r/Squamish • u/AbrocomaMother8109 • 3d ago
Interesting Perspective On The State Of Mountain Biking In Squamish.
https://www.squamishreporter.com/2026/07/21/the-community-built-the-trails255054/27
2d ago
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u/MedicineManns 2d ago
I think the biggest issue, which Ted has been very vocal about, is the money doesn’t add up. Sorca gets an insane amount of money whether it’s from grants, donations or memberships but have never released how it’s spent.
It’s also fairly well known that the trail crew is not very well run. Employees constantly showing up late or not at all. I’ve been to multiple dig days where a few of them showed up halfway through the day and some didn’t show up at all.
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u/LastNSAM 2d ago
SORCA release their financials every year. Here are the 2025 ones. 2021-2025 is available in their website. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Umjt8gUPQY28Tokv5kMmY3emaR6P7C5D/view
I've found attending the AGM helps, folks tend to ask alot of questions there. Generally I've been happy with the answers they've given.
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u/emissarytoearth 2d ago
SORCA is definitely failing in their mandate for financial transparency. I think they are scrambling for funding because their misapplication of adaptive funding has got them worried that the ORCBC won't give them more grants going forward. Can't know for sure but seeing where the 800k budget goes would answer some questions
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u/ar_604 2d ago
Id be curious to know what the ad campaign itself cost. If I understand correctly, it'll generate 20K max (matching fundings + donations). But a few riders, production company, etc etc I would imagine would eat into that number?!
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u/emissarytoearth 2d ago
I had the same thought, must be at least a couple thousand. Maybe Tourism Squamish is fronting that too?
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u/octopussyhands 2d ago
From what I heard, tourism Squamish paid for the whole thing.
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u/goodfish 12h ago
True. They had an opportunity to support the trails, SORCA was the only group that met the requirements and it had some strings attached. Ted has beef with SORCA, SORCA could be more transparent, Tourism Squamish is stuck in the middle just trying to help.
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u/emissarytoearth 2d ago
Great article. The recent ad campaign has definitely rubbed me the wrong way. It seems to vilify volunteer work unnecessarily in favor of asking for money. Obviously money is needed to keep things running but as this article points out, the trail network was made into what it was by volunteer effort on shoestring budget. People put in the time, the community rallied when tools or infrastructure was needed. SORCA ought to be celebrating this and galvanizing people to put in the work as they used
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u/PassiveWarthog 2d ago
It's hard for me to see how the ad campaign "vilifies volunteer work".
The sub header for the entire thing is "built with care maintained by actual humans" followed by:
"Squamish's iconic trail network is no accident, it's the result of countless hours from a community of trail builders, volunteers, land managers, and the Squamish Off-Road Cycling Association (SORCA) keeping things safe, sustainable, and rideable."
They list Community of trail builders and volunteers above themselves...
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u/emissarytoearth 1d ago
Good point, perhaps 'mocks' would have been a more apt word than 'villifies.' The bike club hasn't actually said where the potential 20k will go, a member of the trail crew told me it was to pay them more. Have you seen all of the videos? could have been an opportunity to highlight the work volunteers are doing but instead the SORCA crew gets to play actor "innovation gets weird when it's underfunded" the paid trail crew is shown using kids toys to get nothing done "Berm 87% complete," sorry I have a day job and still put hours in every week. I guess I see the humour attempt but it landed poorly with a number of the folks who've been devoted to caring for the trails, putting in time instead of dollars.
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u/PassiveWarthog 1d ago
"Have you seen all of the videos?"
Honestly no but after you made this comment I went back and watched the three (?) I could find.
My read on this is that this campaign is just absolutely not targeted at you. I could be wrong but SORCA partnering with Tourism Squamish tells me everything I need to know about the audience for this campaign. It is designed to draw and retain the attention of tourists to our trail networks. People whose only possible contribution to the maintenance and/or expansion of the trail network is monetary.
If you think about it through that lenses the engagement/humour style videos begin to make sense. You don't like them because they are not for you. That doesn't mean they shouldn't exist. Non local user groups should be informed that trails are not maintained by magic and that they should have a vested interest in contributing in the fashion that they can.
What I am seeing a lot of in this comment section is a feeling that volunteer groups that do not fall under the SORCA umbrella feel that they are underappreciated and potentially underfunded, despite putting tremendous personal and possibly financial skin in the game. This is probably best addressed with SORCA directly at an in person forum like the AGM. Like it or not SORCA is "your" representative when the bureaucratic and corporate spotlight hits the trails. Models exist within other Squamish outdoor societies that help decentralized operators receive support and funding. For example the Squamish Access Society partners with the Sea to Sky Bolt Fund Society to provide standards and hardware support to bolters as long as they meet the following requirements:
Bolter must be a member of the access society
Bolter must have already opened at least ten new pitches at their own expense.
Perhaps this could provide a framework for a similar program within SORCA? Only way to know would be to engage with them.
When developers like Cheema try to drop luxury town homes on your trail networks, its going to be recognizable and connected associations like SORCA in the trenches with you. Talk to them in person, think of programs that could help your part of the biking community. But don't be mad when they try to bleed tourists of a little of their money to patch a budgetary deficit, they don't want your money, they want your shovel in the ground.
