40 Years of Marlette Flume Trail | Max Jones | E19
Kurt Gensheimer Kurt Gensheimer

40 Years of Marlette Flume Trail | Max Jones | E19

In Summer 1983, Max Jones jumped on a strange new contraption called a #mountainbike and went looking for trails to ride around #laketahoe. There wasn’t really any singletrack until he discovered an abandoned flume line running high above the east shore of the lake. After a few failed attempts, Max finally uncovered the overgrown track, taking five hours to “ride” only four miles, fighting through brush and hundreds of downed trees. For the rest that summer, Max cleared the trail with nothing more than hand tools and dogged determination. 40 years later, thanks to Max’s efforts, the Marlette Flume Trail has become the most scenic trail in the world and a gem of recreation in Lake Tahoe. Max and his wife Patti have built a life and career around the Flume Trail, promoting the Great Flume Race for more than a decade, starting Flume Trail Bikes to shuttle visitors and opening Tunnel Creek Café to feed them at the end of the adventure. This is the story of Max Jones, a Mountain Bike Hall of Fame inductee, the resurrector of the Flume Trail and an early pioneer of ecotourism in Lake Tahoe.

Read More
Corn Snow and Hero Dirt in Spring | Evan Roa | E8
Kurt Gensheimer Kurt Gensheimer

Corn Snow and Hero Dirt in Spring | Evan Roa | E8

Recorded at the iconic Tunnel Creek Cafe, home of Flume Trail Bikes in Incline Village, Nevada at the site of the Ponderosa Ranch and the old TV Western, Bonanza, Pow Bot and Trail Whisperer celebrate the transition from winter to spring, the arrival of "dual sport" season and awesome bike to ski missions, finding early season hero dirt and late season corn snow wearing flip flops and ski boots. The boys chat about why out-and-back rides are better than loop rides this time of year, recent mountain bike missions to Sea Otter, Pollock Pines and Quincy, California, a "First Descent" on Emerald Chutes after Pow Bot forgot his split board bindings and Trail Whisperer's former life as a Silicon Valley corporate employee and the satirical book he wrote about the experience, "The 5 Habits of Highly Successful Slackers - Because 7 is too Many." The boys also spend a few minutes chatting with one of the new owners of Tunnel Creek Cafe, Evan Roa, and the inevitable crazy stories of tourists frequenting the restaurant. This episode is a cornucopia of random topics!

Read More