Shimano Trail Born Funding
Ashley, Nate and Aiden hiking out from work. Photo by Jaret Brantley
Just as we were coming off a season of trail building that was funded by what we are describing a shoe string budget, we had one of the most pleasant emails come across our virtual desk. It asked if we had any shovel ready projects that could use $30,000. Well, it just so happened, that number was just $7,000 short of what we had budgeted to finish our Mule Mountain trails expansion project!
After an initial meeting with Shimano and IMBA, where we described our project, they expressed it was perfectly in line with something they wanted to be a part of. With the help of local trail advocate Leah Mancabelli, we sent in an official Shimano Trail Born application. An approval followed shortly and we’ve been on Shimano Trail Born cloud nine ever since! The impact this funding will have on Redding trails is significant. It will allow us to finish the upper section of Ono, which is a hand built, mountain bike specific, downhill trail from the top of Mule Mountain. It will also fund Doqos (local Wintu word for arrow), the more inclusive, but no less fun, machine built, multi-use trail with a strong mountain bike flavor.
You can read the official Shimano Trail Born funding announcement HERE. https://bike.shimano.com/en-NA/stories/article/trail-born-expands-support-in-2025.html
Do you recognize the picture at the top of the article? Man, we live in a beautiful area.
As of the writing of this, we are well underway on the construction of Doqos, with Ono soon to follow. Doqos starts at the top of the Mule Ridge climb from the Oak Noll parking lot. You are welcome to check it out, but we ask that you please don’t ride it after a rain, as it will leave large ruts in the tread that our crew has spent so much time and effort into smoothing out.
As with all of our projects, we welcome and LOVE volunteers! If you aren’t already on our email list, send us a quick email to info@reddingtrailalliance.org asking to be added and we will make sure you get notified of any volunteer days!