Provided photos.

Joey Klein has been involved in mountain bike trail design for more than 30 years, and has worked for the International Mountain Bike Association (IMBA) longer than anyone else. This year he’s being inducted into the mountain bike hall of fame in recognition of his contributions to the sport.

• How did you first get involved in trail design?
• What it like to be a part of the Subaru-IMBA Trail Care Crew program for three years in the late 90s/early 2000s? Do you think a program like that would be effective today?
• What was the idea behind launching IMBA Trail Solutions?
• How has trail design and planning evolved over the past two decades?
• Is this the golden age of trail building?
• How will the trails of the future be different from the trails we ride today?
• Do modern bike designs drive trail designs, or is it the other way around?
• Why do you think a lot of long-time riders don’t like flow trails?
• Among the many projects you’ve been involved with over the years, which ones are your favorites?
• What is the biggest misconception riders have about trail design?
• What’s next for you, and for IMBA Trail Solutions?

Get more information about IMBA and IMBA Trail Solutions at imba.com.

An automatically generated transcript is available below.

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Automated transcript

Jeff Barber 0:00
Hey everybody, welcome to the Singletracks podcast. My name is Jeff, and today my guest is Joey Klein. Joey has been involved in mountain bike trail design for more than 30 years and has worked for the International Mountain Bike Association longer than anyone else. This year, he’s being inducted into the mountain bike Hall of Fame in recognition of his contributions to the sport. Thanks for joining me, Joey,

Joey Klein 0:25
Thanks for having me. It’s it’s an honor to get to talk to you about all these great things.

Jeff Barber 0:29
Awesome. Well, first of all, congrats on being inducted into the mountain bike Hall of Fame. Was did that come as a surprise to you? Is that something like you paid attention to kind of working over the years?

Joey Klein 0:43
Oh, huge. Thanks to everybody on the IMBA team who nominated me and then did the follow through, and I can name 100 other people who I would also love to have right beside me for this award, because trail development is always a collaborative thing. It’s never, it’s always a team of people. You’re able to really get the magic to happen. You know, you have elements from a lot of different people and different backgrounds. And I think it is funny, because I get asked all the time what’s your favorite trail? And nowadays your favorite trail, it’s your favorite trail system.

Jeff Barber 1:30
I mean, as a trail builder and a trail designer, I imagine there are times when it feels thankless or or, do you think that people are starting to recognize builders and designers more.

Speaker 1 1:43
I’ve never felt that thankless part, you know, because my role at IMBA has been very widespread, I guess. You know, as a teacher, as a trainer, as planner, designer, builder, helping maintain, and then the advocacy side. So I get to wear all those hats, and I have to say, whenever you’re the builder, you’re kind of the last person there and and often sites are open to public, and they’re coming by, and they’re just like, oh, this is so great. So I, I’ve, I’ve had so many thank yous, you know, and so many great stories.

You know, one of my favorites was, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Bonneville shoreline trail in the Wasatch of Utah, near Salt Lake City, but, but it connects, you know, dozens of communities along this mountain range. And it’s, it’s going to be several 100 miles when it’s all done signal track. And I was in a machine out by, oh, geez, what was it? Uh, North Ogden. And I’m in a machine every day, and it’s getting to be winter, and every day I would have this runner and his dog come up from the north and run out to see me, and then turn back and there’s mount biker come from the south. And they they, you know, and one day they met at the same time at my machine as I’m building a turnout machine. And like, is that? Is that bill? What is that George and these guys went to school or junior high together, hadn’t seen each other for like, 15 years, and this trail now connected their reconnected their lives. Because, oh, wow, yeah, every use this every day for exercise, so that that’s the kind of story that builders get every job they do. It’s awesome.

Jeff Barber 3:43
Wow, that’s awesome, changing lives. So tell us, how did you first get into mountain bike trail design?

Joey Klein 3:52
Because I was pissed off, like so many, like so many, right? So many builders who are pro builders now started out as pirates. They all, everyone did, yeah, but I went to school at Fort Lewis College in Durango, which is now, you know, recognized as one of the places to ride, and their college team is the top world probably, yeah, me and my dirtbag friends just got into mountain biking, and we’re climbing and all that, and we started racing, no helmets, and, you know, and then I went back to Summit County, where I live, near Keystone and Arapahoe basin, and I didn’t finish college, and went back to being a ski bomb, and made it through that winter. And, you know, I got back on the bike, it’s like, Man, there isn’t any singletrack. What’s going on. And I somehow got a meeting with the President of Operations at Keystone, and I marched in there with maps from Winter Park and Vale and all these other places back in the 80s and and I was, I was steaming mad, you know, because they were, they. Were trying it, but they were charging money to go up to gondola, to go down a road. I’m like, No, it’s all about single track. And John rotor was great. He’s like, Oh, I had no idea. You know, what will this put you in touch with our mountain manager? What are you doing tomorrow? And then I went to his office the next day, and he’s like, and he’s pissed off because now he’s in trouble, because some kid knows more about the sport than in any ways, what was great. And they all just said, Well, what are you doing this summer? Well, I’m washing dishes at the Snake River saloon. Like, No, you’re not. You’re coming to work with us, and you’re going to help us figure this out. And so we did a master plan of like, 60 some miles, and they’re still working off it, and that’s what bike park sort of got its wings. And we were hand built construction that summer, kind of piecing together a lot of old mining stuff, you know, log missing that, you know. And right away it changed things, because people were hopping on the left top of a gondola, and they were riding single track and long times gears. And locals were like, Oh man, this is so cool. I had no idea that this was here, these places in the summer. And then full circle Arapaho basin, which is the big brother, up the hill towards Loveland Pass, and one of the highest gears in North America, we just finished our whatever, six mile descent. And the highest berms in North America, because you have to pedal up the mountain and you go down a six mile descent, and we have berms that are at 12,600 feet high.

Jeff Barber 6:49
Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, I mean, it sounds like when you started out, you were, you were high on confidence, but maybe low on experience. I mean, how did those trails turn out? Like looking back on it and, like, that plan you put together back then. Like, did you know what you’re doing? Did you get lucky? How were you able to even pull that off at such an early stage?

