Article in Star Tribune

[KleinCrazy]

Check out todays Sports section where there is a Full Page Article about "Silent Sports" in Minneapolis and R.T.'s push to get them less "Silent"

Mountain Biking is mentioned, though the Article could have been a little better from our Advocay point of view.

If you Live in the City, Give the MOCA Representative for MORC an an email about your support for Mountain Biking. we are working with the Commisioners mentioned in the article.

L8er
James

[gopherhockey]

Your Sports: Rybak sees 'Silent Slam'
Jerry Zgoda
Star Tribune

Published Jan. 17, 2003 YOUR17

When he's not considering how to juggle a troubled city budget, improve police-community relations or soothe a contentious City Council, Minneapolis' First Cross-Country Skier and Mountain Biker contemplates a dream.

R.T. Rybak wants to make his city the "Urban Active Sports Capital of America."

It's an idea he first articulated last February after he returned from competing in the American Birkebeiner ski races in Wisconsin. All weekend there, he met skiers from Minneapolis and he started to wonder what could be done to keep those people happy at home.

His answer was a call to all volunteers, the beginning of a silent-sports initiative designed to establish a "quadruple crown" of events winter, spring, summer and fall that in turn will drive the refurbishment of city trails and facilities.

"I've thought about all these things as a private citizen, but one of the good things of being mayor is you can get people unified," Rybak said. "It's an idea waiting to happen. It just needed a little push."

At his urging, a crew of volunteers have organized the first City of Lakes Loppet, a one-day collection of races intended to showcase Minneapolis' beautiful winter landscape. Now all they need is snow for the Feb. 1 races.

Rybak also would like to see a legal mountain-bike trail created within the city, although that's a more delicate proposition because of erosion, trail-user conflicts and other issues.

The Loppet and a new June downtown bicycle race, the details of which will be announced today, complete the silent slam with already existing events, the venerable Twin Cities Marathon and the Lifetime Triathlon that made its debut at Lake Nokomis last summer.

Rybak and Loppet director John Munger insist the ski race will be held regardless of weather. A sudden, substantial snowfall would solve their problems. If not, workers already are collecting snow on Lake Calhoun and fashioning it into a trail around the lake's perimeter. If needed, a snowmaking machine will be used.

The race was envisioned to bring attention to the city's winter-sports resources, namely Theodore Wirth park.

"Wirth Park used to a winter-sports focal point for the whole region," said Minneapolis Parks and Rec Board commissioner John Erwin, who along with fellow commissioner Jon Olson has been active in implementing Rybak's silent-sports initiative. "And, frankly, I don't understand why it still isn't."

Park workers widened, cleared and connected ski trails within the park last fall. A city employee attended to a cross-country ski trail grooming school in Michigan's Upper Peninsula; the lessons learned there then are intended to help other workers improve grooming methods at trails in Wirth park and on Hiawatha and Gross golf courses.

Erwin, Olson and others have floated other ideas, such as a snowboarding park or a cross-country trail with machine-made snow that would guarantee local high school ski teams skiable conditions in dry and/or warm winters.

Of course, the question is: How, in this day of state, county and city financial crises, how to pay for such big ideas?

"The park board can't afford to do what's needed," Rybak said. "It's up to those of us in the active-sports community to step up."

Loppet volunteers enlisted a healthy list of sponsors, including Abbott Northwestern Hospital, to help underwrite costs for a race they initially hoped would -- in a cold, snowy winter -- attract several hundred racers. Rybak suggest a voluntary silent-sport membership fee might be alternative. A campaign to seek private donations is another. Erwin said a snowboard company might serve as a sponsor to fund a Wirth snowboard park.

"We have enthusiastic volunteers and great people working in our parks system," Olson said, "but you've got to give people the equipment and the resources to do their jobs. That's the big challenge."

-- Jerry Zgoda is at jzgoda@startribune.com

[jitterjepp]

hmmmm I don't know what's going on as far as all the snowboard stuff is concerned but I live very close to the golf course. I lived in the brainerd lakes are for a number of years and I learned that you cant hear a chain saw from the road. You find out the trees are disappearing later when you go back into the woods. Looks to me like some clear cutting is going on by hidden lake. Are they putting in more houses? I am an advid ice climber and I know what it means to walk delicately around assess issues but I'm not ready to loose the possibility of trail access to erosion claims when
clear cutting is going on or a 20 foot wide strip of trees is going to be cut down all the way through the park so a 4 foot wide asphalt path can be laid down. There are miles of the stuff already. What's going on with the wirth stuff? who can I call to find out? Is the mayor going to hold to his claims and does part of the park belong to Golden Valley putting this out of his control anyway?