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Tahoe Mountain Bike Festival Recap

Last weekend we held the first of our three big events – the ever-popular Tahoe Mountain Bike Festival! Riders came from all over to enjoy two days of riding, demos, beer, food, and live music. Thanks to everyone who came out to join us we raised thousands from the festival, money that will go to improving and maintaining Tahoe-area trails.

We’ve already set the date for 2019. Join us again next year on June 22 and 23, 2019 for the 7th annual festival.

TAMBA would like to thank the generous businesses and organizations that helped make this year’s Tahoe Mountain Bike Festival such a success: OutdoorGearLab, Sierra at Tahoe, ReliaPro Painters, Barton Performance by Altis, U.S. Forest Service, Rise Designs, The Divided Sky, Shoreline of Tahoe, South Lake Brewing Company, WattaBike, Tahoe Sports Ltd., In-Motion Performance Bike Service, Tahoe Trail Bar, Keep Tahoe Blue, The Studio Lake Tahoe, Meyers Physical Therapy, Five Ten, G-Form, A Singletrack Mind, Growing Young Snowboards, Wanna Ride Tahoe Shuttle, Spacecraft, Epic Tahoe, and Lake Tahoe Yoga.


Rose to Toads Registration Now Open

Have you registered for the 8th annual Rose to Toads yet? In late June we sent out an email to TAMBA members with an access code and link to register early for the event, and registration for non-members opened on Monday, July 2. The ride this year is scheduled for Sunday, September 2. Click here to register.

At over 62 miles long with 8,000+ feet of climbing and 10,000+ feet of descent, Rose to Toads is one of the toughest but most rewarding mountain bike rides around. What started off as a hair-brained idea with a few friends years ago is now one of our signature events that attracts nearly 200 adventure-seeking riders from around the country. 100% of the proceeds go back to the organizations that build the awesome trails featured on the ride: TAMBA, the Tahoe Rim Trail Association, the U.S. Forest Service – Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, and Nevada State Parks.

It takes most riders all day to complete Rose to Toads, which showcases some of the best trails from Lake Tahoe’s North Shore at Mount Rose all the way to the South Shore, ending on the famous Mr. Toads Wild Ride. The ride can be as casual or intense as you want it to be. Come out and earn the unlimited bragging rights that come with finishing this ride!

THIS RIDE IS STILL COMPLETELY SELF SUPPORTED SO BE PREPARED.


Kirkwood Bikes & Brews

On Saturday, July 28, Kirkwood will be hosting the its 2nd annual Kirkwood Bikes & Brews, a fun event for the whole family. With live music, mountain-bike events, a BBQ feast, unlimited beer sampling from 20+ breweries, a rock wall, Euro bungee trampolines, face painting, bull riding, food trucks, and much more, this event has something for everyone. This year Kirkwood will be hosting an after party with live music and drinks for those who want to continue the fun after the beer sampling ends.

As an added bonus, Kirkwood will be donating a portion of all the proceeds from the event to TAMBA, so you can enjoy a day of fun with your family and friends while supporting TAMBA in the process.

When: Saturday, July 28, from 1:00-6:00 p.m.
Where: Kirkwood Village Plaza

Click here to purchase tickets. We hope to see you there!


June Trail Work

Thanks to the hard work of our dedicated volunteers and crew leaders, June saw us make a ton of progress on several Tahoe-area trails. Thanks to everyone who made all this trail maintenance and improvements possible.

Incline Flume Trail Improvements Completed

Good news for those who love riding the Incline or “Other” Flume: Thanks to a generous grant, work to improve the most unstable and difficult section of the trail was completed by the U.S. Forest Service last month. The work involved drilling and blasting rock to hammer out a bench in a granite slab for the trail about 2.5 miles south of Mt. Rose Highway.

This concludes the trail improvements begun with volunteers from TAMBA and the Tahoe Rim Trail Association over the last two years. Thanks to the efforts of these phenomenal volunteers plus the recent grant-funded work this much-loved trail now has improved water crossings, reduced erosion, and elimination of “unrideable” sections. Look for new directional and interpretive signs this fall or early next summer.

The Incline Flume project has been a cooperative effort between the U.S. Forest Service, the Tahoe Fund, TAMBA, and the TRTA, with funding from private donations and a grant from the Nevada State Parks Recreational Trails Program.

Stanford Rock Re-Route

The Stanford Rock re-route project is moving along well. We’re making great progress through a gorgeous stand of huge red fir. We’ve run five volunteer days this year. Our small group of tough volunteers is riding 4.6 miles mostly uphill, then building great trail. The first section of trail is already getting lots of bike and foot traffic. Better than pushing up unrideable, trenched-out logging road!

Upcoming trail days are July 7 (big trail day), July 18, July 21, July 28, August 1, August 29, and September 9. More trail days will be added – check the TAMBA calendar for updates.

Here are the details for our upcoming Stanford Rock trail days:

When: Meet at 9:00 a.m., work until 1:00 or 2:00 p.m.
Where: Rideout Community Center, 740 Timberline Lane, Tahoe City, CA (except for July 7 work day, which will be at Kilner Park on the northwest corner Ward Avenue and Highway 89, where we will have beer and BBQ after the work is finished)
Bring: Long pants, long sleeves, gloves, helmet (bike helmet okay), safety glasses, water. Bring your bike!  It’s a 4.6-mile (30-40 minute) ride on steep logging roads to get to the work location.

You can check the Stanford Rock project page for additional information, and if you still have questions feel free to contact:

John Clausen (Project Manager): johnnyxride@gmail.com
Sandor Lengyel (Crew Leader): sdlengyel@yahoo.com

We hope to see you out there!

Kingsbury Stinger Trail, Bee ’18 Alternate DH route

Seven years in the making and we built the most technical rock line on a sanctioned trail in Tahoe. In June TAMBA funded the American Conservation Experience (ACE) for two weeks to rough-in a 500-foot alternate route down some crazy steep rock slabs that challenge even the most experienced riders, it makes Toads look tame. A 40-person TAMBA volunteer force attacked the trail on June 24, polished the tread, and made it rideable. Huge thanks to our local bike shop TAMBA crew leaders Ken from Shoreline at Tahoe and Patrick from Sports LTD for helping make this happen. Please scope out the line before dropping in!

Lily Lake Trail

TAMBA’s effort to construct a trail from Angora Lakes to Lily Lake south of Fallen Leaf Lake is awaiting alignment approval before we can break ground, If all goes well, we should start scheduling minor trail days by the end of July. If you are interested in being part of this challenging project, please contact Scott Brown at hebrownbul@gmail.com.