MTB Trailcare

Everyone has a favorite tool, but there can be only one most important and it is the bike.  

Without testing trail lines you cannot expect to get the them right.  Sometimes this is obvious, like a jump and sometimes subtle, like how things flow through a series of drainage features.  If you plan to build or modify trail, plan to have at least one experienced test pilot and one experienced observer to assess how things look, ride and feel in both directions.

Today Ashley and I rode the work on Pete's several times to plan the next bit of building.  OK, we really did it for fun, but we did start on that next section - by building a kicker.  

It was obvious when riding the really fun turns and rolls that a jump line and a climbing line would fit together.  The surface needs rain, re-tamping and the large, dead tree on the right in the above pic will have to be cut at ground level.  With adequate sightlines added this section of steeper bushland will now rock.  The climbing line is interesting and allows us to keep an odd roll-over/drain through the large trees above the jump.  It looks all wrong and rides all right.

Leading into the jump is a short section of trail with so many line and weight changes, it seems you move more over your bike more than you ever have before - it's a buzz.  However, it also seems to direct you out of a left hander too late for the next roller and we talked about rebuilding that roller to allow for it.  The next pics look back uphill

We didn't rebuild it though, because exposed in the left hand (downhill) corner is the remains of a stump.  Until it is chopped out of the trail, we will not know how a wider line in that corner rides and how that line will enter the next corner and roller.  So we wait.  This week the stump meets its maker, so we will know soon.

Remember the message from this trail news - test ride what you are planning.  Start when there is just bare grass and keep testing to completion.

Your bike is the ultimate trailbuilding tool