Hooo-LY crap guys. It has been... a week.

On December 8th, the OHV Commission met to deliberate and decide on all applications submitted, and the Recreational Trails Program conducted meetings from December 8th through December 10th to hear presentations on their applications.

The Nevada OHV Commission received a total of 26 applications this year, and 2 of those were RAD's.  This year's applications were substantial - a lot of 6-figure project requests, and a million bucks statewide goes quick.

Our application for the RAD Communities Project was a total slam dunk.  The Commission was well aware of the wide impact from our two previous community clean-up's we hosted, and gave their full support for the $15,180.00 we requested with zero critical comments whatsoever.  

Funding is live as of January 1, 2021, so RAD is now in the market for an enclosed utility trailer (budget: approximately $5,000) which we will outfit to contain all the tools and other equipment RAD is accumulating -- instead of taking up space in the RADmins' sheds and garages. We are also going to be getting some custom Reno Area Dirtriders EZ-up tents and flags to look a little more profesh. 

With this project you can look forward to the following events on our calendar:

• 4 OHV registration drives, where we will be a one-stop-shopping factory of generating OHV registration paperwork.  We will have law enforcement on standby for VIN inspections, a notary public and a couple people to navigate all of the requisite paperwork to title and/or register your bike (or any other OHV).  Whatever your situation is - whether you need simple registration renewal or you have a complex situation with no title - bring it to us and we will get it sorted out one-on-one.  
• 2 more major community clean-ups to combat illegal dumping on trailheads.  Keep Truckee Meadows Beautiful will supply 1 dumpster per clean-up and the grant funds will pay for more dumpsters and other disposal fees.
• We will be placing dumpsters at Moonrocks over Memorial Day and Labor Day weekend to hopefully reduce the amount of desert littering which has historically accumulated here over busy holiday weekends.

Our $138k application for the Peavine Maze Connectivity project took a bit of a beating. 

The Department of Wildlife submitted "major objections" over concerns about the mule deer. I explained that the wildlife surveys we are proposing to conduct through this grant would reveal whether any such issues actually exist.  I'd been in touch with the Forest Service's wildlife biologist directly who has not expressed concern over deer with respect to the proposed alignments we submitted, and was only specifically concerned with certain birds in very specific habitat conditions. Commissioner Fell backed this up and emphasized that the whole purpose of our project at this time was to conduct these feasibility studies and how to mitigate anything that may come up.  Also in our favor, the Forest Service is in our corner and supportive of the project.  Ultimately, NDOW's comments about the deer did not affect the decision of the Commission. 

Although the Commission is pleased to see a project that addresses the specific need for more singletrack trails and recognizes the big picture of our concept, they were very firmly unwilling to fund any portion of the trails on the other side of the Nevada state line.

The motion passed by the Commission funded us with $69,153 -- half the budget, to cover the half of the project consisting of the trails on the Nevada.  But the real kicker is that this funding is contingent on us finding another source of funding for the California half of the project.  This was like the equivalent of when you try to hop a log, but your front tire just plows into it and you flip over the handlebars.... you made it over the log, but your bike is still stuck the other side. 

To move this project forward, we need to find another $65,000 or so. 

Immediately, we turned to the Yamaha Outdoor Access Initiative program and talked with a representative of that program about our situation.  She encouraged us to apply for a maximum of $30,000, which would get us about half way there. This application needs to be submitted by December 15th and would be awarded at the end of January if successful.  We are also going to apply for some funding from the Right Rider Access Fund, which can get us a limited amount likely between $10,000 - $20,000.  This application is due January 15th and awarded in March.

We are enthusiastically getting very strong support letters for these secondary grant applications from the NV OHV Commission, our USFS District Ranger, Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship, Michaels Reno Powersports (the Yamaha dealer) and Truckee Dirt Riders... all stakeholders who are behind this and want to see these trails happen too.

We are dead-set determined to make these new trails happen - full stop. I'm in high gear to jam this last minute application out to Yamaha on the tight deadline, and simultaneously searching for other funding to patch together the other half of the budget we need to move forward.   

