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Seven Springs - new features and new trail.

PB Forum :: USA - East
Seven Springs - new features and new trail.
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flag hellco
Posted: Aug 27, 2009 at 10:54 Quote
Oh man we will be there tomorrow man, can not wait!!
flag martis
O+
Posted: Aug 27, 2009 at 19:59 Quote
hellco wrote:
Oh man we will be there tomorrow man, can not wait!!

stoked to hang out with chicago folk yet again! hopefully the rest of you like the trails as much as jeremy, jimmy, and tim did. we'll do some runs and i'll give you guys a bit of a tour of the proposed new stuff.

update time:

the second to last ladder bridge on frankenstein is COMPLETED as of this afternoon. we only have one relatively easy one to plan and put together and we can close the books on frankenstein. it will be 100% open. the one we finished is 25+ feet in length and has a gentle right-left banked turn. it's our first really ambitious ladder and it turned out looking excellent. everyone up here had a hand in the construction and we're all really happy with it.

as soon as frankenstein is completed, we are working on two segments of trail that has potential to become an entirely new almost-top-to-bottom run (hip on 007 to flat section above showtime with multiple options to frankenstein or EC-1.) this is completely dependent on the feasibility of building the lower section, as it hasn't even been hiked and scoped out yet. i will be out there with a machete tomorrow if possible, to determine if this is, indeed, a good idea. if it looks the way i hope it does, and joel gives the okay, work can begin this week.

speaking of that: weekday riding unfortunately is done on september 7. this is a double edged sword, because, although weekday shred sessions are out of the question, we will be working roughly the same schedule. this translates to literally huge amounts of building. no trails to open and close. no passes to be checked. no log sheets. no trail checks. just building from the time we get there, until the time we leave. there's lots of ideas in the works, and we're going to pack as much serious building between september 7 and closing day as we possibly can.

thanks by the way to david and his lady friend from ontario for making the long, long drive to ride our park (on a shuttle day, no less!), stuart and his dad from DC, the highland bike park-riding bostonian whos name unfortunately escapes me... the cleveland freeride crew, and thanks in advance to the hordes of deep-dish-pizza eating blackhawks fans from chicago that are coming out this weekend... and any of the other out-of-staters who have come and rode lately (i'm bad with names). it's always a blast to ride with people who frequent other bike parks and talk with you guys while i'm stuck working as "shuttle monkey".

pictures tomorrow (i hope).
flag banshee62
Posted: Aug 27, 2009 at 22:10 Quote
you best be naming the alternate route around franken "igor"
flag FlyingFish
Posted: Aug 31, 2009 at 15:15 Quote
sounds cool i still have a free lift pass so ill be coming out as soon as i get a few things taken care of at home.
flag FlyingFish
Posted: Sep 5, 2009 at 9:05 Quote
419 is rollin out tomorrow.
flag bigkat273
Posted: Sep 5, 2009 at 10:34 Quote
Just got back from Snowshoe, found out I have Labor Day off...I'll be there by 11.
flag martis
O+
Posted: Sep 5, 2009 at 22:10 Quote
we can finally close the books on frankenstein: the last section opened yesterday with myself and chris taking a few test runs on it, then taking down the tape. chris and brandon worked well into the night on friday to complete the second ladder. as expected, it's the gnarliest, funnest hundred or so feet on the mountain. got some very good feedback as well as lots of "hey, good job guys" comments as we were cleaning up alongside the trail. there's going to be some fine tuning here and there as the trail sees some more traffic, but for all intents and purposes: frankenstein is 100% open. assuming i'm not too much of a zombie to bring my camera up in the morning, pictures should be up by tomorrow night.

time for a new trail.
flag martis
O+
Posted: Sep 8, 2009 at 22:21 Quote
this week starts "build time". all of the trail crew will be working on dedicated build/maintain days twice a week, for the remainder of the season.

