Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship announces that its 5 Bucks a Foot fundraiser is back through Sept. 9. This time they are partnering with Santa Cruz Bicycles to give away one of the most popular bikes on the market: the impressively lightweight yet still powerful Heckler SL.
For every foot of trail participants purchase at $5 per foot — the average cost of building a trail — they get entered for a chance to win the Heckler SL. The more feet of trail donors buy, the better their chances of winning. The fundraiser is open to U.S. and international entries, and the winner will be able to select the bike frame size of their choice.
Organizers say the SL weighs around 41 pounds and uses a smaller battery and lower-torque motor than a full-powered e-bike to deliver a full-suspension bike with a subtle pedal-assist that’s still fun and maneuverable on the trail.
Dollars raised in this campaign help support SBTS’s Quincy-based trail crew members and the effort they put in to keep the Mount Hough trails running safe and fun every season. Organizers say this task has become markedly more time-consuming since the Dixie Fire, due to deadfall and brush that requires constant attention in the burn scar.
The crew is also in the midst of building 38 new miles of trails, 10 of which are currently under construction this summer and fall. When completed next year, there will be two new routes down from Mount Hough’s 7,200-foot summit. These routes are in addition to the classic 12-mile Mount Hough downhill, a singletrack trail built by SBTS in 2015 that drops 4,000 feet as it curves down the face of the mountain.
The new Hough trails will also include the very first singletrack town-to-town connection via a 13-mile link between Quincy and Taylorsville off the backside of Hough. SBTS says this represents a huge milestone for Connected Communities, a project that the 5 Bucks a Foot fundraiser directly benefits.
SBTS is leading the Connected Communities effort in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and community partners to use trails as a catalyst for economic revitalization. The project’s intent is to connect 15 mountain towns with a 564-mile multiuse signature route made up of existing and new trails that would bring trail users directly into rural communities to help support local businesses. Connected Communities also strives to diversify recreation throughout the region by creating A Trail For Everyone, while also outlining a new trailbuilding prescription for fuels reduction and vegetation management practices, called Fire Hardened trails, that ties together recreation and forest stewardship.
Campaigns like 5 Bucks a Foot campaigns raise unrestricted funds, which SBTS says go much farther than other types of funding, like government grants, because they don’t require costly matches or staff resources to administer.
SBTS launched the first 5 Bucks a Foot campaign 10 years ago. Since that time, the fundraiser has brought in $1 million in unrestricted funds to support trail development and maintenance in the Lost Sierra. Support from these campaigns has allowed the Quincy-based nonprofit to complete extensive work in the Downieville and Quincy trail systems.
Information provided by Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship
