whoop day

[dreth]

croom should have a national dewhoop day where everyone brings a shovel and spend the day filling in the whoops

[cain73]

Better yet spend some of that $50 per bike per year and rent a few bobcats and level them all in a weekend without breaking a sweat. Now that would make Merry Christmas for thousands of riders. But then the ACLU and a few anti religion nuts would scream that there is no seperation of church and state and sue to close the whole park down. Danged if you do and whooped if you don't. Ahh America..... land of the free, home of the brave, and tolerant of everyone but the mass majority that constitutes most of it's citizens, founders and their ideals. Put up a manger scene and you get sued, picketed, threatened, mocked, and slandered, but rob someone and trip while running from the cops and get money from the county because there was a pot hole in your get away route.
I apologize as I didn't initially intend to hijack your post, but....

[dreth]

That was great! the bobcat idea is a good one if they will let the machinery in the forest

[Thrasher]

were u up this way dreth?

[dreth]

not lately

[cain73]

I figured with the bobcats they could navigate through the woods without taking out any trees and we all know the atv's put out more combined exhaust (especially those darn 2-strokes   ) than a few cats would make. It's a nice dream, but not one that I would ever expect to come true. But hey I can dream.

[dreth]

maybe if we all sent letters in to the right people asking them to consider it ,they might.

[o4250]

Seriously though what better way to get MY point across than to have a woman NAG him 5 days straight w/ the same question

Use A loudspeaker while you do it

[Ida_Mann]

I wonder if a group like us wanted to rent a bobcat with some nice attachment to smooth out those whoops,,,,,would we be allowed to do it?

after hunting season of course.

hmmmmm he says,,,I got a truck strong enough to pull a bobcat and I would happily drive it up from Orlando.

things that make you go,,,, hmmmmmmm

Id@

[cain73]

I've got a buddy that drives a dozer for a living. I'm sure he would love to knock out those whoops as he rides croom too. I they would allow it we could raise the money and labor I'm sure. I'm sure in for a weekend if it makes for better riding.

[Ida_Mann]

I think a bobcat would be the best way because it's small,,,,we all know how tight some of the trails at croom are.

I'm looking into this definately.

Id@

[Ida_Mann]

maybe even some kind of promotion, or a sponsorship from a local parts shop to put a banner on the side of the dozer or bobcat for "X" amount of dollars.

Id@

[cain73]

I agree that a dozer is way too big for croom, I was just mentioning his occupation to sort of nominate him to operate any equipment that we might get since he does it for a living he is probably better at it than us and would get more done in less time. I don't think we would have to sell sponsorship. To rent a bobcat it's only a couple of hundred dollars. I am sure we would get enough from this site in donations alone to cover that expense. And even if someone couldn't donate money they could offer time to help out. I am sure we would still need some shovels out there too. We would probably need a couple of bobcats and as much labor as we could get. The first step is to see if we can get it okayed before we put any effort into raising money or labor help. I am not sure where to start with that. Which agency is responsible for Croom's maintenance? If we could just get permission the rest would come together quickly.

[LakeMaryKid]

I agree that a dozer is way too big for croom, I was just mentioning his occupation to sort of nominate him to operate any equipment that we might get since he does it for a living he is probably better at it than us and would get more done in less time. I don't think we would have to sell sponsorship. To rent a bobcat it's only a couple of hundred dollars. I am sure we would get enough from this site in donations alone to cover that expense. And even if someone couldn't donate money they could offer time to help out. I am sure we would still need some shovels out there too. We would probably need a couple of bobcats and as much labor as we could get. The first step is to see if we can get it okayed before we put any effort into raising money or labor help. I am not sure where to start with that. Which agency is responsible for Croom's maintenance? If we could just get permission the rest would come together quickly.

good post cain, i cant help with the money but my arms and legs and a shovel sure can

[cain73]

I think the first step is to get someone on the ball to find out who we need to speak to about this. That means internet research and/or making some phone calls to get to the right people. If they o.k. it we're good to go with gathering support, money, labor and coordinating the whole thing.
Another consideration might be a petition to show support for the idea before we present it to those in charge. If someone is able to dedicate the time to do the research please let us know so we're not all doing the same work for nothing. I would like to do it, but am usually so strapped for time that it would take forever. Any volunteers ?

