Whatcom Mountain Bike Coalition

Trail Stewardship / Advocacy: This year we hosted 21 public trail workdays, rebuilt 9 trails, and brushed over 30 miles of trail. We overhauled the jumps at the Bellingham Waterfront and the Civic Dirt Jumps. Our continued development of these jumps provide a place for all levels of riders to practice their skills. We also entered into a Master Agreement with the Washington Department of Natural Resources to maintain and build trails on DNR property. As part of our work this year, we built the Galbraith Mountain and Lake Padden parking lot which we gifted to the City of Bellingham once completed.

Education: WMBC After School Ride Clubs: 8+ Bellingham elementary and middle school clubs, including Flying Squirrels girls riding group. ASBC's groups ride spring and fall on weekly rides. This program reached over 257 kids this year. We had over 85 volunteer ride leaders support this program.Youth Trail Corps YTC: A cornerstone of our youth programs gives any interested middle schooler/teen youth the opportunity to explore how to sustainably build and maintain trails. We are going into our 7th year with this preteen/teen program. They worked hard all year on Galbraith Mountain focusing on a variety of issues, strategies and solutions to help our trails run even better. We served over 36 teens in 2022 and offered 14 Youth Trail Corps days and two summer camps.WMBC/Vamos Outdoors Project: This program is an ongoing program for multiple groups of ELL (English Language Learners) youth ranging from grades K-12. We are engaging youth in our community that normally do not access trails and the outdoors. Mountain biking provides youth with appreciation of the outdoors, physical and mental challenges, and exciting engagement with their surrounding environment. In 2022, we served approximately 171 Latinx youth for weekly programming and one-day community outreach. We had 9 volunteer ride leaders help support this program.Lummi Nation Bike Program: The Bronco Wild Fund is a community outreach program through Ford that granted ambassadors Paris Gore and Micayla Gatto a total of $20,000 to donate to a cause of their choice. They chose the Lummi Nation Bike Program for this grant. Half of the funds were used to purchase 13 bikes, 2 bike racks, helmets, and gear from Specialized for the Lummi Nation High School mountain bike program. WMBC and the Bronco Wild Ambassadors hosted a bike building party in conjunction with WMBC staff members to show the kids how to put together bikes and get them excited to ride. The other half of the grant is saved for the future building of a bike park on the High School grounds.

Events: We hosted a thirteen-race series on Wednesday nights called the Whatcom World Cup that showcased our trails on Galbraith Mountain. The race series had an average of 135 racers per race including many youth racers (as young as 7 years old) and many first-time racers. Additionally, we had a grand opening event in May for the Galbraith Mountain and Lake Padden parking lot. The finished lot has 184 stalls for parking and 2 stalls for horse trailer parking. The parking lot is frequently full and is used by all types of trail users. Our longest running fundraiser, Shoot The Trails, was held in person at Kulshan Trackside with 1,000 tickets sold for the event and was a big success. We also hosted the beer garden at the Northwest Tune-Up, and with over 100 volunteers, we served beer at the three-day festival.