Mountain Biking in Santa Cruz County
May 14th Meeting
Announcements and Reminders
Rotary scholarships will be presented Wednesday May 27th at 6:00 PM at the Performing Arts Center at Aptos High School.
Rotary District conference will be next Thursday, May 22 (Rotary University).
May 29th will be the Rotary Golf Tournament.
The debunking date will be June 19th at Seascape.
American Music festival still needs people on Sunday May 17th. Contact Doug Deaver
Rotarian of the week was Pam Arnsberger as a thank you for reporting on The Hub.
Visitors from the UCSC RotorAct Club joined us today and gave us an update on their activities. Jessie Tate accompanied by three fellow students ( see photos below) made the presentation. There are 27 members including 10 Interact alumni . They have performed 718 hours of community service so far this year and hope to make 1000. The hours have been donated to organizations including Salvation Army, the Homeless Garden and Unchained, among others. Fundraising activities included hiring themselves out for $10 hour which raised almost $1,700 for the projects they support. Their international projects include child AIDS prevention and their local project is 180- 2020 to end homelessness by 2020. All area 7 rotary clubs are their sponsors, including Capitola Aptos Rotary. We were all very impressed with their industriousness and commitment to the community and wish them well in achieving their future academic goals!
Mountain biking in Santa Cruz County
Doug Deaver introduced our speaker, Mark Davidson, head of mountain bikers of Santa Cruz. He is from Toronto, Ontario but settled in Santa Cruz County in 2000.
Mike spoke about what makes mountain biking special in Santa Cruz and future opportunities that we have. The sport has been growing significantly in our area because we have some of the best forest trails and dirt which is perfect for building trails.. loam and clay. In addition we can accommodate ranges of styles and abilities in our natural terrain. There are dirt jumping and bike parks for younger folks as well as pump tracks such as the one that used to be next to the Aptos Post Office. There are still such tracks in Live oak, the west side of Santa Cruz and Scotts Valley and construction is ongoing on a new one in Capitola.
Mike also spoke about the effect of the bike industry on the economy in Santa Cruz. He said there are $900 million dollars of sales all over the world of bikes as well as well as helmets and other products. The bike industry employs over 1000 people in Santa Cruz County; the brands include Bell and Ibis. Motor biking also contributes to the economy thru tourist dollars. It is said that “Cyclists are the idea visitors. They keep to the forest all day, eat a ton of food and go to bed early.” They spend 20% more than your average traveler in hotels, restaurants etc.
Mike then spoke about the non-profit that he heads, MBoSC, and their recent activities to promote mountain biking. They have over 600 members and 500 supporters. They have raised over $250,000 to build trails and infrastructure in Santa Cruz County including the Emma McCrary trail in Pogonip and the just completed flow trail in Soquel Demonstration Forest.
They are currently working with the land trust in developing the plans for San Vicente redwoods on the north coast. MBoSC will help develop bike and equestrian trails . They are also working with Bureau of Land Management on the Coastal Dairies project, also near Davenport. On an ongoing basis they are continuing their efforts to improve trails in State Parks.
For more information, including embedded maps of bike trails in Santa Cruz County, see their website http://mbosc.org.