Last updated on November 26, 2020
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For years the MMBA has distributed posters cautioning riders to stay off of trails during the spring thaw, as riding in the mud (and through what are essentially pools formed by frozen subsoil) can be damaging to the trail and is often difficult to repair. (Examples: 1, 2, 3) After talking with Dave Schall about difficulties with people riding muddy trails at the Stony Creek Skills Park, we got to thinking that it’d be good to make a sign asking riders not to ride in mud during all seasons.
I started to throw together some text, and in talking with Wiggee from Reddit /r/bicycling IRC channel on Freenode came up with the Ride Dirt Trails, Not Mud Trails title. I then tried to put together a design based on photos I had and one Dave had sent me of the Skills Park, but after coming up with this draft I knew that I was going to have a very hard time coming up with something nice looking, if I even could. I contacted my friend Kristi Heuvers, who has done a bunch of CRAMBA‘s artwork, including many race t-shirts and logos, and along with whom I’m on the CRAMBA Board. She quickly came back with this excellent design. (She even went so far as to create an InDesign template of this poster, CC BY-SA licensed, so that other MTB organizations can build on our work and help share this message.)
Needing them printed to hang up along trails I threw around a couple ideas before Marty Shue (another friend, the CRAMBA board chairperson before me, and now the CRAMBA treasurer) pointed me to Printing by Johnson, located in the old Prieh’s Stamp, Coin & Hobby Center location in Mount Clemens. When I first visited them I mentioned that I was interested in laminated, laser-printed cardstock, but they had the idea of using digitally printed Coroplast with a UV coating. I ordered 32 of these (at $5/ea) and upon picking them up today I was extremely happy with how they came out.
I like doing many things myself, but both the design of this flyer and the printing are very good examples of why it’s sometimes best to leave things to professionals like Kristi and the print shop. Doing things for the sake of learning them is great, but sometimes what’s best is to get the task completed and save the learning and experimentation for when there’s a bit more flexibility available.