MTB trail quality is "about to ramp up on the hockey stick"

Singletracks Mountain Bike Podcast

Singletracks.com

Wilderness, Sports

4.7 • 574 Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2024

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Greg Mazu is the self-described "Chief Dreamer" behind Backslope Tools, a company that designs and sells tools for trail building and forest maintenance. He's also the founder of Singletrack Trails, a trail building company that recently finished its last project after 20 years in the business.

When did you build your first trail?
How did you get into professional trail building?
What motivated you to start Tools for Trails, and later Backslope tools?
Where are Backslope tools manufactured?
If you could only have one tool to use for building a trail, what would it be?
Some riders say they prefer natural trails to machine-built ones. Do you have a preference for riding machine- or hand-built trails? Can a machine-built trail be built to feel like a natural or hand-built trail, or vice versa?
Singletrack trails was involved in some iconic projects over the years in places like 18 Road and Lunch Loops in Fruita, Black Mountain in North Carolina, Palisade Plunge in Colorado, and Handcut Hollow in Bentonville. Which trail building projects are you most proud of?
What are some favorite trails you weren't involved in building?
What are some of the challenges the trail building industry is facing in meeting increased demand for trails?
Have we reached a peak in terms of trail quality, or is there room for further growth and improvement? What are some of the latest, or upcoming innovations riders can look forward to?

See the tools we talked about at backslopetools.com and follow @gregmazu on Instagram.

--Keep up with the latest in mountain biking at Singletracks.com and on Instagram @singletracks

Transcript

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0:56.7	Hey everybody. Welcome to the single tracks podcast. My name is Jeff, and today my guest is Greg Mayzu.
1:07.1	Greg is a self-described chief dreamer behind backslope tools, a company that designs and sells tools for trail building and forest maintenance.
1:11.9	He's also the founder of single track trails, a trail building company that recently finished its last project after 20 years in the business. Thanks for joining me, Greg.
1:18.2	Thanks for having me. So tell us, when did you build your first trail?
1:23.4	My first trail, other than in showing up for volunteer days, my first trail was at Lorry State
1:30.5	Park here in Fort Collins, Colorado.
1:32.4	Okay.
1:32.9	Back in 2003, Howard.
1:36.0	Howard Trail was the first one that I got to design and build from start to finish.
1:41.1	So a lot of switchbacks on that one.
1:43.2	A lot of people still swear at me about that one.
1:46.4	Yeah. Did you get to name it? Howard Trail. Where's that name come from?
	...

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