Trail News

GHORBA Awarded $120,000 Grant to Expand Double Lake Trail

We are incredibly excited to announce that GHORBA has been successful in its largest ever grant application. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission (TPW) annual meeting of August 21st approved the 2008 Recreational Trail Program grant funding, which included $120,000 for GHORBA to construct an additional 12 miles of sweet singletrack at Double Lake Recreational Area in the Sam Houston National Forest and home of GHORBA’s annual Big Ring Challenge mountain bike race.

Double Lake Topo Overview

Seventy-three applications were received by TPW this year. Thirty projects were approved, with GHORBA’s application scoring the second highest in the competitive review process.

In February, GHORBA was awarded $10,000 by industry trade group Bikes Belong which will be used as matching funds towards a total $150,000 budget for the project.

We will be using the grant to fund professional trail construction, supported by volunteers. This way, we’ll get the project completed much more quickly.

As if this was not enough, as part of the arrangement with the U.S. Forest Service to support the project, GHORBA will be preparing a Master Plan for mountain bike trails throughout the Sam Houston National Forest.

This is the largest undertaking in GHORBA’s history and we hope that everybody in the Houston mountain bike community will be as excited as we are. We will need help from you like never before –- on top of this project we are still forging ahead with new trails in other parts of our region.

Now the work begins at Double Lake. We have to await awarding of the formal agreement with TPW to spend funds, then we’ll need to do a full Environmental Impact Study for the new trail, along with a number of other TPW / USFS requirements ahead of construction. But we’ve been laying preparatory work for this for some time and we’ve established a strong working relationship with the USFS District Ranger and the Houston Sierra Club who take an active interest in the SHNF. We’ve also been in close touch with IMBA who are mobilizing strong technical support for the project.

We’ll keep you updated and be asking for your continued help and support in the coming months.

Texas Parks & Wildlife News Release

View all Trail News

  1. Congratulations!!! This is a great thng for the Houston area. Thanks for putting in the hard work to make this happen!

    Regards,
    David Smith
    (long time HAMBRA and GHORBA member)

    By: David Smith
    Aug 25

  2. You guys are the bomb! No doubt this took a lot of work to put this together for TPWD and the feds. Who ever is responsible, I’ll buy you a beer or two. $120 K ought to build a bad #%* trail!

    By: DanTheMan
    Aug 25

  3. I look forward to hearing about trail work opportunities!

    By: Julia
    Aug 25

  4. Wow, this is great news! It is clear that the team members who put this proposal together worked hard, and the results prove it.
    I hope you send this news to IMBA and Dirt Rag Magazine.

    By: Doug F.
    Aug 25

  5. IMBA are pretty impressed and they have committed resources to help us with aspects of this project. I think you’ll be reading more about this in IMBA news.

    And Dan, mine’s a Shiner pleez!

    By: Kevin
    Aug 25

  6. I spoke earlier this week with Mike Long, the Mas-o-Menos Race promoter and a key member of the Big Bend Trails Alliance. The pilot project trail is to be located just north and west of the main Panther Junction Visitor Ctr. There will be a one mile singletrack loop around Lone Mtn and a mile of old jeep road dbl track leading to three more miles of what should be pretty fun, but relatively flat singletrack. Hopefully, this will be Phase I of what could grow into an extensive trail system in the future.

    By: Jim Mackey
    Sep 11