Poison Spider Bicycles

Poison Spider Bicycles wants to extend an enormous THANK-YOU to the people who made 2011 a record year for mountain bike trail building in Moab.  Nearly 40 miles of amazing new singletrack required serious commitment and dedication to the cause.

First, there are the hard-working government folks at the Bureau of Land Management who are implementing their Resource Management Plan, including mountain bike focus areas.  Thanks Russ VonKoch and Katie Stevens, Rock Smith, Jen Jones, Miles & Todd!  Trails couldn’t start without you guys working so hard for mountain bikers.

We would like to thank the people on the ground are who actually make the trails.  Starting with Sandy & Geoff Freethey, who anchor the Grand County Trail Mix and live and breathe Moab trails.  They are involved in every step of trail building from exploration, design and proposals, meetings with land managers and local governing bodies, to moving rocks, cutting tread and painting dots on slickrock.  They make and install the map signs at all the intersections.  They wrangle the professional and volunteer trail builders.  They’re the bosses and the labor force.  They do it all for the love of trails!

Thank-you David Olsen, Moab’s Economic Development Director, who’s enthusiasm has kicked Moab’s commitment to mountain biking back into gear.  He rides a mountain bike and knows the Moab area very well.  He’s the key behind the scenes trails advocate and money raiser.  And he brings his whole family out on trail work volunteer days.

Thank-you from Poison Spider Bicycles to Scott Escott aka GPScott, Grand County Trail Mix Trails Coordinator, for his commitment to designing and building the best mountain bike trails anywhere!  He envisions trails through impossible terrain and is not afraid to move boulders and build massive rock bridges to achieve the right line.  He motivates us to put in hours of our spare time as volunteer trail builders.    He always has the good word about more awesome trails in the works when he visits us at Poison Spider Bicycles.  The boy’s excited!  He get’s it done!

Thank-you to all the volunteers from Moab and to the groups from all over the country who donate your valuable time building mountain bike trails in Moab.   School kids from California, Colorado and Utah, Boy Scouts, Grand County Trail Mix members, Poison Spider Bicycles staff members, David Olsen’s family, and lots of other citizens who want to learn how to use a rock bar, we thank you for your hard work!  It really makes a difference!

Special thanks also to a couple of outstanding volunteers.  Brooks Carter, Rim Tours mountain bike guide and designer of the EKG/Little Salty/MegaSteps trails, spent all his days off last year trail building.  And to TJ Cowern, Poison Spider Bicycles repair shop manager who spent his days off constructing berms on Hazzard and Lazy trails, making them more fun for all. Also, Mike Holme and Maggie Wilson of Magpie Cycling Adventures for building and personally taking care of the trails they love to ride, with and without clients.  And thank-you to Jeff Van Horn who fits trail building in between brewing batches of beer at the Moab Brewery.

In one short year, Moab is becoming famous for spectacular mountain bike singletrack.  Thanks to everyone who desires, inspires, conspires and perspires to make this happen! You all rock!  If anything can beat 2011, it’s going to be the 2012 trail building season.  The Freetheys, David Olsen, and GPScott are laying out more miles of new trails as we speak!