There were some other good wins that came out of the Commission meeting that day as well.  

MotoMedX, a brand new nonprofit based in Reno, received some funding to help develop this volunteer based program which will provide onsite medical services and training at all kinds of dirtbike and other OHV-related events.  If you crashed and hurt yourself at a MRANN race this year, you met the man behind MotoMedX.  Steve Clark is a great rider,  a Captain of a Reno Fire Department station and extremely passionate about being able to leverage his combined skillset and resources to the benefit of all of us.  You'll see MotoMedX around at RAD events in the future.

The BLM received significant funding for their enhancement of Moonrocks.  Their funding will go toward completing the requisite surveys needed for the area to update the BLM's resource database, the addition of staging area features (kiosks, restrooms, garbage, etc.), road maintenance, trail maintenance and inventorying trails.  This is great news for us because it will open the doors for us to finally do maintenance on the singletrack we pick, and ultimately ensure they are preserved as system motorcycle-only trails. We will keep in close contact with the BLM as their project unfolds and they welcome our contributions as a user group to have a stake in our parts of the area. Construction of the staging area features will begin this Spring 2021!

Reno Area Dirtriders wrote letters of support for both of the above mentioned projects and we were happy to see their success.

In addition, it was great to see the Commission give dollars to another Reno group - the Hills Angels 4x4 Club - for work on the Hunter Lake trail.  This 4x4 club has a long history of consistently giving back to the public lands every year in the form of clean-ups, graffiti removal and rescue missions, and it is nice to see them get some funding to continue to do this good work in our backyard.

Reno OTHG and OTMX also submitted an application, but their project proposal for private events on private land did not align with the program goals.  However, the OHV Commission agreed to earmark $20,000 for them, which would be contingent upon them creating a revised plan which produces more benefit to the user groups who purchase OHV registration stickers which fund this program.  This will be revisited at February's Commission meeting.

Last but not least... another nail biter ... was our competition for $210,000 in available funding state-wide for the second round of Peavine Maze maintenance with our proposed budget of about $80,000.

I needed to really explain to the RTP board the integrity of singletrack trails, and why they are not designed to accommodate other user groups.  One comment/question I received in response to explaining that we wanted to install more natural barriers to block 4x4 access to the singletrack was that "perhaps this means there is a demand for more quad/SxS trails and maybe our trails should be widened" and "what are we doing for the 4x4 community?"  (paraphrasing).  

Questions like this really highlight the fact that dirt bikes truly have not had any presence or representation in this arena in Nevada until now. Luckily, due to the strict time limits on Q&A segments to keep on track with the presentation schedule, the board ended up emailing me with more questions after the zoom call ended, which gave me the opportunity to thoroughly explain the needs of dirtbike users and the nature and design of our trails in detail, emphasizing how we are very different from the 4-wheel OHV user groups. The board took my additional emailed comments into consideration with the rest of the presentation.

I also owe a thank you to Kevin Joell, who was also on the call during the presentation.  He's an RTP grant veteran with all his experience with Biggest Little Trail Stewardship, and he was able to add some remarks that were complimentary to our case regarding signage in the maze, etc.

Although we have not received formal notification of our award... an insider told me that we were awarded a little over $70,000.  That's a great win for RAD from such a narrow state-wide funding window, and a little hair cut on our tool budget and admin fee isn't going to take any skin off our nipples... that $70k will cover all of the contracted trail work with Sierra Trail Works and the bridge materials for the 304 trail.

At the end of the day, all of RAD's applications made it through the 2020 gauntlet and next year is going to be HUGE.  The wheels are really turning and RAD has momentum propelling us forward.  In 2021 these three projects will move forward, and simultaneously we will also start laying the ground work to put 2022 projects in the pipeline.  This is #theradmovement.

