I've been meaning to start putting a few posts up to let the club members know about some folks that have recently stepped up to help our club. We have a good many folks that are the core of how mtn bike trails are built and maintained in this area, and I need to spotlight them also, but I thought I'd start with a new person stepping it up. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to tell you a little bit about what "upnover/aka Togie" has been doing to help our club. We've long talked about asking someone to volunteer to take a shot at becoming a Bike Shop Liason for the club. We weren't really sure what all this would entail, but we knew there were many local bike shops that haven't tried to get involved with the Tarheel Trailblazers, and also that maybe the Tarheel Trailblazers haven't tried hard enough on our end. 

As we were kicking this idea around with our extended board members, someone threw out Togie's name as a person that might be good at this, might actually be interested, and would be a person we could trust to represent our club. 

Togie and I exchanged a few emails, had a meet and greet at this year's Mayor's Ride for Bike Charlotte, and got to know each other a litte better after the Mayor's Ride with Togie joining myself and my wife on the SSs at Renni. 

Since then Togie has been visiting local bike shops introducing himself and the Tarheel Trailblazers, and just in general talking about and asking for opinions on how we could help each other. We build mtn bike trails, they sell mtn bikes, so we should be able to help each other in some way, right? Each bike shop has a core group of folks with passion about bike stuff, and we could use their help, and since we're  pretty much their target audience, I think we could help them too.

As with a lot of things in this club, we're learning as we go, because we're all volunteers,  and I'd like to personally thank Togie for taking the time to try and help the club that builds and maintains the majority of the trails all of you ride. 

We're trying to get more information about the club to the LBSs, and Togie has already started providing our new membership applications now that we've joined SORBA/IMBA.

HELP WANTED!!..you know I have to throw one of these in here.....One thing your club needs is someone that has the know how and time to volunteer to work with Togie and myself to design and produce some new brochures for the club. The ones we have today are nice, but outdated, and we could use help from someone willing to volunteer graphic arts expertise,and/or printing. If you're interested let me or Togie/upnover know, and we'll go from there. 

In the long run we'd love to have a simple endcap or display in every bike shop in the area that has some general infomation about the club and what we do, membership applications, and club branded merchandise to sell.

Edward Autry
President - Tarheel Trailblazers

If any of yous guys need to me to take any stuff like brochures etc to Trysports Blakeney, we are almost right across the street from them so it's no problem for me to do that.....