About This Site

This site is created by a GIS guy who is also an avid mountain biker and was launched on December 2007 for testing. I wasn't seeing much out there online that was informative, with good useful maps for Oregon - Central Oregon in particular - so decided to contribute something to the cause. In case anyone feels slighted that I am purporting to be the sole source of maps and advice for Oregon mountain biking that is not my intent. My ego is no where near that large. The beauty of the INTERNET is that any Joe Blow like myself can contribute. I love it when people publish their opinions about backpacking gear or their latest trip to Baha for instance. I can tell by reading their page if they have much experience or have a point of view that is useful to me. If more people want to do sites like this, the more the better. As far as collaborating on the site see the discussion below.

Originally I was planning on just doing some mapping for Central Oregon. I went looking for simple domain names like comtb but when I tried that one out it was for Colorado Mountain Biking. Hmmm I wonder if anyone has taken ORegon Mountain Biking? ORMTB - No I couldn't believe it. There was only one problem with that in that trying to do a site for the whole state was maybe a little too ambitious. I had ridden most of the well known areas short of Ashland but............

I have thought about setting the site up to do more collaborative efforts to up date it and expand it. Here are my thoughts on that. One is that by having one voice at least makes it more consistent. If you do a ride that I say is hard but you think is easy or visa versa then when you read some other write up I did you can have a frame of reference. Another huge problem I am seeing with a lot of write ups on different trails is that a lot of guys seem to want to over embellish how gnarly, gonzo or epic some ride was. Why do they do this? Hormones? Small Kahunas? To gain more attention or respect from peers? What ever the reason it is not help full in a review. Yet another reason is, in some cases, is that trail reviews often get a few more stars than they other wise would because the reviewer has some financial interest in the trail becoming popular. Are reviews written by the local chamber of commerce for instance likely to by unbiased and possibly a little glossed over? I have also seen some territorial bias in write ups. One of the big bike mags for instance has at least one editor from the Medford area and in a fall 2009 issue the North Umpqua river trial got voted the best trail in the country, Bend got no mention at all but Hood River was voted best mountain bike town. The North Umpqua trial is good alright and Hood River has a lot to offer but..."my trail is better than your trail any day", "oh ya well....". Let's face it there is a lot of testosterone in the veins of this sport. All that said I am a big fan of Wikipedia and I am giving some thought as to how that type of site would work and what tools to use.

Speaking of tools this is primarily an exercise to get up to speed in disseminating maps on the INTERNET from a GIS professional with more desktop focused experience. The html is done by hand to help me learn it and is very basic. The mapping technology may not be the latest in real time server side delivery, mash-ups, etc., but, hopefully, I will get there. You have to crawl before you walk. The focus initially will be on delivering maps in various formats and not on fancy sliced page graphics, flash animations, buttons and fonts, etc.

Most of the trails in the Central Oregon area are from GPS files that were collected with a Garmin 60CSX and in a few cases digitized trails. Elsewhere in Oregon, they are from Forest Service or local government sources and in a few cases gps files.

If you have GPS files of trails you would like to see on the site send them along with a description. GPS files of new or missing segments would be a help too. Also if you have any constructive comments on any of the info that would be appreciated.