#sorrynotsorry about how long the post is going to be, but all the feels are just oozing out about how awesomely, over-the-top successful RAD's very first cleanup day was.

We were floored when about 100 people showed up!! Our membership, together with several other incredible volunteers within the dirtbike community, cleaned up approximately a 5 mile radius.  We're guessing that approximately 465 volunteer man hours were put in to today's efforts.  FYI: the quota we had to meet for our Nevada OHV grant funding was 150 hours... we more than tripled that on our very first day.

This was truly a community effort.  Keep Truckee Meadows Beautiful supplied the large debris box at our staging area, as well as various hand tools for our volunteers to use. Pine Nut Mountain Trail Association also lended us lots of tools to use. After this debris box filled up by noon, dozens of volunteers took it upon themselves to just take their pickups and trailers full of more debris to the local dump station.

 Some of the poster children for this event were the abandoned camper, the friggin BOAT, and some abandoned cars.  Well, it pays to have rad friends.

The boat was actually removed a few weeks prior to the cleanup day, when it came back as stolen property after a VIN-check.  The Reno Police Department removed the boat, as it was their case.

Plan A with the camper was to haul it to the Lockwood landfill.  However, upon further assessment, it was determined that it definitely did not have the structural integrity to survive a trip down the freeway.  So, with the help and special talents of Terry the Shed Mover, Reliance Grounds Management, and Thomas Precision Welding ... we epically demolished this trailer and stuffed it into the debris box. 

Then we had a white car wedged between a hillside and the pond - not an easy recovery spot! - and a red SUV. We made an agreement with the Washoe County Sheriff's Office that if we dragged them off the land and onto the end of the public road, they would arrange for a tow company to haul them away.

Tires were hauled away to various local tire shops who would generously accept them.

But there was SO MUCH MORE than that!  Our rad volunteers scavenged the area, determined to find every last bit of trash, restoring the land to the way it should be - pretty to ride by.

It was important to RAD to take care of our people.  RAD catered coffee and an assortment of breakfast pastries in the morning.  Thomas Sangster, owner of the Sparks Chick-Fil-A, generously donated a whole bunch of chicken sandwiches and fixings for lunch.  When we ran out of that, we went and got some pizza!

 First and foremost, we want to thank each and every one of our devoted members and volunteers for spending this beautiful Saturday being ambassadors of our sport and part of the solution. This is our little corner of the world.

We are grateful to the Nevada OHV Commission for the grant we were awarded, which will carry us on to the next phases of our "Keep Trails Rad" movement.  Today was a great example of how your OHV registration sticker money is going to work for you in your own backyard.  The commissioners are very insightful, helpful and easy people to work with.  In fact, a few commissioners were present today getting dirty at this cleanup.

Keep Truckee Meadows Beautiful and Pine Nut Mountains Trail Association provided us with wonderful tools and resources to get us started.

Terry the Shed Mover, Reno Motor Sports, MotoSource and Big Valley Honda provided monetary support to help with lots of surprising little costs that we didn't think to work into our grant budget, because we are noobs.

Reliance Grounds Management and Thomas Precision Welding supplied some heavy equipment and special talent which was instrumental to today's success, and United Site Services generously donated porta-potties (another thing we didn't think to put in the grant budget. **facepalm**).

Sparks Chick-Fil-A catered lots of sandwiches for a nice mid-day break!

Desert Pigs provided some very special extra support, and are a wonderful new ally of RAD.

The support our little club is receiving from the community is so encouraging!!!

On the 2020 grant project front, we will now begin gearing up for the trail work in the Peavine Maze.  We will coordinate a schedule with Sierra Trail Works, and let you rad volunteers know when the trail work days are.  We are certainly looking forward to having whoop-free and rut-free single track in RAD's favorite riding area.

But we aren't all work around here. Stay tuned for the next RAD member ride event (with a fun twist this time), and come to our next member meeting on Wednesday, March 11th at 6:30pm at Revision Brewery.

We are often asked by our membership, "What can I do to help?" 
Well, since you asked, here is one thing this week and two more things!
 
