Established in 1996, Oklahoma Mountain Bike Association (OMBA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and supporting mountain biking in Oklahoma. OMBA works with private, city, state and federal land owners to obtain land use permits, build and maintain mountain bike trail systems, features, and address erosion concerns on trails across Oklahoma. Our trails are designated multi-use and support not only mountain bikers but trail runners and hikers as well.
More specifically OMBA provides the following:
OMBA holds the MOUs that allow the creation, maintenance, modification and upkeep of all OMBA controlled trail systems. There are a lot of requirements we must meet which vary based on each landowner and what they have specified in the MOU. If we do not follow these rules, we can and will lose that trail so it's imperative that trail maintenance, improvements, and features are all done in coordination with the trail boss.
OMBA trails include: Arcadia Lake, Bartlesville, Bluff Creek Park, Enid 580, Kelly Farms, Lake Stanley Draper, Ponca City, Roman Nose, SCIP, Trosper Park
OMBA does between 95-100% of all trail mainteance on these trails. Municipalities will sometimes brush hog areas, but overall, the trails you ride are maintained by volunteers and club members. Arcadia alone has almost 30 miles of trail and OMBA volunteer spend between 1000 and 2000 hours per year to keep just that one trail in good condition.
OMBA is a non-profit and while we work each year to obtain grant money, the vast majority of the club's operating budget comes from membership and donations.
Without OMBA, our local trails will fall into disrepair, expansions will cease and MOUs will be lost resulting in the closure of the trail systems. This is not an exageration, municipalities and governments do not have the staff, budget or specific MTB trail skills to keep these trails open.
What have we done lately besides maintain the trails?
Here are a couple examples:
Arcadia lake trails have grown from 9.4mi to 28.4mi with a new area in the works. The trail is no longer unridable over the summer growth months.
Bluff Creek has grown from ~4mi to over 11mi and we are considering a new area in the future.
Draper is getting a complete make over and has grown from ~9mi to 12-15 if you include the dog trails.
Trosper Park - This is a brand new area OMBA is developing with OKC parks. It features ~155 acres of old growth oak forest for single track, the old BMX track that will be reinvented as a dual slalom MTB/BMX track and we are in talks with partnering on a dedicated CX track.
We are working with the Oklahoma State Parks on assisting with the addition of single track across state.
What keeps OMBA viable? We need members and volunteers. Our membership/volunteer to rider ratio is quite low and inevitably people just burn out.
Want to see our local trail systems continue to expand? Want more cool features? Don't want to see your local trail close? Please consider joining OMBA or renewing today.
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