2024 December Monthly Newsletter

$1000 giveaway to volunteers

Luke Van Barneveld of Raider Mechanical has donated $1000 to be given away to volunteers. Every time you come out to a trail maintenance day between Oct 6 2024 and the 2025 Route of All Evil Fun Ride (Jun 22), you’ll get an entry into the draw. One $500 and two $250 prizes will be awarded. If you do work outside of a Trail Day it must be substantial (at least 2 hours per person) and not just cut a couple of dead falls. Contact Rick Green, Ryan Thom or Clay Walker before you start the work and have before and after pics of the work done. BMMC directors and Trail Committee members will not participate in the contest.

Dec 29th trail maintenance day

Next Trail Maintenance Day is Dec 29th. We always need volunteers for the trail maintenance days and highly encourage riders to come out and help. Trail days are typically the last Sunday of each month. We meet in the staging area around 9:30, organize into groups and then head out for around 10am. Everybody who shows up gets a free ‘trail crew’ t-shirt. We always try to have a giveaway – sometimes gift cards from local motorcycle shops, sometimes tires, tools etc. When possible, we try to have coffee and donuts for all the volunteers. We rarely ride in to do trail work – we typically drive and hike in. Many locations will require a truck to get to. If you don’t have a 4×4/truck, you can always leave the car in staging and hop in with somebody else. Come prepared with proper clothing and footwear – the club will provide all the tools necessary.

Riding up Downhill Only marked trails

There have been a number of incidents recently with riders riding up trails marked as downhill only. Please respect the signage and don’t go up downhill only trails. Some trails just won’t sustain uphill traffic, some are designated downhill only because they were designed that way. Beyond that, riders aren’t expecting somebody to be coming up a trail that’s downhill only.

2025 BMMC Memberships on sale now

You can purchase your 2025 club membership from the store: https://bluemountainmotorcycleclub.com/store/  If you’re not a 2024 member, if you purchase now, you’ll get a membership for the remainder of 2024, plus all of 2025.

Monthly club meetings

The first Thursday of each month the club holds a meeting to discuss club business. All are welcome. It’s typically the first Thursday of each month, held at Ricky’s Country Restaurant in Maple Ridge starting at 6:30. Usually we take a break in the summer (Jul/Aug). Next meeting is on Jan 2^nd.

Chainsaw safety course

The club is considering putting on another chainsaw safety course with Steve Telosky (an exceptional teacher) as the instructor. We want to find out if there will be enough interest in people attending. Note that this course is required before you can operate a saw to clear deadfall etc. on the mountain. We haven’t determined a date yet – we just want to see if there’s enough interest first, with the date likely in the early spring. The club pays for the course. If there’s lots of interest, we might hold 2 consecutive days (Saturday and Sunday). Message Rick Green or Ryan Thom to let us know if you’re interested in attending and would likely have a Saturday or Sunday free to attend in the early spring.

Kids riding loop

Some bad news on the proposed location for the kid’s loop – the area we were looking at using is still in an environmental assessment since the gravel operation was shut down and this will last for another 12-24 months. Once the city of Maple Ridge completes their required environmental assessment, we’ll be able to resume talks about using this area for a kid’s loop. In the meantime, we’ll look for other possible locations. Talk to Al Willard if you have any ideas etc.

Thank you to our volunteers and paid members

As we head into fall/winter, please have a read over the wet weather guide (Wet Weather riding guide on the main page of the website: https://bluemountainmotorcycleclub.com/ ) and familiarize yourself with it. The choices made by riders during the wet season affect how many trails can reopen in the spring. Thank you to those that bought memberships or came out to volunteer in 2024. If you did both, know you were part of the solution! If you didn’t, ask yourself why not? Come on out and help build the legacy that is Blue Mountain.

YouTube channel

Check out the club’s YouTube channel. We’re always working on putting up more content – currently there’s the 2023 and 2024 ROAE videos and several trail work videos, including some bridge construction videos that are very interesting to watch: https://www.youtube.com/@BlueMountainMotorcycleClub