Joey Klein 7:12
A bit of both. Because, you know, because it was bike park before they were bike parks, we knew we wanted blues and blacks. And obviously there was a struggle with, you know, most of us pirate builders want to get right to the black diamonds. Yay. You want to build what you ride, right? And we started out with a lot of blues and and those, those worked out well. And then we really wanted some black diamond stuff. And luckily, the Forest Service guy was like, hey, you know, if you’re gonna do a Black Diamond, make it a black diamond. Like, I don’t want everybody to ride this thing, you know? And it did, and we called it wild thing, and it been, within years, it eroded to hell, and they’ve had to redo it. Wouldn’t coswit and all this other stuff, but it’s, it is a classic, you know. So to answer your question, and then some of the greens that might have been too peddly for a downhill bike, easy to repurpose that just by making bank turns. So you can hop through some of those sections. So, so Yeah, anything that was true, Fall Line was going to blow up, and then stuff on the contour will hold up forever. Yeah, yeah. So we weren’t that far off.

Jeff Barber 8:32
Okay, that’s cool. Well, so yeah, sticking to kind of the early part of your career. You were part of the Subaru IMBA Trail Care crew program for three years in the late 90s, early 2000s and for listeners who are, like, new to the sport and don’t you know, weren’t around for that, like, tell us a little bit about that. What, what was the program? And, like, what did that involve?

Joey Klein 8:58
Well, this, this is something really dear to my heart, because it’s where I got my start. And it did change my life. It brought me out of my shell. And what, what the program was is, and it went from about, I want to say, 1997 to about 2014 and, you know, don’t quote me, but that’s how long it lasted. Subaru was the main sponsor, and it was basically a guy and a girl get in a brand new Outback with mountain bikes, brand new Mac computer and cell phone and good luck. And you were pretty much scheduled out for the whole year, and you would do a different state almost every week. And there were 60 hour week if you’re awake, you’re working, there’s no doubt Subaru is logoed out So anywhere you went, because long before anybody else had those, you know, the decals on cars and these things were done, yeah, and so, you know, when you came into a small town with that thing, people just like, What is going on?

Jeff Barber 10:02
The mountain bikers are here, yeah.

Joey Klein 10:03
But what was funny is even the IMBA leadership team were like, they called it chimps in space for the early years, because you really never knew what you were getting into. And the role played was really putting land managers together with the mountain bikers, right? Okay, so often the mountain bikers were just out there doing their thing, and the land manager’s like, ‘Oh my word.’ You know, that was the last, you know, whatever.

And so it was like, let’s, let’s get you guys together, and let’s speak a common language, and let’s learn what our rangers and our forest managers are dealing with, and how can we help them, rather than, you know, be off to the side doing stuff. And, I mean, I think the best stories was Huntsville, Alabama, where, you know that mountain bike club went in there after a big ice storm, and they weren’t even allowed to ride those trails, but it was the mountain bike club who went in and cleared up all that deadfall to get to get those trails ready for a running race. And that’s the kind of thing that was going on in the early, well, late 80s, early 90s of where mountain bike clubs were doing so much to try to just try to get in, you know. And that’s a lot of what we were doing, you know. And we might have had to soft pedal a bit, as far as you know, the sustainability side more than the ride ability side, but, but that’s what got us in. And then every year, things would expand and get to be bigger and better and all that, you know, but there’s always a balance.

Jeff Barber 11:45
Interesting. Well, I mean, it sounds like you’re kind of connecting like today, where we do have relationships with these land managers, and like there’s a much better understanding of of what mountain bikers want, like, what we’re capable of doing, in terms of, like, giving back all of that stuff. I mean, was that kind of laying the groundwork for that, would you say?

Joey Klein 12:07
Yeah, 100%. And, I mean, the trail care crew and so again. So what it was, you know, we had two sets of couples in the early days. We’d have a couple who was more based in the East, because they understand they understood those forest types. And after they were on the road for a year or two, they knew all the different club members, so they had relationships. So the second time around, or the third time you made a visit to whatever town that was, you already knew what they had and what they needed, and you could get to work. And a lot of times we’re building new trail, or we were doing some reroutes, or we were adding features, whatever it was, and and so often the land manager would be so blown away, and it would be such a great sort of kumbaya weekend of trail work and just getting together that they’d be like, Man, can you guys stay next week and hire you and so that that was really will circle back, but that’s sort of how trail solution was born, is the trail care crews. A lot of the early teams were doing such great work, and because we saw so much, right? I mean, my first year on the road with my partner at the time Kathy summers, I think we started Conyers with Mike and Jan, the original crew. So we’re at the Conyers bike, horse bike park. What was that the Yeah, the Olympic course. Yeah, at 96 or 98 what year? 96 Olympics? Yeah, there you go. So that’s where we learned how to do maintenance work and and, and then, while we were under the tutelage of Mike and Jan, we were all over the the Appalachia, you know, those southern states, into Tennessee, into Virginia, West Virginia, you know, places Kathy and I never even dreamed of and we had no idea how cool and awesome the mountain biking was, right? And then, boom, out we’re in Texas, Oklahoma, and then jet up to the Midwest, and then, oh, go back to New York City and New Jersey and and, I mean, our first year, I think we hit 30 states in four countries.

Jeff Barbr 14:22
Wow.

Joey Klein 14:25
But year two, it was, it was just, you’d seen everything, yeah. And our first year, we were even invited to Wales and Scotland, France, Italy and Mexico City. And so we would learn all these techniques, such as armoring and then, and which was kind of a technique for the wet, but it’s like, hey, we can take this back to Sedona, where there’s, it’s just sand, or it’s super steep, and we can use armory techniques, and we can pass that technique on. We learned somebody else. Yeah, so all. Of our books. You know, we’re at five or six books now, and those early books were, we didn’t just make it up, right? It was very much. We learned from all these great people around the world, and we passed it on. We put it in books.

Jeff Barber 15:16
It sounds like the program then, I mean, it was super effective in terms of, like, making connections and gathering data and learning and all of that stuff. I mean, do you think is a program like that? I mean, you said it ended in like, 2014 2017 Is that something that that would be effective today? Or are we like, is mountain biking kind of past that, where we don’t we don’t really need to do that as much anymore.Do we need to do some different stuff or find a new approach?