1. Help keep trails rad and come to our clean-up day on February 22nd beginning at 9:30am.
 
Your RADmins are working hard behind the scenes to cut through all of the red tape and orchestrate the many moving parts to make this day come together and run smoothly and successfully.  

Check in with Lacey, our chaos-coordinator, first thing when you get there so that she can ensure that all of our rad volunteers and your extremely valuable time are properly documented. You know – that paperwork crap that she has a weird fetish for. Richie, your Vice President, will delegate specific tasks to make sure each element of this cleanup is adequately addressed. Please wear sturdy shoes, pants and warm layers. There will also be videographers there, so bring your good side! 

When:  February 22nd at 9:30am
Where: Trailhead at the end of Kiowa Way
Directions from Reno: Take 395 North to the Lemmon Drive exit.  Turn left on Lemmon Drive, and right on N. Virginia Street. Take a left on Seneca Drive.  Take another left on Kiowa Way, which will turn into a dirt road leading to the OHV staging area, where our tent and dumpster will be.
 
2. Contact our district House Representative and tell him to support H.R. 5797: Recreational Trails Full Funding Act of 2020.
 
The federal Recreational Trails Program (“RTP”) has directly funded more than 25,000 trail projects nationwide since 1991, using a "user-pay, user-benefit" model of the Highway Trust Fund to apply taxes on gas used by off-highway vehicles to support trails of all types. RAD can to apply for RTP grant funding for future projects. If you want to dive down a rabbit hole learning about RTP, you can find more information here: www.rectrails.org.
 
Last year, trail enthusiasts of all types celebrated when Congress instructed the U.S. Department of Transportation to develop a best estimate of the fuel used for off highway vehicles, the basis for funding the RTP. Earlier this month, H.R 5797 was introduced in the U.S. House to build on that success and, if passed, will improve and secure the future of RTP. It would require:

• The non-highway fuel use study be repeated at least every five years;
• The annual RTP funding to be increased from $84 million to $250 million, or to the new amount from the mandated study;
• The adoption of new reporting standards for RTP projects to increase visibility, helping ensure motorized projects are getting their share;
• The simplification of the Federal Highway Administration's management of RTP, including an increase in funding; and
• The re-establishing of the original RTP funding formula to the states.

 
Mark Amodei is our local representative, and we want him to support (aka: cosponsor) this bill.  As his constituents, it’s our job to let him know that this is what we want him to do.
 
How to comment:  Call his office at (775) 686-5760 or send him an email: https://amodei.house.gov/email-me/ .  If you send an email, you do have to put in your contact information (this is required because they verify that you live in his congressional district).  Select “public lands” under the drop-down menu for Topic, and put H.R. 5797 in the subject line.

What to say:  You are of course encouraged to come up with your own personal comment with regard to this bill.  But if you’re not looking to reinvent the wheel and need a generic template, we suggest something along the lines of this:

“I am your constituent, an OHV trail user and supporter of the federal Recreational Trails Program. I am writing to ask you to support the Recreational Trails Full Funding Act of 2020, H.R. 5797, introduced earlier this month. Please get in touch with Rep. Welch's office ([email protected]) or Rep. Curtis's ([email protected]) to add your name to H.R. 5797 as a cosponsor. And be sure to vote in favor when this bill comes to the House floor. As your constituent, I'm counting on you to see that the RTP has every opportunity to flourish in the future.”
            
3. Sign up as a member, and get your friends to do the same! 

If you haven’t done so already, you can also renew your RAD membership for 2020 or sign up as a new member!  Or you can donate here.  **Disclaimer: we are a tax-exempt non-profit under IRC Sec. 501(c)7 - we are not a charitable entity – therefore, donations are not tax deductible to you.**
 
Membership dues and other monetary donations really, really help us build funds to support costs of maintaining and growing the club and putting on events like this, for which there are so many indirect costs. Additionally, grant funding is a reimbursement-based program, which means that RAD must first come out-of-pocket to cover project expenses for which we are eligible to receive reimbursement.  When you’re a brand-new club running on hopes, dreams and an itty-bitty bank account, stuff like this is challenging.  
 
Also, as a heads up, we are going to start holding regular member meetings at 6:30pm on the second Wednesday of every odd number month, beginning with Wednesday, March 11th.  Location TBA – stay tuned.