Right Rider Access Fund supports efforts to keep off-road riding areas open

The RRAF was created in 2011 to support off-highway vehicle enthusiasts directly. It works with the Motorcycle Industry Council, the Specialty Vehicle Institute of America, and the Recreational Off-Highway Vehicle Association to promote safe and responsible off-road recreation and preserve OHV access to places to ride.

The grant program is an important part of that effort. Don Amador is president of Quiet Warrior Racing, which specializes in the management of OHV trails and facilities. He says the RRAF grant program helped him transition from part-time OHV advocacy into a full-time career.

"In the late 1980s, when I saw OHV roads and trails and areas being shut down by wilderness bills, I felt called to get involved in OHV advocacy," Amador said. "Until about 15 or 20 years ago, it was a part-time job because I had to do other things to make ends meet. But the RRAF grant was enough to allow me to devote all of my attention to supporting sustainable managed OHV recreation, building relationships, and working in collaborative efforts with agency staff and other non-profit partners."

Amador, who lives in Northern California, gives an example of the kind of work RRAF grants support. "About 15 years ago, environmental and conservation groups had come up with a proposal to create the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in northwest California, and planned to close down OHV use there. Within the proposed monument were designated OHV areas on Mendocino National Forest and BLM lands. I saw that as a huge threat to a lot of our riding areas used not only for just casual trail riding, but for competition events."

An RRAF grant, Amador says, "allowed me to spend time with the conservation groups and legislative staff working on this proposal, including months and sometimes years of meetings with them. We took them out in the field to show them what managed OHV areas look like, where we were engineering trails using modern water management techniques like rolling dips and OHV bridges to minimize environmental impacts."

The result? "Conservation groups and members of Congress saw that OHV use was important to include in the designation of the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument," Amador said. "We built relationships with those conservation and environmental groups and members of Congress and today many of them support OHV use. Finding common ground with recreation and conservation groups was all made possible by the RRAF grant."

Other groups have benefitted from RRAF grants, as well. Brad Smith, executive director of the Pennsylvania Off-Highway Vehicle Association, noticed trash along trails and some unauthorized trails in his local riding area. He plans to use a RRAF grant to create an OHV Ambassador program using volunteers to set an example by picking up trash along trails.

While Quiet Warrior used grant money for the soft science of lobbying and the POHVA is training volunteers, grant money is also available for the direct tasks of getting your hands dirty maintaining trails. Former motorcycle and car racer Stephanie Reaves Ferraro, with the Southern Trail Advocates and Riders organization, and her husband, Chris, put in more than 8,000 volunteer hours in the last eight years maintaining trails in South Carolina. They used a $20,000 grant to buy equipment — rakes, chainsaws, harrows, head trimmer, and a trailer — to maintain five trail systems across the state. Many hours were spent rebuilding trails and clearing downed trees after Hurricanes Helene and Debbie wiped out some trails in South Carolina.

Right Ride Access Fund grants support two main missions. The first is the Safety, Education, and Training Support Program, providing funding or other resources for safety, education and training initiatives. The second, the OHV Organization Support Program, provides resources to national, state, and local OHV organizations to promote and expand OHV riding areas. All donations to the RRAF go directly to OHV programs.

If you're out riding this weekend, you might find yourself on a trail maintained or created by the Right Rider Access Fund. If your local organization has a project aimed at preserving or maintaining and could use some support, or if you just want to find out more about how to keep those trails safe, open, and available to all, go to www.riderfund.org.