Joey Klein 15:47
No, it’s perfect timing. We’re actually doing it again in just a different version. So yeah, and it kind of started in California. Garrett Villanueva, who is a top dog with the Forest Service works closely with my coworker, Chris Orr, who’s from California, and just, he just received a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in California. And so we have an agreement with Region Five where we teach trail care schools to our forest service friends and partners all over California, and we’ll be doing 20 this year. And so they travel around the state to like, these different forest service offices, instead of having a couple and a designated car. It’s more like Chris will, you know, bump around from place to place, and I’ll jump in and help. And and it’s, again, it’s so different than it was, right, like, nay, we didn’t know if we’d have seven people show up for one of these things or 70. We didn’t know if we’d be working with hikers, equestrians. Sometimes we were working with clubs that were like at war with another over you never knew what was going on. And so now it’s way more refined. And our coordinator, you know, we’re talking to these people long in advance, and we know about what the project’s going to be, and we only take 10 students for one instructor, so 20 people with two instructors, and that’s right. So everybody really gets a lot out of a two or three day kind of course, and, and we just did one on Navajo Nation. We’re doing a lot of stuff on Navajo Nation, which we can come back to, but so, yeah, so I think I’ll be doing some stuff in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and just like trail kick crew, I never really know what’s going on the week before. I’m just trying to focus on where I’m at. Yeah, and I think that that is better to be so present where you are. I just didn’t want Wisconsin. It was so great. Because coming back to your question is that it’s 2025 and a lot of these trail systems have been alive since 19 8819 9219 something, and maybe a pro went in there and helped get it going, or maybe it just happened, but all of them could use a little reboot. And like you kind of said the sport has evolved so much where, when we started with this, there were no green, blues and blacks, you know, like, get out there and good luck, yeah. And now it’s like, we’ve got kids bikes. Wow, cool. Let’s do a kids trail, you know. So I’ve worked in a lot of systems and taught at these different systems, whether it was Florida or Pennsylvania or, you know, Wisconsin and places are a little flatter than what I do. And I could see how all of these systems are just a little tune up and a little bit hey, let’s make this trail a little more easy, and we could call that a green loop, and it’s actually green loop. And hey, what about this one? Let’s add some texture to it, some rock, and it would actually be a true black diamond. And hey, wouldn’t it be cool if you had an asphalt pump track or and let’s not lose that classic single track. Let’s, let’s, make sure we capture and keep some of that so you have, yeah, little bit of everything, and you don’t need 5060, 100 200 400 miles. I kind of used to say, you know, it can be a lot consolidated, and everybody gets a piece of the pie.

Jeff Barber 19:42
You kind of hinted at it, and I wanted to ask you, like, do you think that trail design is being driven by bikes, or is bike design being driven by the trails? It sounds like maybe it’s a little bit of both. I mean, you mentioned kids by. Bikes, and there’s these really capable kids bikes now. So like, yeah, maybe a kid or a trail for younger bike riders doesn’t have to be a green trail, necessarily. So. So what’s kind of driving that is it the bikes or the trails?

Joey Klein 20:14
It’s both, right? And it’s so wild to go back to trails that were done in the 90s, whether they were pirated or not, or whatever. And you go back to those places, and you know, now we’re all riding enduro bikes and trail bikes, and they’re, it’s kind of like a downhill bike that can pedal, and they don’t weigh anything, and the bars are as wide as a moto. And okay, let’s go. And you start to just haul and all of a sudden it’s just it’s so Herky jerky. And, yeah, you know, when we had our when our bars were like this, seats were up to our necks and just so it’s different. And even trail systems that we just finished, like, I’m not kidding two weeks ago, we have more dedicated climbs, you know, super easy, 5% overall climb that allows everybody to get to a certain hub and then green down, blue down, black down, wherever you want, all these different skill levels. But it’s interesting, riding that climbing trail on a normal bike and then hopping on my E bike the next day, right? Seeing how the corners. You know, even though I’m climbing, I’m not going that fast, but it’s a wider turn radius, right?

Jeff Barber 21:30
Yeah, when the E bikers too, a lot of them are cutting the corners right, because they’re they don’t need that grade. You know, I’ve heard, like, some of the guys from the Trailblazers in Arkansas, or are finding that, you know, they have a climbing trail, but then they’re like, well, let’s make an e-bike climbing trail that, just like, gets people up to the top because they don’t, you know, why should they have to do this? Like meandering trail? If they can power up something a little bit steeper?

Joey Klein 21:57
I totally get it. And I the minute I got on an e-bike for doing recon years ago, and we hit some old like money roads, just old routes that were forgotten and would use them to get to places like that. Thing’s like 30% and it’s all when we just bust that it was that was awesome. We need to have some more of these. Yes, so it’ll be part of the formula. You know, it’s just, how do you maintain those steeper Fall Line trails? And I think if you’re just going uphill and you can manage the water, it might not be so bad, but if you’re putting it down, those things, you’re gonna see that stuff fall apart.

Jeff Barber 22:39
Right, right. Well, let’s, let’s get back to, I guess, the early 2000s. So I think IMBA Trail Solutions was formed in 2002 ish, so take us back to that time, like, what was the idea behind offering trail planning and design and build services through IMBA? Was that was a new idea at the time. Were there other folks that were doing that outside of IMBA? Like, why? Why add that into IMBA?

Joey Klein 23:11
Yeah, no, there were companies doing that who were also very good at this, but it was way more cowboy, right? It was typically that they were doing the planning, the design and the construction, the whole nine yards right out of the gate, yeah, and no real um, if sands or buts to it, you know? So I think trail solutions, to me, it’s three or four things, right? It’s, it was 2002 the first book came out, which was called trail solutions. And it gave everybody this guide to how to build trail and how to design it and and that was the same year we had our embass summit in Moab, and we had, I don’t know, 1520 people from international from from different countries come out.

One of the things that came out at that year was there was a lot of discussion over the downhilling, the free ride, the dirt shopping thing. And we didn’t even have sort of a place for that in our summit. It just sort of evolved. And we had people like Wade Simmons, we had the Canadians, we had all kinds of top riders. I was like, Hey, this is something we have to address. We can’t ignore this part of the sport. So that was happening, right? That was a big thing. And also was sort of like trail care crew wise, we had rich and Jen, who are the East Coast, and myself and my partner west coast. And, you know, after two or three years, most people are done. And in this case, Rich’s wife no more. I can’t do this. And same in mind, it’s. So it was like, Rich and I were just getting into it. We’re just like, we’re just starting to understand, wow. And Pete Weber, who used to race for track, he was in the Boulder office, and the three of us kind of got to go to Tim Blumenthal and like, hey, we could make this a thing, you know, let’s, let’s, let’s make this a fee based, sort of offering and and it started out with, of course, planning and design. But at the same time, Tony Boone arrowhead trails, who had close relationships with with Sutter of the SWACO trail, Dozer, at the time, that’s what it was called. He got them to donate a $60,000 trail. Dozer man, what the hell are we going to do with that thing we’re driving? And I got a gig at Tamarack resort in Idaho to do their entire build and design and Tony trailer that thing out for us and taught us how to use the dozer. And he’s always been a huge partner and trainer for our in the trail kick crews and and so yeah, it was, it was planning design, but it was also construction. And here was a place that wanted to be like Whistler. We could have cross-country. We have the highest level of downhill, private and state land. We can just turn that volume knob to 11. And we were there. I was there for five summers, wow. Brought in all kinds of different builders and taught the locals, and and we built something really great. There. It was awesome.

