Cutting edge machinery for building recreational trails.
by Tony Boone, Owner, Tony Boone Trails LLC, Zachi Anderson
Innovative, cutting edge machinery for building recreational trails has revolutionized the trail industry over the past 30 years, from specialized trail dozers and miniature excavators to crawler carriers and ATV/AWD moto harrows. The advantages of small earthmovers are unrivaled, allowing significantly faster rates of construction, increasing profit and productivity by requiring less hand work by laborers or volunteers, and sculpting a more consistent tread and compaction.
In 25 years, Tony Boone has passionately led crews in sculpting over 800 kilometers of shared-use and purpose-built trails for mountain bicyclists of all ages and abilities around the world. His experience includes professional trail building companies, governmental agencies, and non-profit organizations. His passion is creating sustainable, kinesthetically, and aesthetically diverse trails that mountain bikers love to ride.
He is highly skilled on the utilization and training of state-of-the-art trail technology like the Sutter 500 Trail Dozer, SWECO 480 Trail Dozer, miniature/micro excavators, loaders, tracked carriers, ATV rakes & harrows, hydraulic & gas powered drilling, and blasting with Magnum Blaster. Tony is a pioneer in the evolution and art of creating sustainable, machine-built trails for mountain bikers.
Tony’s accomplishments include: establishing the first mountain bike patrol in Colorado in 1989, training eight IMBA/Subaru Trail Care Crews (1997-2011), inspiring the IMBA Trail Solutions Program (2001), and assisting with both IMBA books (Trail Solutions: IMBA’s Guide to Building Sweet Singletrack and Managing Mountain Bikes: IMBA’s Guide to Providing Great Riding). He has been an active member of the Professional Trail Builders Association and American Trails since 1995. His primary focus since 2010 has been assisting IMBA develop their international markets and creating the next generation of kinesthetically diverse “flow-based” tracks.
Tony’s current experience with his own company, Tony Boone Trails, LLC based in Salida, CO, includes partnering with IMBA and Trek China in planning, designing, and constructing the first professionally built trail system for mountain bikers in Chengdu, China. He conducted numerous site visits for bike parks in Sichuan and Hebei provinces. Tony also partnered with IMBA AU and Sutter Equipment to import the first trail dozer to Australia and provide demonstrations of dozer-built flow trails in New South Wales, Victoria, and S. Australia. Other projects include planning, designing, and constructing purpose-built trails for riders in Hong Kong, Philippines, and the US (Colorado, Idaho & Alabama). Tony has also conducted IMBA Trailbuilding Schools and Master Trailbuilder Courses.
Zachi Anderson has been a builder for many years and a lover of trails. Besides building a variety of surface and design types, he is a mason and woodworker and introduces character features like stone arched bridges to his projects when possible.
Contact: [email protected]
Art of Sustainable Trail Management
The basics behind developing and managing natural surface, shared-use trail systems.
Maximizing Your Trail Budget Through Competitive Bidding
This session discusses how, what, where, when, and why to put your trail projects out to bid.
The Art of Building Crushed Stone Trails
Crushed stone trails provide a user-friendly, all-season surface for all types and ages of visitors, including strollers, wheelchairs, and road bikes.
