'Burrr' or 'Blur'? Growler 2025

On Saturday, February 8th HMBA hosted our 8th annual ‘Growler’ race here in Hinton, Alberta. Meeting at Maxwell Lake, we had 50+ racers and 22+ volunteers come together to celebrate mountain biking during Hinton’s ‘Winter Magic Festival’. With a beautiful weather forecast of -9C and some sun, riders enjoyed hitting our well-groomed trails at ‘top speed’ and were able to quickly generate body heat! Aromas from the local Tres Maria food truck were waiting for all participants and volunteers at the race finish line.

Special thanks to all our volunteers and sponsors. Without the support of our community, HMBA is not able to host awesome events that bring so many guests into our Hinton community. It was so wonderful to see so many local businesses provide in-kind donations and sponsorships to ensure that our racers had an unforgettable experience participating in our event! Thanks to the success of this event, HMBA was able to fundraise over $1000 which will support our organization’s operations and charitable programming this upcoming year!

Thanks again to everyone who supported our Growler 2025 event and we look forward to seeing you all next year! Racer results are now posted on our Growler website.

Member Survey Results

Thank you to everyone who took 3-minutes to complete our 2024 Member Survey - the results are in! Our Executive Director has analyzed this feedback and here are 5 things that stood out…

1. Members are generally happy with HMBA! 91% of surveyed members said ‘membership pricing is fair and appropriate’. Many people used the ‘additional comments’ section to express gratitude to our volunteers and executive group. That being said, our executive group knows that there is always room for improvement!

2. Our HMBA members actually like our email newsletters! 79% of our members reported preferring updates and communications from HMBA via email.

3. Our members really enjoy riding ‘cross-country’ (68%) and ‘all-mountain / enduro’ (82%) trails. With this question, members could select multiple styles of riding as their favourite.

4. Unsanctioned trails are really popular - despite the lack of maintenance. 41% of our members reported riding ‘unsanctioned trails’ most. Again, members could select multiple trail networks as their most frequently enjoyed.

5. Members want us to focus on building and maintaining great trails. Check out the bar graphs below!

“How important is it to you that we allocate donated time and money for the following?”

Volunteer With Us!

Why not start 2025 by volunteering to help with an awesome community event?! Especially if snacks and ‘swag’ are provided!

HMBA is calling on our community to step up and fill some volunteer positions at our upcoming Growler race. We need volunteers to help with event setup and takedown, registration, course marshalling, etc. It takes a community to make these events happen!

If you would like to volunteer with us on Saturday, February 8th, 2025 for a few hours, please register with the link below or email executivedirector@bikehinton.com

https://signup.com/go/ELqBrdV

Annual Member Survey

Have you completed your annual member survey yet? Your feedback is important to us! This survey takes about 3-minutes to complete and helps guide our organization’s operational decisions for the upcoming year.

The annual member survey was sent out via email to all HMBA members, so remember to keep your email updated with us! Can’t find the email? Not a problem, you can complete the survey by using the link below:

HMBA Annual Member Survey

This survey closes January 11th @ 11:59pm, but your feedback can always be emailed to executivedirector@bikehinton.com

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays HMBA Members!

Did you all have a great year of cycling in 2024? We hope so!

This past year was busy for our HMBA community. We hired an Executive Director, invested in major boardwalk repairs on our Happy Creek trail, upgraded our Lower Bighorn trail, hosted ‘Virtual Enduro Races’, held our first annual ‘September Social’, purchased trail-building tools for volunteer maintenance nights… and now we are back to winter trail grooming and Growler event planning!

Another major event that HMBA is preparing for is our annual executive ‘Strategic Planning’ workshop. At the beginning of each year, our elected Board of Directors meet to review our ‘Strategic Plan’, measure our successes, and make adjustments. As a result, our elected executive group wants to hear from YOU before they meet in 2025! Click the link below to provide your feedback by completing this 3-minute member survey. This survey closes on January 9th, 2025 and your feedback will help guide our executive decision-making this upcoming year - and beyond. 

HMBA Annual Member Survey

Thanks for supporting our HMBA community and taking the time to provide your member feedback. We look forward to seeing you at a weekly ‘Winter Group Ride’ or at our February ‘Growler’ event - registration is now open online! 

Safety Upgrade on Happy East Trail!

Big news for all the trail enthusiasts out there - railings have been installed on the bridge on Happy East Trail, making it safer and more enjoyable for riders! Whether you’re tackling the trail on two wheels or just enjoying a peaceful walk, this upgrade enhances the experience for everyone.