Jeff Barber 26:45
Yeah, that’s cool. Well, today, how much of trail solutions work is that, like planning and design versus the build is, is what’s kind of the split between those?

Joey Klein 26:58
Oh, man, I should know that, and I don’t, because, Chris and I have sort of evolved more into this, these trail care schools, I’d say, I’ll just say, by by amount of staff, we have about five or Six planners, designers, and then probably have more like eight to 10 builders, because obviously it’s going to take a longer time to build the trail, so they might be at a place for months or an entire summer, and your planner and designers are going to be there for maybe a week to 10 days.

Jeff Barber 27:37
I mean, it feels like I see IMBA Trail Solutions listed as like the designer. You know, there’s plans that are created by Trail Solutions for a lot of projects, and a lot of these are proposed to they haven’t happened yet, and then obviously, like somebody else comes in and builds them. So it does feel like the planning side, at least like in terms of the number of trail projects that are touched that the planning and design side probably touches more of the projects right than the bill side. Is that right?

Joey Klein 28:11
Yeah, yeah, that’s it. And I really stand behind both sides, because I feel if you don’t have a quality plan that’s really well vetted and really thought about, then the construction is just going to fall apart. You know, yeah, has to be correct. And sometimes it might take years for those initial concepts or designs to sort of work themselves out with whatever that landscape is, or maybe whoever it’s for, it might change the property boundaries might there’s how these things that sometimes need a few years to percolate and to simmer before you’re ready to go. So hopefully that helps, but, but the planning design thing, it has evolved. It’s, it’s crazy.

Jeff Barber 29:01
What’s different?

Joey Klein 29:03
I mean, it used to just be me running around with maybe a GPS in the woods like a dog. It’s back and forth. Oh, here’s the property boundary. Oh, I found a pin. Okay, cool. Let’s take a compass and try to find north, south and find the next one. Now it is all of our planners are ArcGIS gurus, and before we even set foot on a site, we have these maps that are loaded onto our phones or our tablets that have all the hill shading. It’s got the utility boundaries, it’s got everything you could ever imagine, go zones and no go zones, and then there’s a dot. And there, there, there you are. And you’ve already kind of came up with a bit of a concept. And now when you go to flag it, you’re almost just following this line, three of us. So let’s say I’m out in front and Lee is behind me. Or. Is, and she’s just like, Okay, you’re going to go another 50 feet, and it’s going to drop off like a cliff, so you need to figure out a turn soon.

And then Matt’s behind flagging and GPS and tracking the whole thing. And so it’s so efficient, right? Maybe drones are up in the air first to kind of get an idea of what, what’s going on. But you know, you’re getting LIDAR where, you know, like, three foot contours or one meter contours. So it’s Wow, it’s cool. And because so many systems now, we’re trying to pack in a little bit of something for everyone, right? I’m trying to find, hey, maybe these trails are going to be directional. Maybe I need to have some stuff that’s dual direction, so people could come in from different neighborhoods and then jump in and then have a directional experience, but then still be able to get out to wherever they live. Yeah. Maybe I want a hiker only loop. Maybe I want to have a climbing trail, and maybe that climbing trail can be two directions for my equestrians and my hikers, and then I add legs so they can make a loop out of it without having to be in the mess of the mountain bike descents, you know. So, so you’re really trying to make the most out of that space. Yeah,

Jeff Barber 31:21
yeah, that’s cool, right? It sounds like technology plays a much bigger role, or has has made it easier in some ways, but also, you’re still out there on the ground, and you’re looking, I assume, for like, kind of the cool features, like, where’s that stuff gonna go? Or can you figure that out before you even get out there.

Joey Klein 31:43
Yeah, that’s the cool thing is now with this mapping, we’re asking all the questions before we even set foot on site, you know, so just when I are talking now, we might have a meeting that’s virtual, and we’re asking all these questions, right? You know, who is this for? You know, what’s the season going to be like? You know, what are the constraints and what are the opportunities? Do we have wildlife concerns? Do we have archeological concerns?

You know, it is never like, Oh, you’ve got 5,000 acres. Go nuts. It’s like, you whittle it down where there’s almost nothing left. You know, because we are really trying to but we’re not trying. We’re doing it. We want to respect nature and and those who’ve come before us and so, you know, yeah, that’s a lot but, but that’s, that’s a big part of it. So and again, it is really cool that we’re kind of going back to these trail care schools, you know, kind of going back to that is that, now that we’ve done so many plans and designs and seen trail systems evolve from nothing to something, we can go into almost any trail system and go, you know, if you just had this be just that much more beneficial for the whole community and maybe for yours. And so a lot of these smaller systems I’ve seen, you know, let’s say back east, where it might just be a 12 mile system. Oh, that’s easy. We can go in and add some machine built to this, or maybe some hand built to that. Maybe there’s a little skills park over here. But I just so I think that might be a bit of our future is, is how to go back to the systems that may or may not be called legacy systems, and how to give them a fresh shot of energy. And yeah, it’s also funny how we describe trail users, right? Because so often you’re working with hikers, or now it’s trail owners. Dog walkers are off the charts, right? Everybody?

Jeff Barber 34:08
That’s a lot of them, yeah, COVID, right?

Joey Klein 34:12
And so we have all these neutral trail, trail users, right? But what’s one we ever talk about? And that’s trail builders, mountain bikers are psychos about wanting to go build new trail. I mean, we are just, we’re we’re just nuts that way more than anybody else, really.

Jeff Barber 34:31
Why do you think that is?

Joey Klein 34:33
Well, because you’re not just traveling through you’re caressing this land with your tires, you know. Whether that be turn or a roller or or trying to pop off this rock and land on the backside of something else. You know, you’re just just looking at it all the time in a way, yeah, that surmises that experience. And so there’s a love and. Of care that goes into it, and you’re working with your hands, which it’s part of being human, right?

