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[Fenlason]

Another nasty stump. This is right beside the chute.. which is just out of the picture to the left. I have some people that wanted this line.. to jump off the ledge.

[Fenlason]

This shows the cleaned up lines.



Toward the bucket is the easy way around. It goes past the bucket, around that small tree, and then left down the hill. The hill is still fairly steep, but is now smoother.

The chute is too the left, a natural narrow chute through the ledge, and the jump line is just to the right of that.

[Fenlason]

Among other work yesterday, we worked on the trail to the new bridge. The East side of the brook had a lot of humps and dips, and off camber stuff. I spent about 3.5 hours digging and raking, while Laurie dirt in buckets. It was quite physical work.. but the trail came out well.



We did ride it tonight.. and while it needs to get broken in.. packed down etc. It rode quite nicely.

We also rode the by-pass to the chute for the first time tonight. While I normally take the chute myself.. I did want to try the other route.. and it rode quite well.

The bridge is to the right in the photo.. perhaps another 50-60 feet down. The main trail is up the hill to the left. We do also have a tougher trail.. partially constructed.. directly behind the photographer.. that continues straight.

[lrrowe]

I must say, you sure do work hard!

[Fenlason]

I must say, you sure do work hard!

Thanks. We do put a lot into it. For the most part it is very pleasurable for us.

We try to work as efficiently as we can, but at times It is just a matter of rolling up the sleeves and doing it.

We have a big halloween ride in just over a week… it will be a bit of work prepping for that. I still have some places to string trim and prune, it can be tough keeping up with that. Although the biggest chore.. or the most important chore.. will be leaf blowing.. and that needs to wait until close to the event. We are gone this weekend.. then back at it next week. This is a big [and fun] event for us, but oddly I can't wait until it is over so I can get back to new construction.

In another week or so I think many of the leaves will be down, which makes seeing through the woods easier. In many places it is the best time to flag out a new trail [that or early spring]. I have a lot of new work planned.. more than I will ever get to.

[lrrowe]

Glenn,
I have got to tell you, that when I first started reading the many posts in this forum, I blew many of them off simply because I did not have any current interest in the topic. I sort of had blinders on, focusing on only what I THOUGHT was if interest to me. I even blocked one poster because I did not like what he posted.

But then I started to read the different posts that were of what I thought were of little interest to me and I discovered that there are a ton of folks here who are interesting, who are into something different and if I open my mind, who introduce me to new ideas, new ways of doing things and just reinforce many of my other values and likes. Now I look at your non-trailer posts with much interest; not because I want to ride a mountain bike some day, but perhaps because I am finding something interesting in what you are doing, what you are accomplishing.

While there are still a few topics I just will not touch, it seems like I learn something new each day. Weeks ago I did not know what a DO was. Now I just ordered one.

Does this rambling make sense .

[Fenlason]

8) Glenn,
I have got to tell you, that when I first started reading the many posts in this forum, I blew many of them off simply because I did not have any current interest in the topic. I sort of had blinders on, focusing on only what I THOUGHT was if interest to me. I even blocked one poster because I did not like what he posted.

But then I started to read the different posts that were of what I thought were of little interest to me and I discovered that there are a ton of folks here who are interesting, who are into something different and if I open my mind, who introduce me to new ideas, new ways of doing things and just reinforce many of my other values and likes. Now I look at your non-trailer posts with much interest; not because I want to ride a mountain bike some day, but perhaps because I am finding something interesting in what you are doing, what you are accomplishing.

While there are still a few topics I just will not touch, it seems like I learn something new each day. Weeks ago I did not know what a DO was. Now I just ordered one.

Does this rambling make sense .

It makes perfect sense to me.

[Fenlason]

We were away this weekend. Although that was biking related also. It was our annual tandem trip to Bar Harbor. We make a weekend of it, Sunday is our ride. We ride the extremely scenic carriage roads in Acadia National Park.

Back to work today. We have our big event here this Saturday, so this next week will be spend leaf blowing.. carving pumpkins and decorating.

It will be a bit of work.. but fun.. but I am also looking forward to getting back to building.

[Fenlason]

Our Halloween "Spooktacular" is over. We do group trail rides, have a pot luck and then go out and walk a Haunted trail we have decorated. This year we had between 75 and 80 jack-lanters.. out on the trail [along with other decorations]. Of course autumn in New England mean a lot of leaves on the trails. With them still falling. It means that most of the work needs to be last minute. This past week also saw a lot of rain. From Monday night through Friday night it rained.

So that meant working in the rain… as well as potentially real wet riding conditions.

In the middle of all that, I had a throttle cable break on my leaf blower. I paid extra to get one shipped here quicker.

I am at the moment thinking this event is just too much work. [We did at least have help with the pumpkin carving] Of course this is directly after the event.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the trail in decent shape. We do have places that are high.. and have good soils and good drainage. I could ride them in the middle of a monsoon and they would be good.

Until this fall, we have not done as much work on the trails as in the last few years. [busy at work]. But it is pleasing to see the network getting better. The recent work is awesome. The single track sections are getting nice. The new and or reclaimed single track..also good. The recent ditching working. I did find some places I need to add more culverts. Not that big a deal.

We do hope for some more work this fall… but perhaps in a less hectic pace, and balanced with some work around the house.

