Home Mountain bike trail system

Fenlason · Dec 9, 2012

We have been working for years on our own trail system. Alan in the campfire thread asked me about photo's.. and I thought I might post them here. We personally have 40 acres and have varying degrees of access to a few hundred more. We periodically head to the woods to work but this fall we have become pretty obsessed with building, going out most every day... sometimes all day. I will post some photo's of our more recent work.

Fenlason · Dec 9, 2012

This is our latest bridge. It is about 50' long. The span crossing the brook is about 18 feet, but the rest of the area heading this way.. is wet. On the far side there is a trail running parallel to the trail. There is also also a spine running directly up the hill from the far end of the bridge. I have always had a trail going up, but just recently added the bridge so one can head down the spine across the brook to the ridge on the other side.

Fenlason · Dec 9, 2012

This photo is from the middle of the same bridge.. heading the other way. I have a trail that zig zags this ridge.

Fenlason · Dec 9, 2012

I have some areas with a lot of little hills and a lot of little brooks. I did a lot of bench cutting in this area.

Fenlason · Dec 9, 2012

There are a couple of shots of our new 40' bridge. It was originally built as 2 bridges crossing 2 close by brooks. There ended up being only a short span between them, and I felt it best to connect them. While it does not show in the photo, it is a pretty steep hill on one end of it.

Fenlason · Dec 9, 2012

More freshly bench cut trails.

Fenlason · Dec 9, 2012

3 bridges that are pretty close by.. and another older one.. that one is 30 feet long and 16" wide.

Alan Wood · Dec 9, 2012

Cool Glenn :thumbsup:

wish I had a proper mountain bike trail nearby. Closest thing is so tame that I have ridden it on my rode bike (trek 1200) with only a single point of concern getting off the trail and on to the side walk at one end!

lancew · Dec 10, 2012

looks awesome fenlason. wish i land to do that with. if you didnt live 8+ hrs away i be out there helping ya. so much fun building trails, reading lay of the land. keep up the good work ! more pics more pics. oh oh and a video would be awesome, lol. not that you dont have enough to do

CapN-SKO · Dec 10, 2012

Looking at your pictures Fenlason makes me want to get back into riding again or maybe getting my sulky cart built for my dogs so we can enjoy the outdoors like that...your course looks AWESOME....Thanks for sharing

Fenlason · Dec 10, 2012

this is a small bridge also on that bench cut trail. It is a little over 8' long. The bridge is sloped and it curves a little.

The end of another bridge, showing the new bench cut that works it's way up the hill. There is also another trail that runs along the brook.

asianflava · Dec 10, 2012

That is pretty cool! :thumbsup:

Fenlason · Dec 10, 2012

Alan Wood":pnzqwz4h said:
Cool Glenn wish I had a proper mountain bike trail nearby. Closest thing is so tame that I have ridden it on my rode bike (trek 1200) with only a single point of concern getting off the trail and on to the side walk at one end!

Thanks Alan. I have a wide range of stuff out there.. [although not much that is road bike friendly] We regularly lead rides here, and have some stuff more "beginner" friendly, and some stuff that's not.

Most often an easy trail is near a harder one.. so if someone feels ready to try something harder, they are not making a commitment, they can easily just pop back to an easy one.

Fenlason · Dec 10, 2012

lancew":38wf6zhb said:
looks awesome fenlason. wish i land to do that with. if you didnt live 8+ hrs away i be out there helping ya. so much fun building trails, reading lay of the land. keep up the good work ! more pics more pics. oh oh and a video would be awesome, lol. not that you dont have enough to do

8 hours isn't so bad..

I do really love the work... and on much of the land.. our's and a couple of the neighbors.. I don't have to go through any process to start building.. no committees no approval processes.. I get the idea and just do it.

I will sometimes ask some of the people that ride here regularly for feedback. And I take suggestions.

I think my wife has some video... and I do have some other photos.. a lot might have to wait until spring..

Fenlason · Dec 10, 2012

droid_ca":26oqp2go said:
Looking at your pictures Fenlason makes me want to get back into riding again or maybe getting my sulky cart built for my dogs so we can enjoy the outdoors like that...your course looks AWESOME....Thanks for sharing

Thanks....definitely start riding again..

Fenlason · Dec 10, 2012

asianflava":2ptud789 said:
That is pretty cool!

Thanks..

Fenlason · Dec 10, 2012

biziedizie":1svqpm6g said:
Great looking trails, we have lots of bike trails around here and many up the mountains.
I`m on bike #3 and looking at a new one at the moment.

Thanks.. we are quite a few trails in the area.. this is my own "private" playground.

Bike #3.. hmm my wife and I are on bike number... :thinking:

I am not sure how many we have had.. We are somewhere around 30 between us right now.. and have quite a few on the list.

Fenlason · Dec 10, 2012

We have had a few skinnies to play with for a while now.. but I got serious about them this summer. My wife and I got back into racing this last year. One of our races the 24 Hours of Great Glen.. had a few bridges.. and other skinny things to ride. Nothing too serious.. but it is a weakness of mine. Trying to do a 24 hour race.. having to cross them at 2:00 in the morning.. I decided I wanted to be more comfortable riding them. Sooo... I have what we call The Skinny Farm.. on The Playground. I have over 600' of log skinnies now. [with more to come]
Here is some of it.