Jeff Barber 35:04
Yeah,

Joey Klein 35:06
So it’s almost like when I’m doing a plan or a design for something new and big, I have to leave some placeholders for some hand built or perhaps where, where the local volunteers would team up with with our build teams, or whoever else might be doing the build, you know, so that they’re part of that. It’s not just somebody came to town and spend a million dollars and you just built this thing and then they walked away. You know, imba is very much about, you know, the trail solutions. Way is, we’re going to do this together, and we’re going to teach you how to fish. Because, you know, yes, we are going to leave, but we want to have that you can take care of a good chunk of this, right? And I know one of the other questions is purpose built versus hand built singletrack. And the fact is, yeah, is once we crank that dial up to bike park world, and you have berms and jumps and lips and landings, that stuff doesn’t last forever. It needs maintenance. And more and more, we’re going to see that if people want that kind of thing that’s further from, you know, the urban world, you’re going to want a team to be able to come back, and it’s going to cost. You know, it’s not just you and your five friends of the rake. You know what? I mean, yes, so sorry, we got a little off track there.

Jeff Barber 36:32
No, that’s great. Yeah, a lot of good stuff there. I mean, I think it sounds like you’re saying that a lot of the trail building now and into the future is it sounds like it’s more strategically focused. I mean, it’s like finding the areas where you can improve a trail or, you know, making sure it it sounds like it’s quality over quantity, too, as well. You kind of mentioned that where, in the past, like a destination was considered a destination based on how many miles of singletrack that they had. And, you know, some town would say we got 400 miles of singletrack, and some other town says we got 500 and it’s like nobody was ever going to ride all that, you know, let alone maintain it even so that it is rideable. And so, yeah, it sounds like we’re going more toward the quality side of the equation. And, yeah, I mean, I do want to talk about, like, Why? Why do you think that longtime riders are not as interested in flow trails? Or, you know, is it just a is it just a thing to be like, okay, yeah, I’m cool. Like, I can ride technical trails. And so flow trails are not good. Like, we did a, I did an opinion piece recently saying how much I liked flow trails, and I was surprised how many people, you know, were just like, Nope, I hate them. Like they’re dumb. I want to ride, like, really technical stuff and like, that’s it. So why do you think, yeah, why do you think people, especially people who’ve been riding a long time, just aren’t into flow trails?

Joey Klein 38:07
Oh, man, uh, again, because I come from that. I’m cut from that cloth of super steep, rocky, technical, narrow, that’s where I came from. I love that.

Jeff Barber 38:17
Clearly, you’ve been riding a long time, you’re experienced, you’re a great rider, but you enjoy flow trails, right?

Joey Klein 38:24
I like it all I do, and I feel like a good system has a balance. And you know, here I am in Aspen, Colorado, the local club is Roy and fork Mountain Bike Association, and these guys are all 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, and they’re just bad asses. And they lovely climbs. And there’s a new flow trail called crown Royale, which is two or three years old, I think. And it’s you got to earn your turns. You got to go 2000 3000 vertical feet up to get to this thing. I wrote it yesterday. My girlfriend is 62 she’s had a lot of big bike racks. She is terrified of mountain biking, technical, rocky stuff, and she had so much fun on that trail. Yeah, just hit it. It’s that ultimate green blue of, you know, bank turns, rollers, a few kind of smaller jumps and tables. You know, it has all the progression you could take anybody up there and they’re going to have fun, and they’re not worked out all right.

Jeff Barber 39:38
You would think so. But then there’s these guys that are like, I don’t like those, and I don’t. I guess maybe we’ll never understand it.

Joey Klein 39:45
So what’s really cool about our A Basin build that we finished in 2022 is that we again, it’s at 12,000 feet, you know? So it’s, you would never do a bike park on a skier that steeper, that rocky. I. Yeah, it’s tundra. So, you know, on the nature side we we replaced all the tundra, and so we’ve got bermed turns, but they’re not like bike park but, but they’re banked enough to where you can kind of let it go, but then it’s not, you know, 18 inches single track, but when you’re on a super steep side hill and it’s two feet and it’s rocky as heck, so all the locals, they went, they went bananas because it has a bit of that flow bike park, but it’s very much feels like hand built single track. So we’re trying to find this balance there. Wow,

For a lot of people, I mean, face it, I love Titan gnarly switchbacks, but so many people, they can’t pull that off and off they go flipping over the bike, and they’re from before they’re done right now, to me, I think a lot of it is the corners and just having these optional features and jumps and drops, which has always been part of good old -ashioned signal track.

Jeff Barber 41:06
Yeah, you’re right. I mean, a lot of the new trails I am seeing that where there’s options, and there’s lines, and then you can be sort of creative in the way that you ride, and you can choose to do the more technical kind of side things, but also there’s, there’s, like, the main trail that’s going to flow. And, you know, I wonder so you’re, you’re a skier and a surfer as well. I understand. So does your experience with those sports kind of play into how you look at trails and flow and that sort of thing?

Joey Klein 41:41
Yeah, I’m not much of a surfer. I try. I use that, that word all the time. You know, you’re surfing along the hillside, and there is really what, what makes a great trail. And I mean even the very early years of the trail care crew with imba, we use the word flow, but there weren’t really any machine built trails at that time that were flow trails. They were just cutting and they were wide and they were just go to whatever. But now what we call a flow trail is definitely banked right, and so you have these bank corners and a lot of what we were teaching in the early 90s was this technique of trail building that was that came from the hiking world, and it was techniques that we’d learned and that were really around for 100 years. And one of the things that was said was that the tread was going to be out sloped. That is, if you ride outside, it was going to be tilted down the hill just a ton, a fraction, just so that water, yeah, cross the tread and then continue on down the hillside. That out sloping also meant that, well, wait, how could a trail be outsloped everywhere? And if that’s true, then sure maybe you’re getting the water off, but you’re also sending the users. And so now what we’re teaching is, yes, let’s get the water off, but, but what about some in sloping? What about some out sloping? What about bank turns? You know all of that actually is going to happen to your hand built single track over time, just by the bike tires doing their thing. Go anywhere in the world, and you can see tight ass switchbacks. And over time, the riders will ride up on the bank, and that is going to get wider because it has to, and it’s going to start to flow a certain way. It’s not going to be as 45 Angley as a hiking trail or twitchy as a hiking trail. Over time those lines will that flow will happen. Yeah. So I feel like the hand built single track has a flow to it, but our flow trails that are machine built, it’s like right out of the gate, it’s a wider footprint, it’s bigger radius turns, and there’s more of this up down thing that’s more surfy,

Jeff Barber 44:14
Yeah, that’s, that’s a great explanation.

Joey Klein 44:18
You know, the other thing too is, and I love hand-built singletrack. But, um, how are you going to get that many people to build how many miles? Right? You know? So there’s, there’s kind of that too. So it’s, so it’s like, you want to sign up for that, you know, if you do it right, it’s going to take a while.

