Video: A Day In The Life Of A Trail Builder
Those trails don't make themselves! Christina Chappetta spent a day with SORCA's Dave Reid and Ben Haggar to get the lowdown on what a day in the life of a trail builder is like.
Special thanks to SORCA, Dave Reid & Ben Haggar for their time and dedication.
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; why do you think it's OK to say something so f*cking stupid? Christina is awesome and deserves respect accordingly. I guess that making a considered judgement about what you're typing would be advisable in future otherwise someone's going to punch you so hard in the stomach your pants will fall down.
A: you don’t do that
B: you just don’t do that
C: it’s none of your business what she does
being a girlfriend to a very devoted trail builder.. i see the entire weekends, the after work nights, the money on nails, gas, chainsaws, (beer) that goes into all of it. makes you appreciate the entire sport even more, trail builders truly are the backbone of mountain biking
We just got done fixing a muddy section that was still too damp to ride when MTBer comes through and leaves a nice mark right in front of us. Didn't say a word lol. Two more guys came up, saw us, walked around the mud, and said thank you for helping with trail work. That was the right approach haha.
The equestrians should have known better though. I don't think they give a shit about how much damage they cause.
I ran a trail day for a high school mtb team where we did maintenance and it was wet so the kids walked out uphill. I had to walk downhill back to my tool stash. On my way down I encountered an equestrian on the way up the trail to our fresh work (and had never seen an equestrian on that trail ever). All I could do is smile and wave. If putting up a new trail I have tried to make entrances/exits un-attractive to other user groups (e.g. steep roll, big low branches, etc.)
It's nice when people respect fresh work, but not everyone knows/cares to...
If your horse sucks that much keep it off busy multi use trails.
I wish we had a better form of trail association here; ours is split between too many groupings, usually between Parks staff and or individual cycling clubs, and as a result, there are too many legislative restraints put in place to protect government agencies from potential law suits. It's slowly changing, but in ten years, we still don't have drops bigger than 2ft.
The frustrating thing is finding that some riders blatantly ignore trail closures and ride the trails when they’re not finished or ready to be ridden, creating more work and delaying the opening. Even more frustrating when the riders responsible then stick a video on their YouTube channel boasting about their exploits.
From the guy who’s favorite trail is mailboxes SMH.
And yes those who build illegal trails are making life more enjoyable ????
You can do both
Put the split rung with the grain vertical or grain up when you nail it into a bridge or a stunt. As the (vertical) grain of the cedar wears it'll have that same vertical texture exposed which will have friction.
Andrei.
Andrei.
Dave rules! Squamish is a better place because of him and his family.
CM!
CM!
Yet are the first people to cut down trees just for their own enjoyment, disturb the wildlife and leave crappy craft beer cans everywhere....
Not that I care, but the hypocrisy is amazing.
But I'll point out that it looked like the stringers Dave was cutting were already blowdown, and that you can find perfectly good slats in large cedars that have been down for 20+ years. I don't think these guys had to cut anything down to rebuild that bridge.
It's a tradeoff that is kind of analogous to zoos. Some people are frustrated that animals are in cages (or a tree or 2 is cut and some gas is burned to build a bridge), but those costs can yield the benefit of getting people interested in conservation; either by learning about captive animals in the zoo analogy or getting out and appreciating the local environment with mtb trails.