MTB Trailcare

Like many riders, I am addicted to riding great trail and don't wish to go without any longer than I need to, So fixing Petes and Bretts is an urgent priority.

The hillside is still too wet to be walking one line over and over, but in order to let it dry we first need to get the water sheeting off right away.

So what I did today was go out and start the repair process on Lower-Petes by restoring the outlope to get it draining again.

The trail is still extremely soft from all the water that was pooling in all those tyre rutts and I still have some more trail to get draining down there, but I choose a poor set of gloves today and started to get blisters. So I went home early.

Like Louis, I also prefer outslope and low points for drainage.

Below is another example of a rock drain removing flow from the trail.

What was done is the low point was dug lower than the trail line and then filled in with stone & sand to allow a porous low point for water to remove itself from the trail. This created a speed bump in the middle of a turn.

Unfortunatley the low point had been made as a high point, So I have removed and rearranged some stones to restore outslope to the trail tread.

I strongly believe water should be removed as fast as possible from a trail, so when it can just flow off the top instead of soaking it's way through and then out of a trail, I will always choose outslope to sheet it off right away as a first option. now we have both options here.

I also strongly believe corners need as much flow as possible to reduce braking rutts, rocky lines across trail in the middle of a corner don't help a rider maintain flow.

On another note, I spotted this piece of timber on my way out of Nerang National Park this afternoon.

It looks like a wooden mask peeking out of the hollow tree

So after much dissapointment over the past few days, I have left the Park feeling like things are getting back on track again. I got my "trail fix" and now im going home on a high.

Ash.