Jeff Barber 44:38
Yeah, there’s a lot of dirt to move for a lot of those projects, I’m sure. And, you know, I think, I think people who have been writing a long time recognize that we’re building more trail now than than at any other time, especially purpose built trail kind of in the past. I mean, would you say is this? Is this the golden age of. Trail building is this, are we kind of at the peak, or like, how would you characterize kind of where we’re at right now in terms of building trails and building quality trails?

Joey Klein 45:12
It’s going to continue to evolve. And certainly, I’d say in the last 10 years was a very big push with what our friends did in Arkansas, Bentonville, Walton Family Foundation, I mean their investment just off the charts, right? And and to take a place that doesn’t have the vertical that, say, Colorado or Utah might have, or even Appalachians and going, Oh no, we’re going to make this the destination with only 200 vertical feet, or whatever it is. Yeah. So I did the planning and design for Kohler, the Kohler, okay? And it was very intentional, like one side should be for maybe the family type riders, more green, blue world. And then look at this side. It’s all super cool, Rocky. Let’s, let’s keep that for more of our intermediate, expert, advanced builders, just, they just took it to the nines. They just, you know, because I, I intentionally wanted to have a hub where you would have a little bit of vertical rise. It would have to be artificially brought in, whether it was dirt or a $90,000 massive ramp.

And so that certainly what a golden age that is and was and will continue to be. And I think other countries are just getting into these, this whole thing, you know, Australia, obviously, we’ve had a lot of, I did 10 different business to Australia, and when I first started working there, it was a battle. I mean, I would do three presentations a day, and it was just, it was a struggle to get anybody to buy in, except for the core riders. And you know, you had Glenn Jacobs up in Cairns, and he was proving it. He had places to ride. They were legal. So there were a few pockets of legal riding, but most of that country, it was frowned upon. And now and 15 years later, because of those really strong trail champions all over that, especially Tasmania, now that’s when people go, hey, where would you take us to go riding? If you could? I’m like, we’re going to Tasmania because different builders, you know Simon French and did the hard line, and you know, Glenn’s work, and all these, these rock stars of trail building, and they’ve, they’ve been in the trenches for 20 some years, and now it’s opened up to what they’re doing. And it’s very much machine built flow, you know.

So it depends on where we’re talking, right, um, out west, out here, we’re kind of getting up against some walls with, with, you know, Parks and Wildlife who feel like, which there are and that we’re, you know, are we starting to get, were there too many people in the forests, right? You know? So, so it’s might slow down in some in other states, maybe it’s just getting discovered. Look at the Midwest. Look at what’s happened in the UP of Michigan, and see a huge boom. And you know, those states, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, yeah. And, you know, now we’re working with the Navajo, and the Navajo Nation is as big as West Virginia,

It’s just amazing for riders. And like we were talking about, it’s like mountain biking used to be, you know, if you show up, it doesn’t matter what bike you’re on, it doesn’t matter the color of your skin. We’re all mountain bikers. I love to go back to that time of the sport, and that’s why we’re doing so much work down there, because you just, you just feel that love of the sport and that that team camaraderie. As far as when someone new shows up, you’re just Whoa. You made it over that ledge.

And so you just see families come together and really helping each other out bikes. And you know, we were out there last this winter, and a kid, one of our best riders, he flew off this ledge and cased his rear wheel. And none of us had any tubes or anything I’m gonna get back. And these guys just started taking this pinion pine, and they took pine sap out of the tree, and they just last of the rest of the day, you know?

Jeff Barber 50:01
Yeah, that’s cool. Well, yeah. I mean, you mentioned the trails in Tasmania as being kind of a favorite spot to ride, and I won’t ask you your your favorite trails or trail systems to ride, but which ones are you, like, most proud of that you’ve worked on over the years, in terms of the projects that maybe you’ve designed or even had a hand in building.

Joey Klein 50:25
You know, you’re always thinking the most recent. And we just opened what’s called the prospector trails in Pioche, Nevada, which is two, three hours north of Vegas, and I had a big hand in the planning to design there. And then last summer, I got to do a build in August, which was the worst don’t ever go in August, it was brutal. We learned so much about working in those temps, and we got it done. We built a really cool section. And then, you know, other trail solutions teams have been there, on and off for a couple years now, we’ve got just some amazing green trails that are so great for the Nike teams that are coming out of that very rural area. And we’ve got some rock built Black Diamond descents that are just, they’re off the charts. You know, I haven’t ridden all stuff. But I mean that just got open. This is, this is the week the grand opening right now. Poof, oh, wow, cool. That’s going on Bean Peaks in Prescott, Arizona. This hub and cluster. Idea of easy climbs. Get to a hub. Okay, you got a black diamond jump trail. Maybe you got a green rolling fun thing. Maybe you got a blue hand built rocky thing. So, you know, I think there’ll be 20 some miles there, but it’s, it’s all part of a system of, like, 200 some miles of trail. So wow, they already have their awesome signal track and their tech and all this stuff. But, you know, we’re sort of injecting all these, you know, these systems that are super modern and well thought out that has something for everybody, and I think that really attracts that, that family, or those folks who might not jump into the sport otherwise.

So, yeah, Bean Peaks, the thing at a base and we’ve done, I mean, and working with the a base and team, and the cat drivers, who are mountain bikers, and now their rock work, the stone work that they’re doing nothing like in this country.

Jeff Barber 52:34
Wow. So neat.

Joey Klein 52:36
And then I think, I think the influence that we’ve had, or I’ve had, and working with all these different places, and bringing a technique, and then they take it and make it even better, because now, because it’s theirs, and then they make it their own. And seeing what Lars or omega has done in Sedona, you know? So we have two trails this year, right? We have what is it called…

Jeff Barber 53:02
Hardline.

Joey Klein 53:04
Hardline in Sedona, which is Lars. And then you have the hard line Red Bull event, which is Simon French in Tasmania, same name, and we’ve worked with both people. Haven’t been there for a couple of years. But there was this cool collaborative years ago, and now it’s so neat to see these guys in those places and how far they’ve gone. You know, with Sedona, very natural using the existing rock and then hard line in Tasmania, where it’s just like, wow, yeah. So that input influence or support or collaborative, it’s, it’s everywhere,

Jeff Barber 53:46
Yeah, it seems like that definitely is what makes trail solutions different from some of the other you know, trail builders or service providers, is that you are there also to educate and to make sure that the local club can, you know, take, take what you’re doing and build on it, you know, versus someone who’s coming in to to get the job done, and then they’re going to move on. You know, it sounds like, when you bring trail solutions in, you’re also gonna, you’re gonna, you’re gonna learn some stuff at the same time.