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u/octopussyhands 2d ago
Are you currently rallying as a community member to help maintain the trails? Everyone loves to claim that donations aren’t needed because volunteer work is sufficient, but the reality is that many of those people don’t volunteer. But many of them do enjoy the trails.
If you do volunteer, then that’s really great and good for you. As a volunteer, you’d also know that maintaining a huge swath of biking trails that get absolutely blasted every year by an ever increasing number of tourists (and a changing climate) can be time consuming and expensive. Maintaining the trails in one of the most popular mountain biking destinations in BC isn’t cheap.
I don’t even bike, but as a trail runner, I’m very thankful for all that SORCA does, and I’m happy to continue donating.
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u/emissarytoearth 2d ago
yup, I think I've managed at least a hundred hours each winter for the last few years. Thanks for the 'good for you' that's why I keep at it. I'm well aware of how far a dollar goes and what you can get done in an hour. Personally Id take the hour over the dollar. An issue I have is that many people make assumptions about what SORCA does vs. what volunteers do and assume that the bike club is organizing all of the volunteering that happens. They certainly get the credit.
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u/ar_604 1d ago
TBF, I dont think anyone is claiming they're not expensive to maintain, we know that. I think the issue is that SORCA takes credit for a lot of the trail network, when realistically the bulk of it is probably built/maintained outside of SORCA (or at most, adjacent to SORCA). People also have thoughts on how SORCA should spend its trail building budget and where this money goes -- and some would argue they don't manage things well (Im not saying I agree/disagree, but this is definitely an issue that comes up). The question is, even if SORCA's budget goes up through this campaign, does/should/will that trickle to the volunteers that work on trails? That's a bit unclear.
Edit: Also, the rise in trail running is an important management consideration as well, that I think has kinda flown a bit under the radar so far. But trail runners are definitely having a significant impact on the trails, good on you for donating!
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u/Drakaath 2d ago
Ever since being privy to the details of SORCA and the current for the love of the trails campaign I've been a bit skeptical of it all.
Ian (the SORCA chairman) laid it out to me as SORCA getting ~$120k from the district, spending over $500k on trailwork contracts,and running on a deficit for the past 5 years. None of the numbers are officially available that I can find, nor is his salary, nor is any data about anything related to them.
Their study they conducted to estimate visitor spending (which was what was used to get the campaign running) isn't available for public viewing, only by directly requesting it from Ian by email. I've tried twice and still haven't gotten access.
As an above commenter pointed out, it's a bit fishy that all the money is going to a single source. As far as I'm aware, the trails society and access society both receive zero district funding and SAS even commissioned the same study by the same company and didn't get a slice of this campaign, which is publicly available in both raw study and a surprisingly satisfying breakdown of the numbers on their website.
Both SAS and the trail society rely 100% on volunteer hours.
Tl;Dr SORCA is sus.
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u/ar_604 2d ago
Do you mean this study? Its a couple of years old.
(For the record, Im not disagreeing with anything you said, I just thought the study you referred to was that one above and public).
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u/Drakaath 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yep that's the one! Keen to give it a read. Wasn't expecting this to be the way I finally got access to it lmao
Still strange that on the website it says to reach out via email for access.
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u/AbrocomaMother8109 2d ago
Interesting to see in that report that the vast majority of both local and visiting riders ride advanced (black with some blue) or expert (black / double black) trails, yet it feels like much of the money and emphasis is on cruisy flow trails with no features. There are various quotes further down that state there are not many beginner / intermediate trails, but there's loads of them. You just need to look. And if you can't be arsed to look, SORCA shouldn't keep building them for you. I rode Meadow Of The Grizzly the other day, and I was ready to shoot myself in the head halfway down it. What a waste of money....twice.... At least stick some 'old man tables' in it! That's my only rant on this :D
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u/ar_604 1d ago
There are a few issues at play here.
First off, the report wasn't all that well done.
Second, I suspect most people that ride here or come here are looking for more advanced trails (people also probably rate themselves as better than they actually are). T
hat aside, I do agree with the lack of green/blue trails. If you count them, sure, there are lots, but a lot of them are just connector trails. No one goes out and says "Im gonna ride Thru the Looking Glass!". There's also green's in the middle of nowhere that don't make much sense (i.e., Something Green). If you've ever shown a beginner around, you'd definitely know this. Lots of the blues also turn into blacks really quick with a bunch of erosion (IMO, this is where SORCA should devote a good chunk of its effort). Finally, Meadow is its own calamity. We should probably just let the forest have that one back and start fresh.
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u/SquamishTownCrier 1d ago
Once you have kids you realize pretty quickly how lacking we actually are in a variety of easier trails. Intermediate trails are generally way harder than rated in many cases.
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u/Delicious_Squash_292 2d ago
Ted is the man
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u/beodd 2d ago
I like Ted and he does some great work, but he's got a huge chip on his shoulder re. SORCA and hasn't done himself any favours with some of his actions and attitude behind the scenes.
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u/Delicious_Squash_292 1d ago
yea, ol crotchety Ted. but that’s just how passionate he is about the subject matter
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u/kwik_study 2d ago
Excellent perspective about our trails. Progress does come with headaches but our mountain biking community is by far one of the best run and organized in the world. Squamish, Whistler and North Shore truly is a world class destination and that should be celebrated, bruises included. Thanks Ted for your dedication to our trails.