This year's GGR Rocktober festival & CORBA Membership Drive was by far the largest to date! Held October 18th at Malibu Creek State Park. With 37 exhibitors and over 300 in attendance, our expectations were far exceeded!
The event started out on Saturday with our pre ride for our ride volunteers. We had 34 ride volunteers pre riding all routes for the guided rides. We ran into the mounted patrol all day too! Great way to start the weekend of epicness!
Saturday evening was our traditional goodie bag stuffing party and raffle tagging. This year Cycle World Chatsworth hosted and in a few hours many volunteers got 250 goodie bags stuffed and over $20K of raffle items tagged! And of course we had pizza, cake and vino! This year, thanks to Leah Dilbeck and Dilbeck Realtors we had the MOST amazing goodie bags! They are knap sacks with the GGR and Dilbeck logo’s.
The event started out on Saturday with our pre ride for our ride volunteers. We had 34 ride volunteers pre riding all routes for the guided rides. We ran into the mounted patrol all day too! Great way to start the weekend of epicness!
Saturday evening was our traditional goodie bag stuffing party and raffle tagging. This year Cycle World Chatsworth hosted and in a few hours many volunteers got 250 goodie bags stuffed and over $20K of raffle items tagged! And of course we had pizza, cake and vino! This year, thanks to Leah Dilbeck and Dilbeck Realtors we had the MOST amazing goodie bags! They are knap sacks with the GGR and Dilbeck logo’s.
So now it was time to pack everything up, go home and try to figure out my speech, sort the gift certs and try and get some rest. Julie B was staying at my house for the event and worked all night on the gift certs while I was working on my speech. This is such a difficult task for me. Once a year, I get a huge audience, so I don’t want to forget anything, yet it can’t be too long either. I thought I covered everything I wanted too, but there was a section I was unsure about if it belonged there. Let’s just say I went a little NORMA RAY in this section. I had Julie read my speech at this point and she agreed I needed to cut that section out. I shortened the speech by a page and it was still way too long. Announcing every single supporter and exhibitor takes a very long time, but I felt they should have received a verbal mention.
The morning of the Rocktober festival, the ranger at MCSP was kind enough to have the gate open at 6am this year!! This allowed our demo trucks to get there in plenty of time to set up and get the bikes ready to go for our lady shredders.
It was still dark in the morning AND it was raining a wee bit...so I was just a bit concerned that the rain would stick. The trails were mostly clay, so they don't hold any rain well at all. Lucky for us, it cleared up for a beautiful day!
Since I had announced the gates were going to be open early, everyone seemed to take advantage of it and get there super early. Registration didn't open until 8am, but at 6:30amish, we already had a ton of riders and the parking lot was half full. Lots of anxious ladies eager to start the festival and the exhibitors were already starting to set up!
Once everyone was signed in, got their goodie bags and demo bikes, it was time for the morning commencement. Next year I promise it will be much shorter so you can spend more time riding!
I introduced each chapter and the chapter leaders. I talked about the two C'S which I live by. Community and Club. All supporters and exhibitors at the event received a verbal mention. Then I went on to intro our 4 amazing volunteer skills coaches this year. Returning head coach Leigh Donovan, returning GGR coach Christine Hirst, (Christine has been a volunteer coach for GGR since day one!!! Thank you Christine!), new GGR coaches Kris Gross and Erica Phillips. A HUGE thank you to these ladies for sharing your knowledge with our beginner riders!
It was still dark in the morning AND it was raining a wee bit...so I was just a bit concerned that the rain would stick. The trails were mostly clay, so they don't hold any rain well at all. Lucky for us, it cleared up for a beautiful day!
Since I had announced the gates were going to be open early, everyone seemed to take advantage of it and get there super early. Registration didn't open until 8am, but at 6:30amish, we already had a ton of riders and the parking lot was half full. Lots of anxious ladies eager to start the festival and the exhibitors were already starting to set up!
Once everyone was signed in, got their goodie bags and demo bikes, it was time for the morning commencement. Next year I promise it will be much shorter so you can spend more time riding!
I introduced each chapter and the chapter leaders. I talked about the two C'S which I live by. Community and Club. All supporters and exhibitors at the event received a verbal mention. Then I went on to intro our 4 amazing volunteer skills coaches this year. Returning head coach Leigh Donovan, returning GGR coach Christine Hirst, (Christine has been a volunteer coach for GGR since day one!!! Thank you Christine!), new GGR coaches Kris Gross and Erica Phillips. A HUGE thank you to these ladies for sharing your knowledge with our beginner riders!
This year's community award went to G2 Bikes and Girls Ride 2! This award is given to the shop that shows the most community involvement in women's cycling, has a great women's section and has shop rides. G2 and Girls Ride 2 earned this award hands down. I affectionately call them our "sister club" because we are all on the same page when it comes to community. There ride leaders spend the entire weekend with us volunteering too! Check Girls Ride 2 out here: www.girlsride2.bike
Last but not least, Steve Messer, our CORBA President spoke about trail etiquette. Every Rocktober event is also a CORBA membership drive. Each GGR chapter partners up with their local IMBA chapter.