A huge shoutout to the hardworking crew of regular supporters who always go above and beyond to maintain and improve our trails. Your dedication ensures these spaces remain safe, accessible, and fun for everyone. 🌟

We appreciate the effort it takes to keep our trail system running smoothly—thank you for all you do!

See you out there!

'Fat Biking' Season Has Begun!

Did you know that every season is cycling season?

Our grooming team got out on November 27th and opened up the trails for the season! A lot of the Bike Park and Dead Rabbit’s trail has now been groomed for optimal ‘fat biking’ conditions! We still encourage you all to get out and ride all your favourite trails though - you will just be helping us to pack down the trails!

Let’s all hope for a great year of winter riding with lots of snowfall. Our awesome grooming team and volunteers will try their best to get outside after fresh snowfall to keep the trails groomed for everyone’s enjoyment all winter!

Green Dragon: Year in Review

Did you “tame” HMBA’s Green Dragon this year? At least 68 other riders did while logging their ride on the TrailForks app! This challenging trail is a niche, local favourite - boasting a 4.4/5 rating on TrailForks. At 1.5km in length and about -143m of descent, this trail section takes about 13 minutes to ride - with the famous wooden roll feature about halfway down the trail. If you did not ‘send it’ down this route this season, make sure you find the time to challenge yourself next year!

Built by Nathan Froehler and his team at Creating Flow Trail Designs Ltd back in 2023, the Green Dragon has been a welcome addition to the Bighorn Ridge Trail Network. Green Dragon, like all of HMBA’s trail projects, was only possible thanks to our professional partners, volunteers, and sponsors.

Thank you valued sponsors! Walmart, Yellowhead County, Teck Coal Mine, Vista Mine, and Pembina Pipeline Corp all generously contributed funds to make this project happen. We hope to see our HMBA community enjoying the Green Dragon trail for years to come.

Planning on “taming” Green Dragon next year? Make sure you use the TrailForks app to log your ride!

Entering 'Fringe Season'

As we have now lost our beautiful Autumn leaves, we are entering what may feel like a ‘fringe season’. However, this is a PSA that every season is still cycling season!

While our trails appreciate being given time to dry out immediately following rain or snowmelt, they are generally still rideable until we get a snowpack (then grab your fat bike). During this fringe season, we encourage people to still get out and enjoy our trails. Simply check if you are leaving tread marks; you can always slow down, avoid our constructed trail features, or hop onto a drier trail in our network. It may be getting colder and wetter out there, but our trails are still rideable thanks to a great summer of riders out packing our trails!

Please be mindful of any deadfall covering our trails from the recent heavy snowfall. As the snow has now melted, feel free to clear minor deadfall blocking the trail as you ride. As always, please report any substantial deadfall to notify our community of the obstacle. This can be done through Facebook, Instagram, or email and HMBA will facilitate a resolution for the reported trail maintenance issue as soon as possible.

Thanks everyone and please continue to enjoy your Fall riding! We hope that you are all getting your fat bikes ready…

Annual Presentation to the Town of Hinton

Did you know that HMBA is invited annually to present to our Town at a ‘Committee of the Whole’ meeting? This presentation is a great way for our municipal council to stay connected to HMBA’s recent community activity and our future goals. With our brief presentation, we hoped to provide a transparent 2024 update for both our Town Council and the greater HMBA community.

We would like to thank the Town of Hinton for the invitation to present and for their continued support. Our town’s collaborative relationship with HMBA is what makes our Hinton Bike Park possible! We look forward to seeing what we can all accomplish together in 2025 and beyond.

If you would like to see the recording of HMBA’s presentation on the Town of Hinton YouTube channel, we have provided the link below. The HMBA presentation begins at 7:26 and finishes at 22:40. If you have any questions or feedback pertaining to the HMBA presentation, please email executivedirector@bikehinton.com

https://youtu.be/r7l2wKPh4OE?si=v9c4ogTDTUL_y_P-&t=446

Autumn Thank You's!

Time to share some gratitude for our community!

Firstly, thank you to Vicious Cycle for their support with our first annual ‘September Social’ group ride and BBQ event. With over a dozen people joining the group ride, we were able to enjoy an awesome Autumn ride together before hanging out at the Bike Park with some burgers and hot dogs.

Secondly, thank you to everyone who came out to ride with us for our ‘September Social’. We even had some riders join us all the way from Edmonton! We look forward to seeing you all again next year; we enjoyed great weather and would love to make this an annual event.

Lastly, thank you to all the volunteers who showed up to help on our ‘Trail Maintenance’ night this past October 3rd. As a result of volunteers generously donating their time, we were able to get the leaf-blower, weed-wacker, brush saw, and hand rakes out working on our trails. It was so nice to see people showing up to help out!

