MTB Trailcare

Since the last Trail News we continued work on the quad pack of doubles over two more days. A big storm hit Nerang last night. It destroyed a bit of what we did yesterday. Nothing serious. We were able to complete the work prior to that storm. Lucky though that we re-covered the trail with timber as any riding would have been a disaster. Fingers crossed our day of respite from vandalism is the start of a trend. Here are a couple of pics of the trail this morning showing localised damage, although most of the trail was OK

Here's how things went since December 27, starting with the last of the doubles (seen a little damaged above). We had intended to leave the last double and come back to it later, but the soil was good for building, if a bit too soft to survive the impact of riding.  We got stuck in and hoped it would not be poached - and we were lucky

Test riding something like this without a lander is probably not good for our test pilot's blood pressure, but it has to be done. Here's Ashley working on angles and how things changed over the building session

Today we took on 2 tasks. One looks great and the other only looks great to us. Some of the most important jobs go un-noticed.

Below the first hip and table-top jumps, an aggressive drainage channel has formed over time. It starts on the fire road, crosses the current Three Hills line and then the new trail line, before delivering a deluge of silt and water over Casuarina Loop and into the creek below. Unacceptable and getting worse with time. It had to be fixed.

We constructed a series of water bars above the new trail, using silt from the runoff and then added organic matter and debris to help revegetation. Above the water bars and just below the current Three Hills line we dug a drainage channel to move the majority of surface water onto a flatter area where it can settle more gently. Here are some pics starting with the "before" looking below the new trail and then above to where we changed the drainage line. Notice the fallen tree has been cut away from the trail and used below to slow any water flowing toward Casuarina Loop

So much water was moving along that drainage (erosion) line it was great to see it reduced to just subsoil water movement entering and seeping across the new trail, rather than ripping everything apart. Time to move on to the job we really wanted done today; the intersection of Three Hills Singletrack and Casuarina Loop.

This is another wet area. A tight turn is needed to link the two trails and we don't want a mess or any unnecessary rider risks at this intersction, being as it will be the busiest intersection on the trail system. Subtle high and low points were chosen to allow an omega style turn with good drainage across both Three Hills and Casuarina trails. In addition there had to be good through-flow and visibility for riders using Three Hills as speeds are higher on that trail.

We started moving around our stored soil and making the drains.  There was no shortage of water movement to show the results

Initial drains were augmented and excavated soil and organic matter became a central corral that should sprout grasses rapidly and look natural soon. There is a rolling ramp up onto the new trail that is actually part of the turn from Casuarina to Three Hills. The downhill line off Three Hills onto Casuarina has some accentuated turns to assist safety and flow through the intersection.  It was also very satisfying to see the high points in the turn dry when the drains were flowing with subsoil water entering the trail

Perty as it looked to us yokels, we had to make it look off-limits to everyone else or else the very muddy diggings will be destroyed.  Apart from lots of timber and tape and our sign, a bit of lantana helps and it was good, hot, steamy and itchy lantana pulling weather today