After the huge group photo, riders split up into their guided ride groups and skills clinics. We had guided rides for all levels and beginner skills clinics running all morning. Rides were all through the park including the famous MASH site, Grasslands and Little Bulldog. Many of these rides went through the super fun creek bed where we had photographers stationed to capture the excitement!
This year we invited a few of our GGR Littles too! We love that they got to see us grown up ladies doing some major shredding! Thank you to the Squeaky Wheel Bike shop in Palmdale who brought the young ones and have also supported the GGR Rocktober events since day one!
This year we invited a few of our GGR Littles too! We love that they got to see us grown up ladies doing some major shredding! Thank you to the Squeaky Wheel Bike shop in Palmdale who brought the young ones and have also supported the GGR Rocktober events since day one!
When riders came back after their guided rides, they enjoyed an afternoon of tons of exhibitors, more demo bikes, lunch, catching up and just enjoying the day. We ended the day with over
$20K of raffle prizes including grand prizes from REI, Specialized, Sacred Rides and San Juan Huts.
We thank all the bike companies that came out to Rocktober. We had over 100 demo bikes for ladies to demo! Huge shouts out and thank you's to: Liv, Bulls Bikes USA, Specialized, Trek, Turner and Rocky Mountain. We also want to thank Clif who for the 2nd year sponsored the Clif Fuel station and provided the Rocktober event with all of our hydration and nutrition as well as plenty of goodies for the goodie bags!
I personally would like to give a huge shout out and thank you to the companies who provide me with product all year round and take very good care of me personally as an athlete: Bulls Bikes USA, Kali Protectives, ZOIC and Petal Power. All 4 companies exhibited at Rocktober as well!
Please enjoy some of my favorite pictures of the day!
$20K of raffle prizes including grand prizes from REI, Specialized, Sacred Rides and San Juan Huts.
We thank all the bike companies that came out to Rocktober. We had over 100 demo bikes for ladies to demo! Huge shouts out and thank you's to: Liv, Bulls Bikes USA, Specialized, Trek, Turner and Rocky Mountain. We also want to thank Clif who for the 2nd year sponsored the Clif Fuel station and provided the Rocktober event with all of our hydration and nutrition as well as plenty of goodies for the goodie bags!
I personally would like to give a huge shout out and thank you to the companies who provide me with product all year round and take very good care of me personally as an athlete: Bulls Bikes USA, Kali Protectives, ZOIC and Petal Power. All 4 companies exhibited at Rocktober as well!
Please enjoy some of my favorite pictures of the day!
The Rocktober festival is so much bigger than GGR. It's truly a celebration of women's mountain biking and bringing our community together! Next year we will open up the event to ladies and littles of ALL ages!
Enjoy all of the thousands of pictures here:
www.girlzgoneriding.shutterfly.com
And course on the CORBA website here:
http://corbamtb.com/Photos/Misc2015-10-18GGR/_Page.shtml
I thank everyone who volunteered and worked so hard to make this happen. I'm so very grateful to our amazing community of women as well as our supportive and incredible trail males who are an important part of GGR as well. Thank you to all of our volunteer ride leaders, floaters and sweepers. Many of you drove hours to get to this event just to volunteer for the weekend and I personally thank you for that! All of our volunteers make this event possible!
Until next year's Rocktober.....I bid you an epic winter of super long rides, practicing your skills (check out GGR Head Coach Leigh Donovan's instructional video's here: www.ichoosebikes.com/how-tos/improve-skills/) making new friends, challenging each other's inner much-ness, and enjoying life to its fullest! Be the best you can be on and off the bike and remember to give more...your soul will be content when you do so.
GGR Girl Wendy E!
Mwah!
Enjoy all of the thousands of pictures here:
www.girlzgoneriding.shutterfly.com
And course on the CORBA website here:
http://corbamtb.com/Photos/Misc2015-10-18GGR/_Page.shtml
I thank everyone who volunteered and worked so hard to make this happen. I'm so very grateful to our amazing community of women as well as our supportive and incredible trail males who are an important part of GGR as well. Thank you to all of our volunteer ride leaders, floaters and sweepers. Many of you drove hours to get to this event just to volunteer for the weekend and I personally thank you for that! All of our volunteers make this event possible!
Until next year's Rocktober.....I bid you an epic winter of super long rides, practicing your skills (check out GGR Head Coach Leigh Donovan's instructional video's here: www.ichoosebikes.com/how-tos/improve-skills/) making new friends, challenging each other's inner much-ness, and enjoying life to its fullest! Be the best you can be on and off the bike and remember to give more...your soul will be content when you do so.
GGR Girl Wendy E!
Mwah!
