Home Mountain bike trail system

[Alan Wood]

It sure is nice when things come together quickly rather than not. Wish I could say that about what I have been working on this week at work. The machines etc have been fighting me tooth and nail.

[Fenlason]

Sorry about work.
Generally I just spend more time scouting out a trail. I like to walk all over an area.. seeing what we have for terrain, and maybe some challenging features, or things of interest or beauty. There have been places, that I just have to look for the easiest way through the forrest [like when I come to a dense clump of younger trees]. At times it just takes time for the trail to "show itself". I have had some areas take weeks or months.. I will walk it.. think about it for some time.. and walk it some more. Laurie and I will go out with fluorescent flags while wearing bright colors ourselves [so we can see each other from various areas]. Sometimes we will flag and reflag, it is just a process.. a process I do enjoy.

This trail I don't know why it went so fast? Heck I didn't even flag it. I had to back track a couple of places.. trying to avoid a wettish area. I knew ahead of time I wanted to start in a specific area [and luckily that area proved to be an ok area for a trail] and I wanted to come out in a specific area. Interestingly I came out right where I wanted to, in a bend of another trail, and that area worked ok for a trail also.

Perhaps after doing so much of this it does get easier to see the line, Yet I know some other areas, that will take some time.

Either way we love it.

[Noob]

Looks better than anything I have locally ...

[Fenlason]

Thanks Noob

I am finally done work for the season so I can get really get to work out there. Not that I haven't gotten in a bit of work this past week or so. I have so many different projects going on out there at once. I have been doing a bit of ditching on our dual track sections. I have more I want to do.. but. I need to get out with the tractor and York rake.. so better smooth some of what we have done already. I have a bit of bush hogging to do. I do have some places with a bit of vegetation. At least now, we are late enough in the season.. it should be my last time this season. I will have a bit of string trimming on some of the single track also. I have another bridge to build.. in the next few days.

I need to put my PTO post hole digger back together and on the tractor.. so i can work on that skinny farm expansion.

We will be having a mountain bike [obviously] time trial in a week and a half. [that I need to get ready for] and our Halloween ride.. a few weeks after that.

[Fenlason]

We have been doing a ton of work. More ditching, raking, and single track building.
We did build the bridge we needed on the trail connecting Just a Bunny to Tom, Dick and Harry. I LOVE doing trail work here vs working with clubs doing work else ware. We are sooo much more efficient. For this bridge I did once again glue up some arched beams. Once one has the jig layout, and the system "down", it does not take long to glue up a beam. I also had cut all my decking ahead of time. I was able to drive to within maybe 200 feet from where the bridge was going to go. I had everything all loaded and awaiting my wive's arrival. An hour later we had a bridge built. I was able to carry the 2 beams myself in one trip, while Laurie carried my first needed tools, and materials. I placed the beams across the brook, and then screwed a piece of decking, on the bottom of the beams, fasting the two together. I then flip it over and figure out the best placement. I them move it, so I can dig down to sink it into the ground a little, and to level the ground. I then start fasting the decking. As I work my way across the bridge, I do add a couple 2x4 cross braces. Laurie is carrying stuff down as I work. As I am finishing the decking, she is gathering rocks. I we place them on that first bottom piece of decking that fastens the two beams together. They are longer than the bridge is wide. It adds some stability to the bridge, and give me something to set the rocks on. We had all the tools back up to the RTV.. and hour from when we left the house.

It of course helps that we are leaving from the house, vs having to drive some where else first. While in some cases I have to carry stuff more than a few hundred feet, I can generally drive fairly close, vs carrying by hand from the house. We have dual track interspersed with our single track, through out the network.

[Alan Wood]

Sounds like you have a system.

[Fenlason]

Yes we try to work as efficiently as we can.

We had a Mountain bike time trial here last week. That was fun, although a ton of work. Actually a bit of the work was work I would have done anyways. One of the trails we used is one that I wanted to be a relatively easy trail, and that needed more polishing. We did do some extra pruning and string trimming, to make the trail as visible for newbies as possible. This time of year just the leaf blowing can keep you pretty busy. In some places the leaves get so thick, you can't see the obstacles in the ground. In other places, it is just impossible to tell where the trail goes. We had our regular ride here Monday night, and the majority of the people wanted to pre- ride the course.. so I blew it off for that, then I had to go out and do it again race day [Thursday]

We need to come up with a better way to mark a course. That seems to be the most significant expense… and takes a bit of time.

Our biggest event of the year is a Halloween ride. We ride.. do a pot luck/ social… then walk a haunted trail. This 2 weeks away, and I doubt we will get much new trail building before then. I do have more string trimming to do… and of course we will have a lot of leaf blowing to do. I need to get out and install some culverts in the dual track…. and maybe some more ditching. I also hope to get a little more earth work on one of our new connector trails. [hand digging and raking]

After this I think most of the leaves will be down, and this will be prime time for new trail development. We have several new things planned.

[lrrowe]

While I do not ride a bike anymore and probably will not in the future, i do find photos of your trail work ( and any other trails) interesting. Keep the photos coming.

[Fenlason]

While I do not ride a bike anymore and probably will not in the future, i do find photos of your trail work ( and any other trails) interesting. Keep the photos coming.

Thanks. Will do.



This is a shot of a recent new trail. It is just a short connector. It's primary purpose was to make a better.. faster.. more fun entrance to the trail directly behind the photographer.
We used to either come done a steep hill on the right and then make a tight turn into the trail.. or a round about way from the left. Straight through is a blast.

The trail also used to come in to the left of the left tree.. straight in works better.. and there is a little bit of a mound. I was going to make the mound into a jump.. yet the trail beyond gets pretty tight pretty quickly. It can be pretty tough on it's own.

This trail was part of the recent time trial we just had, and there were a lot of skid marks where people braked pretty heavily after coming down the hill.

[Fenlason]

This is a photo of the RTV loaded up with the materials for that recent bridge.

The arched beams are easier to load and carry. I didn't want to bother to unload all my tools from the back, so I used this rear platform to haul the pre-cut decking.

[Fenlason]

This is our most recent bridge.



This bridge is for another semi short connector trail. It will directly connect Just a Bunny… down a ravine, across a brook, and up the other side to Tom, Dick and Harry, or Lucinda.

We can get there on dual track.. and that isn't a big deal, but where it is easily done, we are finding it is nice to more directly connect them.

[Fenlason]

We did more work on the ledge chute and area.

This is a photo of the chute, It is more difficult than the photo shows.



This section is above many of our riders abilities. So we have been working on a bypass [to the left in this photo]

[Fenlason]

This is a photo of the top of that ledge and this is where the easy way needs to be. It is rather rooty, and the tree to the left of the one marked in blue is kind of in the way. It wasn't a particularly healthy tree so I felt ok taking it out.

Of course that left us a difficult stump growing down into the ledge.

[Fenlason]

I used a cordless sawzall to slowly pick away at it. There was mound under the stump, that was good mineral soil, and the ledge below that was fairly smooth.




Laurie was hauling rocks up by hand, as well as bucket loads of dirt.

[Fenlason]