Joey Klein 54:16
Yeah, and that, that’s probably, I think, the hardest thing is, there’s a balance, and I call it the triangle, and where maybe the triangle, maybe one point of the triangle is sustainability, maybe no point might be rideability, and then another point might be, does it fit into nature? Okay, did you just go in there the machine and just blast out a bunch of cool jumps and berms and just leave the place like a bomb went off all the time. Yeah, our builders, I’m so proud of them, because you got a PIO, which is a naked landscape, and I don’t know how they’ve pulled this off, but it looks like a laser went through and just created all these forms. Yeah, and when our BLM land manager, or their upper uppers come to see what we’ve done, they’re like, Wow, how did you do this? We’ve never seen like it.

Jeff Barber 55:10
Yeah, because you got to get the dirt from somewhere. And, you know, as a rider, we don’t really think about that. But, you know, I was, I was asking a trail builder over in Alabama about this, you know, that they had this new trail with, like, some big jumps and rollers. And I was like, Where did all that dirt come from? Did you guys, like, bring it in? They’re like, Well, no, I mean, you didn’t see it, but we got, like, a hole that we dug, you know, over here, and we moved it over there. And so, yeah, it’s, it’s complicated. It’s not easy to do at all.

Joey Klein 55:39
And that, that technique we now call, or I came up with the term lift and tilt. We didn’t it the first time I saw it was what Gravity Logic was doing up in Whistler with a line and and, you know, you go ride those, like these massive tabletops and berms. It’s like, where did this come from? And, you know, there’s all these different groups who but you know now it’s, it’s been accepted worldwide. And what it is, is, is, you know, you’re making these borrow basins, and you’re putting all the woody debris that you might otherwise encounter have to spread out somewhere. Instead, it’s going in the ground, and then you’re making this nice basin, and then you’re capping it with all the good organics, and then you’ve got all this fill to create whatever, you know, right? So now, when I’m doing these, these trail care, schools, and I’m working with a hand built crew, it’s like we can do a smaller version of that, just to maybe elevate that trail so that it drains. Yeah, you know, we don’t have to reroute this whole thing, because we can just do some lift and tilt.

Now, we’re just doing it by hand, but, you know, it’s a way of continually teaching that there has to be drainage. And they’re really good trail builders out there. And, you know, they understand, yes, we want to put you in the air, maybe, maybe we want to give you this great turn, but where’s that water going to go? And what about these big storms that happen all the time? Now, you know, right, right?

Jeff Barber 57:17
Yeah, you gotta, you got to have a plan for that, for sure. So I want to ask you, what is you know, as riders, as people, maybe who, who don’t build trails, or maybe, maybe they build trails but have no idea what they’re doing, what’s like the biggest misconception that riders especially have about trail design? What’s something that that would help us as writers, to understand?

Joey Klein 57:44
A lot of it is just getting that water off. I think we all love the speed. You know, if it’s a descent, we want to hone it. We want to go fast. We all like burp turns. So it’s get that water off where you can. I think you have to go in there with a respect for nature. And that’s what I love about working with the Navajo, is even the kids knew all the plants they was sacred to their people, and so they weren’t in there hacking away at stuff. And there was a lot of respect. Like, okay, well, you know that, right? There is something we need to protect. So we’re going to have to think about, can we scooch this thing over this way? Yeah, you know, you kind of need to know what, what you’re getting into out there. That’s part of it. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and it’s, it’s, it’s great that I’ve had a long time to go back and see what’s happened. And,

Jeff Barber 58:47
Yeah, it’s not evident right away.

Joey Klein 58:49
The steeper the trail is, or the more it doesn’t flow, the more there’s either going to be breaking damage or water damage. You know, you want to try to get that right. And most writers, I think they see like, oh, it’s got to have this sort of flow. It can’t just be and then a hard time everybody,

Jeff Barber 59:14
Yeah, so it sounds like a lot of stuff. I mean, I don’t, I don’t know if riders think about that sort of thing that you know, obviously, trails are not designed 100% to, just like entertain us, they also, like you said, they have to be sustainable. So it is that balance. And maybe, as a writer, we’re like, why would they do it like that? But obviously there’s a lot of thought that goes into that, in terms of the planning, like you’re saying the, you know, making sure that it it drains well, and that it’s going to be sustainable, avoiding certain areas that are going to be where you’re going to want to preserve, you know, plants or different things. And so, yeah, seems there’s a lot that goes into it. And I think as writers recruit. Along at 10 miles an hour, and we have no idea all the thought that went into every inch of that trail.

Joey Klein 1:00:07
We’re very much like kids, you know, just give us a little candy and we’ll we’ll just want to collect the candy. Just keep giving us some hits up there, and we’re just dots. And it’s fun, right? And I think that’s what’s easy about being a planner or designer a builder, as long as you keep it interesting, you’re going to want to stay on that trail. Yeah, and going back to the trail care schools were doing. And what we’ve learned over time is, you know, we taught, and we still do that, that tread needs to be, you know, it needs some out sloping here and there to get the water off. But how many trails do you know are outsloped? Like, none. They become cupped over time, and that’s a very fun you know, you’re kind of in that bobsled track. You’re in that loop, right? And you kind of get surf back and forth in that cupped trail, if it’s not too, oh, too vertical or whatever. And so we’re like, Well, okay, fine. So as long as there’s some grade reversals, there’s going to be these places where you can put in some out sloping or whatever it is, so that water can off. It doesn’t travel all the way down the trail,

Jeff Barber 1:01:24
So, yeah. And that stuff turns into a feature. I mean, that’s what we enjoy, is that up and down and and it’s purposeful at the same time. I mean, it’s like, in the past, maybe you would put in like, water bars or something, and, you know, that’s just a lot of like, like, and I guess people still like that kind of stuff, but, but, yeah, it’s all about managing that water.

Joey Klein 1:01:47
Yeah. And it’s funny, in our schools we’re teaching now, you know, we’ll show images of trails were built in the day, and I’m talking in the day just a few years ago, where it was like, Oh, you just take the rhino out and you shoot a perfect grade, and you just take that machine, you just go arrow straight. And nature, there are very few perfectly straight lines, like, if you really think about it, even a tree, a little bit of nature shape to it, you know. And so, yeah, I think a trail is it’s going through, whether it’s desert or forest or whatever, it should dance, you know, it should dance a little bit, and you can still have these overall grades, but, but having those great reversals and those general curves and things it it’s more playful. It’s more fun.

