O'bannon Woods Trail Day Sunday December 13, 2009 10 am

I participated in a meeting this past Friday with the DNR and HMBA that discussed the future of Mountain biking in O'bannon Woods. I have to say, I left the meeting Friday pretty excited about this opportunity and impressed with the relationship HMBA has built with the DNR. I have been working with Land Managers for about 4 years now and have never seen a land manager as excited about having Mountain biking on their property as DNR is about mountain biking in O'bannon. Just having access to a property like O'bannon is amazing as I am sure some you who have ridden at O'bannon have already discovered, add the enthusiastic support of the land manger, you have great potential for Mountain bike destination that will easily be a 6 hour draw…..only 40 minutes from downtown Louisville. We have land manager support, a large property with some of the most diverse terrain in the region, the last but critical component is volunteer support. Just to put things in perspective, Otter Creek was a little over 3000 acres, O’bannon Woods is 26,000 acres….with a bigger vertical change than Otter creek. The drive time wise is roughly the same drive as the drive to Otter Creek. I have spent a lot of weekend days driving to Brown County, and every time I am at Brown county I run into other riders from Louisville, which is really great. It was pretty clear from the meeting Friday that DNR officials and HMBA representatives expect O’bannon woods to surpass Brown County as Mountain bike destination. A 40 minute drive sounds a lot better than 1 ½ drive it takes to get to Brown County! The first trail day is Sunday December 13, 2009 10 am at the camp ground. Some of us will be meeting at On Your left Cycles at 9am to caravan over to O’bannon woods. Anybody is welcome to meet us at On Your left Cycles to follow is over to O’bannon. There will be a group ride following the trail day that will start at 1pm. I would really love to see some people from the Louisville Dirt Club at the trail day.. Tools will be provided Please post if you plan to be at the trail day…. Thanks for everyone’s support Chris Ward