Sunday, June 27, 2010

Planning and executing a successful Mountain Biking Event

The Happening at Huntington is the New England Mountain Bike Association, Connecticut Chapter's, initial introduction to the summer riding season and this year was a tremendous success. It's part of the Kona-Fox Shox Mountain Bike Adventure Series that the New England Mountain Bike Association runs every year. While the Happening has been happening for years prior, the past three years it has been in this program.

Planning for this event began 6 months ago and in the past I have helped out but this year I ran the show. Everything went smooth: Permitting; Food; Parking. There was a little hiccup with the marked trails, not enough people showed up the day prior to mark the trails and the only let down was that someone from Cycling Sports Group (fka Cannondale Corp) had heard about the event and offered to have their demo van present and then to learn 3 days prior to the event that they were just at some event out west and the bikes wouldn't be back in CT in time.

It's funny how things work out, while we didn't have the demos, I happen to run into someone who works at GT while setting the trails on Saturday and he was the one who told me where the bikes were. He felt bad and offered to come buy on Sunday with a box of swag that included T-Shirts, hoodies, chainstay protectors, tires, and a bunch of other things that mountain bikers like to get for free.



There will be another Mountain Bike Adventure Series Ride in CT this year at Cockaponset State Forest in Chester, CT and I can't wait for that event because I haven't ridden Cockaponset in years and look forward to riding there again.

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