Jeff Barber 1:02:34
So finally, I want to ask, what’s next for you and for IMBA Trail Solutions? You mentioned the trail care program.

Joey Klein 1:02:44
You know, right now, I’m just finishing up my ski sabbatical of trying to ski some of the higher peaks in Colorado, and it wasn’t a good year for that. I’m not a whole lot of snow normally, fast, but I’ll be going to Shasta and teaching a school there with Chris, and then we’ve got a few more of those going on this. So it’s just ramping up and trill solutions, man. Those guys just have a ton of stuff to do. They are just getting warmed up. So, yeah, that’s, that’s the big thing.

I’d say, I think that the planning just continues to evolve, and it’s so much more sophisticated. And I think the Build Team that is also evolved radically, because look at where it was when I got into this whole thing. It was, it used to be $1 a foot, which is, you know, whatever, a little more than 5,000 feet a mile, or $5,000 bucks.

Jeff Barber 1:03:54
$5,000 a mile, yeah.

Joey Klein 1:03:56
And then if you look at some of that Bentonville stuff, we’re looking at $20 a foot. So you’re, you’re into, like, you know, what is that? $100,000 a mile? I don’t even know. Yeah, math, but yeah. So I think again about when we all got into this and IMBA, I think, really opened that up with the land managers and the bike clubs or local organizations of, okay, we’ve got these great plans. We’ve got it designed. Okay, who’s going to build it? How much is it going to cost? And now these trail systems, you know, they’re, they’re million dollar systems, you know, yeah, just whatever, 1015, 20 miles, whatever that is I, you know, I’m not the guy. But more and more, you. It’s about the clubs being able to, you know, raise money for a system that they can trust, and still knowing that they’re going to have to, you know, take care of it, and if they want new trail, then to leave those placeholders for that. So that’s, something that’s happened.

Jeff Barber 1:05:24
That’s another thing that I think riders probably don’t realize. You go out and, you know, you drive to a trail system, unload your bike, go out and ride 10 miles and have a good time. But yeah, I mean, you might have just ridden a million dollar trail that was a lot that went into that for you know what it is, I think maybe a lot of us don’t realize that. Yeah,

Joey Klein 1:05:46
I’ve ridden some of Glenn Jacobs stuff in Australia. Mount bowler was, I think, our very first IMBA Australia, first Australian Mountain Bike Summit. And it was just this amazing descent right through, through big old growth eucalyptus trees. Just, just, if you’ve never been to Australia and you did this one ride, you were like, Okay, I’ve seen it all. And we wish that he could have had a money jar right there, because the smiles and the the you know, the accolades you know, to just surf your way through this, this, this landscape. You know, in most cases, mountain biking is free, you know?

Jeff Barber 1:06:36
Yeah, it’s free, but it’s, it’s super valuable, right? I mean, yeah, the lot goes into it, and I think we have to, we have to remember that sometimes, as riders, too, I feel like a lot of times getting back to that, like complaints about flow trail is like, you know, like, we’re very, we’re very lucky that we have the trails that we have to ride and and, you know, especially if, if folks are not involved, I think maybe this is a is a good opportunity to tell them to get involved as well and find a way to give back to that stuff.

Joey Klein 1:07:12
Yeah, there’s so many unsung heroes, right? You know, we never thought we were all trail psychos, but we now, we call them trail champions. We have a word for that. And I never, I took it for granted all these years, right? Because I go to these places and there’d be that trail champion who’s like, Come on, let’s go. And, yeah, and, and when you left, they were still making it happen, you know, yeah, we just finished another trail a couple years ago in West Virginia cape and State Park. It’s called thunderstruck, and it’s like a twist descent, and it’s just all rock, and a lot of different builders came in from IMBA to do that, and everybody had a different sort of personality. And it’s not the longest trail in the world, but wow. And it’s because of those trail champions you know, who live there and said, we’re gonna we’re gonna raise the money, and we want you to come in and the design is here, but we want to make sure that the follow through is there. So yeah, everyone who’s listening, you know, every trail you’ve ever ridden, there’s somebody responsible for why that’s there and how it’s there. And if I think of smaller parcels of land, you know, in the urban world, in the urban interface, front country, let’s say, let’s say there’s a forest, or a lot, whatever, and you live next to it, and you walk your dog across it, and you do that twice. Pretty soon there’s going to be a trail there, right? And let’s say that’s private property, but, but you and your neighbors walk your dogs, or go for a run or go for a walk, whatever you do, and there’s a trail now there, and it said it was okay, yeah, the minute a mountain bike gets out there, what’s okay? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what’s going on? So all of a sudden, and I’ve seen this in every state, just about the mountain biker was the one who put his hand up and found a way to get that sanctioned legal. Yeah. And in more cases than not, it’s the mountain bikers who step forward, and now hikers and maybe equestrians two or whoever, now that’s become a protected open space, because the mountain biker, that trail champion, you know, step forward. Yeah, I’m very lucky to get to work with equestrians and hikers and all the different groups and but it’s the mountain bikers I’ve found who are really the ones, you know, to to step up. Yeah, and yeah. Then there’s so many land managers who’ve. Suck their necks out for something they didn’t even understand, because people helped the community. Yeah, you know, theater City, Utah. I mean, we, I could, I could just do this all day long. So where our land managers really did all the work, and nobody knows how much they did and and then those planners and designers who were in an office, and they’re doing all this on a computer, and you never see their faces, and they’re the ones who really got it to happen. And then again, the people that went out and raised the money.

Jeff Barber 1:10:33
Yeah, it takes so many to get trails built. And you know, I think, yeah, I mean, we’re so grateful that that you’ve been at it this long and have touched so many projects. Yeah, really, really awesome to hear about that and to learn more about how trails get built. So yeah, thanks for taking the time to chat and for doing all that you do.

Joey Klein 1:10:56
Silverton, Colorado folks, summer just just hit there and we designed about a 20 some mile trail system there. And I think the first 10 or 12 is opening up right now. Yeah, and it’ll also be too hot, so that’s, that’s a good one.

Jeff Barber 1:11:12
Yeah, always so many great new trails coming online to check out. And, yeah, keeps the sport exciting. So yeah, thanks, and we’ll be we’ll definitely be watching to see what’s next. So if you want to get more information about IMBA and IMBA trail solutions, you can go to the IMBA website, IMBA dot com, and we’ll have that link in the show notes. So we’ve got this week, we’ll talk to you again next week.