Home Mountain bike trail system

[campmaster-k]

Glenn you live in Paradise!

 

[Fenlason]

Glenn you live in Paradise!

Thanks... we like it.

 

[Alan Wood]

Thank you for putting up more photos Glenn. The more I see the more I like it

 

[Fenlason]

Thanks Alan So much of it is hard to photograph.. Many places there is just so many trees.. you can't see very far ahead.

 

[Fenlason]

While we do bike in the snow a lot... but once we get a lot of snow, most of our trails are not bikeable. So we snowshoe or ski.

The outer perimeter trails, are snowmobile trails, and they get packed nicely. Those become quite nice for biking.. and from those trails we can head out to many many trails. Trails that are not accessible in the summer.

 

[Fenlason]

Some times we have bigger groups...

sometimes smaller...

 

[campmaster-k]

Good stuff Glenn. You do good work.

 

[Fenlason]

Good stuff Glenn. You do good work.

Thanks... I [we] do love it.

 

[Fenlason]

I was trying to see how many were paying attention.. I have noticed the thread has been seen by quite a few and there has been no comment on my last photo.. of our riders. The photo is of and friend and I with Tinker Juarez. A pro racer. He has not ridden here. We met him at a race. He is flown out from Ca. for the Mount Washington Hill Climb, and also does The Hampshire 100.. a 100 mile mountain bike race in NH. He stays with a friend of mine. [although not the friend in the photo] Anyways he introduced us.

 

[asianflava]

I've heard of Tinker, but I don't think I've ever seen a picture of him without a helmet and sunglasses.

 

[Fenlason]

I've heard of Tinker, but I don't think I've ever seen a picture of him without a helmet and sunglasses.

To be fair, I am not sure I would recognize more than a couple of pro mountain bikers in the same situation either.

 

[Fenlason]

We finally have some snow here now. We are happy about that, for we do love to play in the snow, but it does pretty much halt trail building. We still can do some maintenance pruning, but otherwise we are done until spring. So for now.. I will periodically post some older photo's.

This is a photo of a skinny bridge. This is also part of Gandalf's Revenge. It was made from a dead cedar in the area. It spans a wettish area. Most of the year, one can just ride beside it if one "needs" to.

 

[Fenlason]

There are some places I leave the trails as root and rocky as they are. In other places I really do a lot of work to make the trails smoother.. faster. My roller coaster area [I think I mentioned earlier] has a lot of little hills.. It is nicely painful in that regard. I have been working at removing a lot of the roots, and banking the turns.. to make it a faster area with more flow. Part way through I decided to try my father in-laws old Troy Built.

It was a ton of work.. but it did help.

 

[Fenlason]

I then purchased a Rogue Hoe... and found it less work than the rototiller. In non rocky soil this tool is absolutely amazing.

It is quite sharp.. holds and edge well.. but also sharpens well. I love bench cutting with it.

 

[Fenlason]

In the Jurassic Park area.. I have a few log skinny bridges. I had a big twin pine blow down in a storm here, so put it to use. The best way to cut a skinny is to cut down through the log vertically, then rotate it so that the flat side is up. On some of my bigger logs I ended up getting them in place.. then I cut the top off, running the saw horizontally.

 

[Fenlason]

 

[Fenlason]

This is another spot where a couple of brooks come together. There is a "regular" bridge just upstream from this.. and another not far downstream. The Plunge, Galdalf's Revenge and other trails dump into this area.

Actually one of the problems with a trail network this dense.. are all the intersections.. and with a bigger group.. I have to ride fairly slow to as not to lose people.

 

[Fenlason]

Most log skinnys I use the saw to cut the top off. This one because of all the curves needed another method. I made a lot of small saw cuts into the top of the log and then took an axe to it.

 

[Fenlason]

This was our last day of trail work, for the season. The ground is frozen.. and we have gotten more snow on top of this. It can be tough to pick the right line... tell a wet spot from a dry spot. etc. when you can't see the ground.

 

[Fenlason]

We ended up loosing most of our snow, and had some work we could do. Late morning on Christmas eve. Laurie and I went out for a few hours. The temps were up into the upper 20's and it was sunny. It was quite pleasant to be out there. We were so excited by the work and the new area, we went back out, again the day after Christmas. This new area, by passes a "road". It got butchered in some logging of last winter. It is an area, which will now remain wet and muddy. We were out on the road [on frozen ground] cleaning up some of the road, when we "spotted" this area. Just having an option, around the slime would have been a good idea. The area actually looked quite pretty.

It is a strip of woods between the mentioned road, and a field. It also has a brook running down the center of it. It an area had a lot of cedar, is also quite rocky. Rocks that will be rideable, but will also off some challenge in places. There were a ton of branches to clean up. Dead and still on the tree, and on the ground. With this cleaned up, we will have many options of where to put the actual trail. The brooks is small, and will be easy to put some bridges over. There is even an island where the brook splits and then comes back together. [Perhaps 20' x 60']