[Michelle]

Cain write me something up that looks good and send it to me.Or post it here as far as a petition goes.While I'm at Croom those 5 days,dont think I wont walk around the park and have it signed ;DI'm just not good w/words!

Also about us raising money for the equipment.Ya'll are probably gonna get mad at me for saying this.But everyone who rides and camps at Croom is already throwin them a bunch of $$$$$$$$$.I was gonna ask the Park Rangers if they could somehow come up w/something.Fellow riders could join in,bring shovels.

But to rent something out of our pockets I dont really see that happening.Your talking rental fees for more than a weekend,diesel also which isnt cheap to fill a bobcat.

The trails that I've seen can be taken care of w/shovels{back breakin job}but will do.A bobcat would do good on the wider open whooped out roads.You cant get back in the woods on one of those w/o causing more damage.Such as when you go to turn in tight spots,,,,,,,your gonna be digging more holes by doing so.But then again I dunno much

*plus you might wanna add something to the effect, "if the park had to shut down for at least a week,would you be okay with that?-open only to volunteers...

[Ida_Mann]

I'll volounteer for calling and research, I've been thinking of this for scrub for a long time,,,,it's the reason I don't go to scrub.

and it would certainly be easy to get a bobcat working on the powerline road around scrub.

I'll start today if I can.

Id@

[LakeMaryKid]

what kind of research do you want?

[J.D.]

The only bad thing I can think of about doing it by hand , there will be alot of large roots inside the whoops . That could be very discouraging . :-/

[cain73]

I was thinking that if the bobcats stayed to the main trails and only where it would fit it would make things better without trying to flatten every trail there which would take more than a weekend. I don't think it would have to shut down croom for a full weekend, We could shut down smaller parts while working on them (reason for the labor) and mark them and even have people out there to make sure no one comes haulling around a corner into a bobcat. The rental fees wouldn't be bad. a couple bucks from everyone would do it. Not everyone can or would have to donate money either.

Michelle, I will type something up a little later today to take around to other riders. I will pm it to you to print out.

And remember that the more people we have together behind this the more pull we have and the more likely we will be to get it done. talk to other riders even if they don't belong to this site. We won't know if we don't try.  

[Hot_Dog]

If there were no whoops at croom people would be mad about how fast every one was going and the amount of injuries would go up due to increased speeds .Whoops are like speed bumps,if the whoops didn't slow people down the trees would.
Whoops seperate the men from the boys!!!!!!!!!!!

[J.D.]

 i agree with Hot dog . on the long fast straights leve some patches of whoops , just not 4 or 5 miles worth of them

[dreth]

a bobcat is not the right tool for the job! you need a box blade! its the same size and designed for grading. im in for donating some $ for the cause since i did start this post.

as far as the whoops being speed bumps and slowing people down goes is a very true statement but it also discourages alot of riders. if croom was smart they would set up 1 way only trail systems of different skill levels and lenghts and then you would not have bike on bike collisions and they could widen the trails by a few feet and reduce the risk of bike on tree collisions which would enable machinery in to maintain the trails periodically and open up rescue lanes for those occasional accidents.

just my opinion so im open to feedback on this idea. i enjoy the challenge but i also enjoy my life

[Ida_Mann]

box blade?

never heard of it, but I will add it to the research list.

Id@

[450R_Matt]

Box Blades work ok but most of them are on the back of tractors and you have to back up more than go forward. I used 1 at my house and talk about a stiff neck. ...A Bob Cat with the rubber tracks would be the way to go. The Bob Cats with the tires get stuck real easy in the lose stuff.

My .02