we did some preliminary scouting for a new (almost) top-to-bottom trail, and long-overdue maintenance on existing trails monday, as the weather was less than favorable and we ran out of "rainy day work" to keep us busy.

i'm assuming we'll all be sitting down on thursday or friday to, more or less develop a bit of a "game plan" for our build period. we have two existing corridors scouted out, which should be built and open fairly quickly, assuming we don't change anything about them... which is always possible. there's lots of ideas floating around, but the point is... more new terrain is definitely on the immediate horizon.

as far as maintenance goes, there's lots that needs to be paid attention to. we're more than aware of the condition of the showtime jumps. it's highly doubtful that they'll be rebuilt this season, as the winter wreaks havoc on them. we ARE planning to work on them, but they'll most likely be overhauled in the spring. there's some serious brake bumps and exposed rock on 007. for the most part, those will be remedied this season. 007 wasn't ravaged as much by erosion and snowmelt, but by high rider traffic, which is a bit easier to work with.

ideas? suggestions? what types of new trails and features do you want to see? what can be improved upon? i always make it a point to let the higher-ups know what the riders are looking for, and maybe what we're missing.
flag FlyingFish
Posted: Sep 9, 2009 at 10:51 Quote
its the wood that makes it good
flag rav400
O+
Posted: Sep 9, 2009 at 20:10 Quote
Martis,

Frankenstein is really fun and does add more trail diversity to 7springs. The last drop that sends you into the rock garden leading to Lower EC1 to pretty fun to do at speed. On my 7x6.5 bike I can still plow right through that rock garden at speed. Its so fun! The whole trail is a challenge at speed. I want to do more runs on it until I get it down as well as I have the other trails at Springs.

Anyway, one or two more completely new top to bottom runs would be great. Those two new proposed drops you showed me and some other riders will be sweet when they get built. A couple things I would like to see are jumps with lips that rival those on Dominion at Diablo. Those jumps are so perfect! Also, something Wisp, Timberline, and possibly Diablo (Snowshoe may have this somewhere) do not have that I would like to see is a double drop. One decent sized drop followed shortly after another bigger drop (think Rampage style). I think that would be pretty fun. Also, step downs to step ups are very fun (G-outs?).

Is it possible to open the lift on the other side of the mountain? I beleive there is more vertical on that side and more wooded areas. That could make for some longer runs which is 7springs weak point. The runs are way to short. Fun but short. If you pin it down the mountain (esp Upper 007 to lower EC, one of my favorite runs by the way) you can get down the mountain is less than 2 minutes. Longer trails would be awesome.
flag FlyingFish
Posted: Sep 10, 2009 at 12:02 Quote
agreed about riding the backside but it costs alot of $$$$ to run a chairlift.
flag ammosally
Posted: Sep 10, 2009 at 12:14 Quote
hoping to hit the trails on Sunday... taking a newbie friend with me.. should be fun and hoping for not a lot of mud! has the spings considered droping the ticket rates for the weekends to entice more people to come up??
flag FlyingFish
Posted: Sep 10, 2009 at 14:32 Quote
ammosally wrote:
hoping to hit the trails on Sunday... taking a newbie friend with me.. should be fun and hoping for not a lot of mud! has the spings considered droping the ticket rates for the weekends to entice more people to come up??
$30 is the cheapest lift ticket ive ever bought.
flag ammosally
Posted: Sep 10, 2009 at 14:45 Quote
[/Quote]$30 is the cheapest lift ticket ive ever bought.[/Quote]

I have a season pass. come and go when i can... I know Bolton in VT (when i lived up there) dropped the ticket price late in the season... but yeah, $30 isn't bad...
i haven't been up much lately. screwed my shoulder pretty bad at the race and i'm still having a hard time, but i NEED to ride!
flag FlyingFish
Posted: Sep 10, 2009 at 14:49 Quote
the GSE race, man that was a while ago yeah that musta been bad. aww man i remember you i was there with a female friend and she really wanted your bike, the color is rad!

 


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