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National Champs Build

herndon

Chimp
Feb 21, 2005
48
0
Hello All,

Just wanted to give you all a little update. Trail construction has begun for National Championships!!!!! This will be the thread where you can find info and ask your questions.

Builders: Mike Thomas of Boone, NC. Danny Cesare of Etowah, NC. Christopher Herndon of Etowah, NC.

Resort: The resort has been super supportive of this project, they are investing a lot of money to make sure it is done right and to provide an amazing place for you all to come ride. A big thing I need to address is the property....this is private property and there is no trespassing. Please, please respect this as the last thing any of us want to do is upset the people in charge. They want to see this happen but we need to respect their property for the health of the project.

That being said the bigger picture is: 2011 National Champs!!!!! 2011 Qualifying race (date to be determined, lots of conflicts) Select dates for 2012 as an operational bike park. 2012 race series, and of course 2012 National Championships!!!!!!

Volunteer days: We will have some volunteer days and you will be able to find out about them here. I will say it won't be very glamorous work but it is always nice to have some help if you guys are up for it.

Tracks: Pro track is 100% new and has been completely cleared. Amateur track uses 20% existing trail that will be reworked a little. Amateur track is 95% cleared only because we got rained out this afternoon. Both tracks look like they will have a lot of flow and some really unique sections. There will be a builders blog on the Beech Mountain website to find out more as most of you know I don't post on here much, I will try harder.

Hope you guys are as excited as the crew and I are, we can barely walk from the past two days and you still can't wipe the smile off our faces. Hopefully it is something you all will really enjoy.
 

herndon

Chimp
Feb 21, 2005
48
0
There will be some exciting news about 4X this week....our crew will be building. Keep your eyes open on other websites for the news as I can't release any details.
 

FCLinder

Turbo Monkey
Mar 6, 2002
4,402
0
Greenville, South Carolina
Chris, I am glad you got the project as I know you will do it right!!!! Glad this is happening and hope it turns things back around for the South!!!! I will be glad to help where I can as long as I am given a heads up. The rest of RM East in the South would step in to help too.....

Cecil:thumb:
 

herndon

Chimp
Feb 21, 2005
48
0
Thanks for all the support.

Exciting news today with the first lift tray South of Seven Springs being delivered. The tray is being mounted and tested with full blown production starting as early as Tuesday if everything looks good!!! A big thanks to Monster Energy for stepping up and helping to make this part of the project a reality.

Hopefully some pics soon.
 

untitledsince89

Turbo Monkey
Nov 11, 2005
1,316
0
Winston-Salem NC
Can't wait to ride this track! and the lift trays is an amazing step!
Really blows Beech couldn't get anything together for a Series this year using the old course, considering how much of a step forward there taking for 2012
 

Trilliamiano

Monkey
Oct 7, 2007
205
0
Boone, NC
That being said the bigger picture is: 2011 National Champs!!!!! 2011 Qualifying race (date to be determined, lots of conflicts) Select dates for 2012 as an operational bike park. 2012 race series, and of course 2012 National Championships!!!!!!
The big picture is lookin good! I'm really excited to see a 2011 qualifier, I'm sure there will be lots of riders and supporters comming out for this event. This project is nothing short of a dream come true for the Southeast gravity community.

I know it's been a a tough road getting all the stars to align for this to happen but I bet the road ahead will be littered with jumps, berms, roots, drops, rocks and lots of happy riders!
 
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drkenan

anti-dentite
Oct 1, 2006
3,441
1
west asheville
Oh man I'm so stoked about this! I might even try to get it together and qualify at the Paris race. Otherwise I'll definitely be there to watch.
 

bizutch

Delicate CUSTOM flower
Dec 11, 2001
15,928
24
Over your shoulder whispering
....
Volunteer days: We will have some volunteer days and you will be able to find out about them here. I will say it won't be very glamorous work but it is always nice to have some help if you guys are up for it....
Wonder if this falls under Jeremy R's "no free labor" rule or if he'll make an exception to help?;)
 

Salami

Turbo Monkey
Jul 17, 2003
1,784
118
Waxhaw, NC
Exciting news today with the first lift tray South of Seven Springs being delivered. The tray is being mounted and tested with full blown production starting as early as Tuesday if everything looks good!!

Whoah!!!

Did you just say actual bike trays for the lift? Is this going to be a lift accessed mountain for bikes in the future, not just for the race?
 

butterNC

Chimp
Mar 3, 2009
8
0
This is going to be so awesome. Herndon, Moto, Danny as builders= hard workers and a great direction and support from the great community of riders. I know this is going to be an awesome National Champs. NC represent!