With ever-evolving new information coming in over the last month, a few things changed slightly from the original plan I told you about:
 
First, we flip-flopped the funding plan for the second round of Peavine Maze Maintenance and the new Peavine Maze Connectivity projects.  Instead of the OHV program, we are running next year's Maze maintenance (an $80,000 project) through the Nevada Recreational Trails Program (Federal funding, from gas taxes) -- and then running the new trails project (Phase 1 of which will cost a cool $138,300) though the Nevada OHV Program (State funding, from your OHV registration fees).

We changed this around at the last minute because all of the current Maze trails are exclusively in Nevada, whereas the new trails will be 50/50 in both Nevada and California.  The RTP program has pretty strict rules that all funding needs to be spent in Nevada, whereas the OHV program is a little more flexible about the fact that the trails all start in Nevada.  In addition, we came to understand that the OHV Commission appreciates diversification of funding on ongoing projects - so it made sense to dip into a different honey pot for the ongoing maintenance, and it fit the bill for RTP's requirements.

I also stated in my previous post that we were not going to build a bridge over the major washout on the 304 trail and were going to do a major re-route instead. Upon diving deeper into that, we determined that a re-route without a bridge was, uh.... impossible. And we also figured out that we could do the bridge for a bit cheaper than what was originally implied.  The materials will cost about $15,000, the labor was quoted at $10,000 and we will need to pay about $3,000 for the USFS engineering staff's involvement.  Still expensive, yes ... but at the end of the day it will be a high quality, permanent solution that will be sustainable for decades. Besides, this is certainly not the worst way to spend your gas taxes.  Also, there will be a minor 600-ish foot re-route at the beginning of the 304 (unrelated to the bridge).

The third application was for about $15,000 for the "RAD Communities" project. Nothing has changed there - we will be hosting quarterly OHV registration drives to help you do the paperwork and a couple more community clean-up's to do our part to combat illegal dumping. I was recently told that registration apps submitted through RAD could get top-of-the-pile treatment at the DMV! To help with these projects and compliment others, we asked for funding for a couple custom EZ-up tents and flags, an enclosed utility trailer to hold all of RAD's tools and event supplies, even more tools, and of course disposal fees and PPE.

As a side story worth mentioning, last week I had the opportunity to give a little mini tour of the Maze and talk about our upcoming projects to some very important people who support Reno Area Dirtriders and the progress we are making. This included the District Ranger Matt Zumstein and Recreation Officer Brian Hansen of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest (the folks who signed off on all of RAD's current and future Maze projects so far); a couple of Commissioners from the Nevada OHV Commission Nikhil Narkhede (the one who wrote the checks for the maze this year) and Phil Fell; Kevin Joell (the trail builder who did the maze work); Colin Robertson (Head of the Office of Outdoor Recreation); and Holly and Nathan from Great Basin Institute, who are working on a major trail mapping collaborative for Nevada.  This was a cool, full-circle meeting that really showcased RAD's commitment to being good stewards of our trails. Our efforts are well supported, appreciated and encouraged and we kicked around more ideas for 2022 and beyond.

But what about the Moonrocks project?

After several follow up discussions with the BLM and learning about their plans to pursue funding for a full environmental assessment of the area and development of the staging area with facilities, we reassessed whether it was necessary to duplicate their work. Instead, RAD wrote a letter of support for the BLM's project, and in turn they would like to work in collaboration with us and allow us help shape the area as it applies to our interests: the single track.  In a nutshell, instead of RAD doing the NEPA work just so we can later do the trail work - we are just going to do the trail work when we are authorized to do so, and it looks like the NEPA process on the BLM's end is actually going to move forward, with a bug in their ear that they need to include some single track too. So that’s one less grant for us to write and manage... and frankly, I ran out of time anyway. So this is a win-win and we will be keeping our thumb on the pulse of the BLM's developments and keep dirtbiker interests prominently on the radar.

I have to add the disclaimer that none of these plans are final until we are actually awarded these grants. However, we feel confident about these three projects because we have so much support behind us. We will have to give some presentations next month, and then applications will be scored and decisions will be made.  But for now, it's a huge sigh of relief to have the ball out of our court for a while so we can return to other club focuses.

#theradmovement