On an early Saturday morning, thirteen Velo Vixens put their bikes down and picked their shovels up to work alongside our SORBA Chattanooga friends at Enterprise South Nature Park. A bit sad for its many loyal users, the mountain bike trails there have been closed for a month for some very necessary trail maintenance. We all love this trail system so much that we jumped at the opportunity to invest some of our own sweat equity there. The park is centrally located in the Chattanooga-area and can be enjoyed by all skill levels. It’s a testament to its popularity that so many people are happy to volunteer there.

With so many volunteers we were able to accomplish a great deal of work in just a few fun hours! Henry Trent loaded half of us up in his van and dropped us at a bunker near the middle of TNT Loop. We then hauled an enormous amount of red clay to sites along the trail where we back filled several eroded areas and protected some over-exposed roots. The other half hiked from the parking lot to meet us raking leaves and opening up problem areas to allow for better drainage along the way. I’m pretty sure Ginger Sillery dropped some jaws as she showed up the fellas with her mad tamping skills, watch the video here. And Karen Rogers kept us all giggling as she rode her rake around like a trail fairy. Henry even gave one of the Vixens a lesson in operating the Canycom! After our work was done, Veronica Borne met us back at the parking lot with what seemed like an endless supply of pizza as our reward for a job well done. I’m fairly certain there were no leftovers with this crowd.

We had such a great time, and it felt really good to give back to the trails we love and ride so often. It was really nice to see so many ladies choose to spend their Saturday morning with us, especially on a rare warm day in February when most of us would normally be riding our bikes!

>>>written by Heather Hamilton<<<

>>>photos by Veronica Borne<<<