[Fenlason]

We have gotten a bit of work done. Sorry no photos. We have a bunch of new single track made. Some of it still needs some earth work, others just need to get "ridden in". I did purchase the new leaf blower, and it is better than I thought it would be. I don't recall the actual weight of my old one, but I thought the new one was only a fraction of a pound lighter, it seems to be more than that. It is quite noticeable. It has about 15% more blowing power, and in new trail construction, it is quite noticeable. Blowing off a new trail right now is a LOT of work. New leaves.. old leaves.. and branches and such buried in the mix. It is amazing what this thing will blow. The harness and back pad is much more comfortable, and the vibration of the engine etc. is "isolated" from the harness. I am very happy with my purchase.

The net -work is really getting good.. and fun. A lot of this summers stuff is breaking in nicely. [It takes time for them to pack down]. and the combo of trails are starting to flow well together.

[Fenlason]

I have continued to spend much of my time working in the woods. It seems as if we are getting faster at putting trails in. We have put in quite a few more sections of single track. I have been working on some easier trails.. but that is only easier in comparison to our harder trails. Our network is generally more challenging than other surrounding trails. People that come here like the technicality of it. Yet the newer easier trails seem to be a hit also. I needed something in-between.. to maybe appease lesser skilled riders, but also to give us a break in-between the harder trails… to mix it up. I do need some single track that can be ridden faster.. to be more like what I race… so that I can ride at race pace. Also like this time of year… when we ride in the dark.. and the trails are wet.. and leaf covered, having easier options are a plus.

I have also done a bit of scouting. There is a 40 acre section a couple of properties over.. that was cut pretty heavily a couple of years ago… and I keep wanting to put some trails out there. The perimeter to the south, has some scenic areas..nice places for a trail. It keeps "calling", we walked it all again last weekend.. and there are sooo many wet areas. We walked all over trying to see if we could find a path through… and around them We have decided to move that area down the priority list. We could do a lot more else ware for that amount of work.

In the past we would ride a combo of single track and dual track. To get from this single track to that single track.. we would pop out onto some dual track for 100-200 feet.. that didn't seem a big deal, but we are finding it really changes the feel. In some places I am just building little connector trails. In some places I am putting in an easier trail in-between some tougher ones. Up on one of our ridges We have a couple of ledge lines. Each has a trail running along the ledge, and they are each pretty challenging.. and we do love them, but in-between them we had a nice area for an easier flowing trail. This gives us options in an area.. and if we are leading a group.. and we have a range of skills, we can stay semi together.. and spit into 2 groups as needed. Or if someone wants to try challenging.. and find it too much, they don't have far to go to get to an easier trail.

[Fenlason]

This is the start on one end of the trail between the 2 ledges. There are places it is almost like a snowboard half pipe. It is scenic.. and provides a nice spot for a trail. I did wind a trail back and forth through it… staying with an easier line. [which was tough to do]

At a later time I can add some challenging alternatives to it, and to connect up to the other trails alongside. To add some tough climbs and maybe some jumps back down.

[Fenlason]

Last weekends snowy ride.

[Fenlason]

Another ledgy section. We have odds and ends of ledge all over. This is my newest ridable trail [I still have earth work I want to do] We kind of ride parallel to the ledge until riding up over it at this far end.

Of course one has the option of jumping off the ledge coming down.. or trying to ride up over it in the other direction.

[Fenlason]

We have taken a couple of days off. It was getting wet and slimy out there, and I was needing some recovery time.
We got out for about 5 hours this morning. Right now the scouting and flagging of trails is the best.. so we wanted to go out and do more of that. We also did some clean up from our last storm… it is a mess out there. We got a LOT more scouting and trails actually flagged than I expected. We first went to that "clear cut" area. From one of our dual tracks, there was an area "calling for a trail". It was directly opposite from another trail [The Knoll]. We explored the north side of Dot's Road…. through the cut area. It is weird that the south side of the road has so many wet areas.. and this side is so much better. There are wet areas and brooks, but there are paths through. We will only need 2 bridges to get through the area. We were able to mark a trail all the way to the base of Dot's Hill.. which is what we were aiming for. In our explorations we "stumbled" upon another route. It will run roughly parallel to the other, excepting it will start opposite another trail head… a couple hundred feet away from the other. On the far end they will merge together before dumping out on a dual track. We will also make a side trail to the left where it will meet up with Chasing Rabbits.. up on the ridge.

From the dual track at the top of Dot's Hill We have 2 parallel trails running over to Mad Hatter and Alice.. both easier trails, but the two trails getting to there are far from easy. [there are other easy ways to get to these trails but not from this area] Well we scouted an easy route in-between the 2 challenging ones. We did not flag it, but I think it will be pretty easy to build without having to specifically flag it.

I had also wanted a trail from this end of Just a Bunny heading back up the hill to join up with another single track area. I had scouted the area last week. It would require the use of some dual track to get there.. but we could get do most of it on single track. It was an area that would require a bit of work. Much of it was quite thick. Well we tried another option The start is the same, but It heads toward the right vs the left.. and comes out in a very different area [of course] but at another prime area. Typically when we come out of Just a Bunny we end up getting directed back home.. it is either that or work our way back around on dual track. This gets us back up to a lot of other options. This gives us 5 more trails.. and some of them fairly long.. and quite labor intensive to build.. but will make a huge addition to our network.