Brandon
 

Jeremy R

<b>x</b>
Nov 15, 2001
9,698
1,053
behind you with a snap pop
No doubt this is awesome.
This has the possibility to be the best thing that has ever happened for the gravity scene in the South. Even taking the sweetness of having the national championship right here in our backyard out of the picture, having a resort do what is needed to have a successful bike park is awesome.
This area has always NEEDED one good place with lift assisted riding, and Beech has everything we need to make it right:
Great terrain
The right course builders
Putting bike trays on what is already a good lift.
Having a Race series
and they are thinking long term about making this sustainable.

So, yeah to sum it up, I could not be more stoked.
As for me volunteering, that is a given.

Have Rogue hoe, will travel.
 

herndon

Chimp
Feb 21, 2005
48
0
Work Day!!!!! Saturday July 9th. Like I said before it won't be glamorous work but you will get a chance to see the tracks and drag some brush. More details to come but I just wanted to give everyone a little bit of time to plan. Thanks and look forward to seeing you all on Saturday.
 

milohead

Monkey
Dec 9, 2008
754
0
Johnson City, Tn
Work Day!!!!! Saturday July 9th. Like I said before it won't be glamorous work but you will get a chance to see the tracks and drag some brush. More details to come but I just wanted to give everyone a little bit of time to plan. Thanks and look forward to seeing you all on Saturday.
any chance on testin after cuttin?:pilot:
 

manimal

Ociffer Tackleberry
Feb 27, 2002
7,212
17
Blindly running into cactus
i'm so bummed...the possibility of a bike park within a couple of hours and i'll likely be moving to the southwest next year!! with mike, chris, and danny running the show it's going to be incredible! i'm so glad to see credit going where it's due!
 

herndon

Chimp
Feb 21, 2005
48
0
For those of you that haven't put it together yet, the big news about 4X is that Dual Slalom will be replacing it!!!!! It has been a lot of emails and a lot of time working on it but I hope everyone is really excited about this. All but one rider I have talked to in the last year and a half wanted slalom back. For those of you that are wondering that one rider was on my team:) so I pulled the coach card and trumped his vote. USA Cycling has been nothing but receptive to the idea of getting back to what the riders really want. I too have had my grievances with USAC but the last 6 months has turned my view of them around. Right now we are working hard to make the best schedule possible for you, the riders, with the most practice time we can fit in.

Unfortunately the DS most likely will not be finished for the August race date so we will only be having a DH qualifier. For those of you not qualified I would recommend contact USA Cycling and seeing what can be done. Because you have to qualify at Nationals anyway they might make exceptions for gated racers! For World Cups you have never had to have WC points for 4X for this exact reason.

For the work day we will not be able to have any riding on the tracks. They are no where close to finished. We obviously would like the extra help but wanted to give all of you that want to look at the tracks and see what we are up to in person a legal way to do it. Like in the original post please respect the Mountain! We need to do everything we can to protect our possibilities for the future.

There is however great xc trails that the town of Beech has developed up top, and what I understand to be a fun Super D course as well. Please keep your bikes off of Beech Mountain property! All the trail builders appreciate your cooperation and look forward to seeing you all on Saturday.
 

Metal Dude

Turbo Monkey
Apr 7, 2006
1,139
0
Smackdonough, GA
What about racing the old course at the college for a slalom qually? I am trying to get more Bmxers up there but, with ETSU and Wisp as the only DS quallies that I know of... they are gonna miss out unless as Chris suggested with trying to get USAC to make the exception.
 

herndon

Chimp
Feb 21, 2005
48
0
The trail work is still a go, sorry for the delay but we were working on some lodging specials for anyone who wanted to stay and do some high country riding on Sunday. Details later today. No tools needed for this Saturday as we will be mainly dragging brush and cleaning up trash in the woods. Most of the brush is already out of the woods compliments of Danny and Moto but we still want to "clean" up the woods. Most of all we wanted to give everyone an opportunity to see what is going on up here.

Plan is to meet at the public parking gravel lot on your right just before you reach the top of the mountain. This is the lot that you access the Emerald Outback trails from. 9:45 meet and sign waivers and then we will all walk up Summer road to start working around 10. We had hoped to go 10-2 but will see what we get done and how everyone is feeling.

Let us know if you have any questions and we will try to answer them quickly.

Christopher
 

bizutch

Delicate CUSTOM flower
Dec 11, 2001
15,928
24
Over your shoulder whispering
Won't know until Friday night if I can make it. Cassidy's State Champs is double elimination and if they keep winning, I'll be getting a farmer's tan at a ball field straight down 221 an hour away. Oh, the frustration and rewards of being a dad.