Trail Maintenance - Volunteers Wanted

With winter rapidly approaching, we will be doing some necessary seasonal trail maintenance on October 3rd, 2024 @ 5:30pm and we would love to see you all there to help. We will be meeting at the Bike Park parking lot and no skills or tools are required - just bring your work gloves. If you feel confident enough to use our leaf-blower or weed-wacker, please also bring eye protection and we will hand you a machine! We will provide pizza @ 7pm afterwards to celebrate our volunteers and our clean, fresh trails. 

Thanks again for your time and support. We look forward to seeing you at our upcoming maintenance night.

September Social Update

EVENT TIME UPDATE!

We are still looking forward to seeing our HMBA community come together on Saturday, September 21st to socialize and ride! We have had a small time change; the group ride will now be meeting at the Bike Park @ 2pm and the BBQ will now be @ 5pm. We hope you can all still make it and we look forward to seeing you there!

PS - Remember to bring your own chairs!

September Events Announced!

Did you see that HMBA has two new events announced for September on our website event calendar?!

We would love to see all of our HMBA members come out and help us celebrate the arrival of the Fall colours at our upcoming September Social BBQ! Join us for an afternoon group ride on September 21st and stay for the bbq! Meet at the Bike Park for 2pm to join the group ride - all skills are welcome. Meet at the Bike Park for 5pm for the community bbq. We would love to see you all at our September Social… Remember to bring your own chairs!

Our September V-Duro event is also now open for registration. For only $5, you can participate in our virtual race format by simply going out on your own and riding some of our favourite trails between September 14th and 21st. Download the Trailforks and Strava apps to get ready - then get outside and do your best! Our September V-Duro features 3 stages: Shiver Me Timbers, Back to Hell Upper, and Back to Hell Lower. After you have recorded and submitted your ride data, please join us at our September Social event to meet other participants in our community.

As always, special thanks and recognition to our local sponsor Vicious Cycle! Thanks for always supporting the HMBA community.

Back to School Season!

September! That means back to school… and back to SprocKids. Another great year with registrations - so great to see so many families in our Bike Park with their kids. Thanks to all the volunteers and coaches who donate their time on Tuesday and Thursday evenings - our community appreciates you.

Did you miss HMBA at the Town of Hinton Registration Fair on September 4th? Email any inquiries to executivedirector@bikehinton.com and we will try to find you an answer! In the meantime, enjoy our Fall colours!

Ride With Us - No One Left Behind!

HMBA proudly offers community rides throughout peak season on both Mondays and Wednesdays. A ‘Ladies Ride’ is hosted on Monday evenings, while a larger ‘Group Ride’ is also held for everyone on Wednesday evenings. Both community rides are open to all abilities - no one left behind!

Typically community rides meet at the ‘Hinton Bike Park’ parking lot or the ‘Bighorn Bike Trails’ parking lot - but make sure you always come 15 minutes early so you are ready to ride! For more information, look for recent posts on @bikehinton or our Bike Hinton Facebook page!

V-Duro Success!

On August 4th, HMBA successfully concluded its 3rd V-Duro Event with a casual parking lot barbecue. Thanks to the support of our local sponsor Vicious Cycle, we were again able to invite HMBA members out for hot dogs and burgers to help celebrate this exciting digital event. Participant stage times have now been posted to our website and registration fees have been donated to the Jasper Community Team Society in support of their wildfire recovery efforts.

Not sure how our digital V-Duro events work? “Virtual Enduro” events call on riders to follow an outlined route in stages while Strava digitally logs your pace. You can casually cruise through one stage, while rushing downhill for another stage – it’s totally up to you! What makes these V-Duro events great is that HMBA members actually have over a week to hit the trails and log their ride to participate. Just download the Strava and Trailforks Apps on your phone and you will be prepared for our next one!

Want to join us for our next big event? Our ‘September Social Group Ride & BBQ’ will be on September 21st @ 2pm and we would love to see you there! Until then, keep checking out our Instagram page @bikehinton for information on weekly group rides and our next V-Duro!

2023 AGM

Our AGM date is set to be on April 17,2023 at the Old Grind. Come buy your membership and hear about what is going on with the club! 7pm

In Person AGM. 7:00 PM April 12 at the Old Grind

To be become a member, go to our Shop page to purchase!

AGM Set For April 2, 2020

Come on out to HMBA’s AGM! You can purchase your 2020 membership and hear all about what’s been going on this past year at HMBA. The Old Grind is our gracious host this year! Be sure to bring your questions and comments. We’re looking forward to this event!