation wide. It was at the meeting in Saratoga where IMBA was established. IMBA functions as an umbrella for mountain bikers to bring to light the issues that concern all of us nationally and internationally. One of its main functions deals with information sharing among its different supporting clubs and groups, educational teachings, and to help open existing trails to mountain bikers and build new ones for bikes. It prides itself on having model clubs, which have set up some standard so other clubs can follow. Another main aspect of IMBA is the 20/20/20 concept. Individual riders should spend $20 to become a member of a club (SBMBC has asked its members to pay their dues to and become a member of CORBA since our club does not have membership fees), $20 to become a member of IMBA, and 20 hours of volunteering time to better the condition of trails annually (CORBA has one day of trail maintenance work per month.) The majority of IMBA's chapters are in the United States, and there are about thirty others in the other countries.

Although there are about ten to fifteen million mountain bikers world wide, a minute fraction of this number, 14,000, who are actually member of IMBA. Nevertheless, whom does everyone turn to as soon as the word of closing down a trail is heard? You are absolutely right, they call IMBA: “they are closing my trails here, what should I do?” and “send me everything you got so I can fight this!” As a group of people with a keen interest, we still do not believe in the group and organization mentality, nor do we talk to one another like other organizations. Hopefully, we can change this mindset, one person at a time. For more information please check out CORBA's web site at www.corbamtb.com and IMBA's web site at www.imba.com.