Welcome

Welcome to the Berkshire Chapter of the New England Mountain Bike Association! We're glad you stopped by. Please check out our calendar below and our latest meeting minutes for info on what's going on.

Why Build Legal Trails?

Pittsfield State Forest Resource Management Plan

Berkshire NEMBA's input to the Pittsfield State Forest Resource Management plan is complete and may be read here.

2012 Trail Work Day #2 - Beatown State Forest - Tuesday May 1, 2012 5:30 PM

We're going to be cutting brush back on the Ski & Bridle Trail. Bring weedwackers and loppers. We'll be cutting back brush on the Ski & Bridle Trail. Eating out after, partially subsidized by NEMBA

2012 Beginner Rides - Starting Monday May 7, 2012

This year we're really hoping to get some true beginners and teach them to mountain bike. Meet at the Lulu Cascade parking area of the Pittsfield State Forest. Advanced ride begins at 5:30 PM. Beginner ride at 6:00 PM. Bring your bike and helmet, sign the waiver and come out and enjoy the great trails we have. We'll have a pot luck cookout the last Monday of every month. And it's FREE - well, except they might charge you for entering the Pittsfield State Forest. Oh - and we'd love to have you join NEMBA!

Adopt a Trail!!!

Theresa Apple suggested we all Adopt a Trail to help spread the work load! Berkshire NEMBA signed the DCR Trail Maintenance Agreement. Anyone who works on the trails in the PSF must sign the DCR Volunteer Release Form. Unfortunately, this program hasn't been real successful. We have just a very few people doing any maintenance on the trails. In early December, we finally got caught up with all the downed trees from this summer's wind and rain storms only to have snow take down a dozen more trees. We've had permission to create a new family trail all summer, but it's not really appropriate to start that when we can't keep up with maintenance on the existing trails. So, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, if you ride the trails, come out and help maintain them. And don't forget to record your hours in the log book in the phone booth at PSF headquarters.

Join NEMBA

We definitely want to encourage everyone to:

History

The Berkshire Chapter of NEMBA is enthusiastic group of local mountain bikers who want to make better trails for mountain biking. The Berkshires in Western Massachusetts are blessed with tens of thousands of acres of land which is open to recreational use. Most of this land is in State Forests, but we also have some great places to ride on Berkshire Natural Resources Lands, watershed lands, town parks and private property.

Over the years, motorized vehicle use in our State Forests as well as poor trail design has caused all of the trails open to motorized use to deteriorate badly. Record rainfall due to climate change combined with a huge increase in motorized vehicle use due to bans in other areas of Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York have exasperated the problem.

Berkshire NEMBA to the rescue!

In 2008, Berkshire NEMBA began working with the Mass Department of Conservation and Recreation to create sustainable mountain bike trails. Our efforts to date have been primarily focused on creating new trails in the Pittsfield State Forest. In 2008, we reconstructed the Turner Trail. 2009 initially focused on clearning ice-damaged trails and resurrecting the Lulu Brook trail. 2010 and 2011 saw the completion of several beginner-level/family oriented loops. Feel free to check out our accomplishments for more details.

We are working with the DCR on the Pittsfield State Forest Resource Management Plan and hope to be creating even more singletrack for mountain bikers to enjoy.

We have other groups interested in working with us. Specifically, the Berkshire Natural Resources Council has several parcels of land throughout Berkshire County on which they would like trails developed. A parcel in Lee, Mass and Constitution Hill in Lanesboro. It would be great is someone were to step up and take a leadership role to make something happen on these parcels.

Folks up in North County put in a lot of work on the Thunderbolt Ski Trail for the Thunderbolt Downhill Ski Race and our South County team has done drainage work, bridge work and rock armoring in Beartown State Forest.


Honey Bear Loop Trail

Join Us!

Please consider joining the New England Mountain Bike Association and check out our upcoming events for a complete list of upcoming trail work days and trail rides!