Trail ressurection project

This is for a competition, and for anyone whos interested in trail projects, its one of three I'm working on at the moment, but has great potential and I get to make a lot more decisions in this one than the others! The team of builders involved are Me, another guy also called Oli, and the Fox Brothers, Harry and Ed. There's no head trail builder and we spend as much time as we can up there, which ain't much seeing as I'm injured, and the others have school/college whatever you may call it!......................... FLUID TRAILS ..............................
Firstly, this is the 'before' (updated weekly as we go to de each section of the trail!)
dodgy drop landing lol
looking down the trail from the drop landing
the old shore 'drop'
the area marked as 'start' on the maps. Last bit that will be done, as It'll be for looks only!
Looking at the old northshore from the start, you can see how its out of line!


Here's the crew, Harry then Ed Fox http://fooox.pinkbike.com/, ( then Harry gordon http://gaaaaasssssss7.pinkbike.com/, a possible member..!) and Oli Williams http://oli24.pinkbike.com/!

Here is My original map, very vaugue and confusing!

And here's Ed's original plans, drawn shortly after!

And they merged into this, the Final map (top) which we're going to be reffering to in this blog.The key (middle) is easier to read as a bigger image so viola! Its the black coloured trail (Bottom) we're working on for this Comp, the dotted lines are where the trails used to run, so you can see how we've linked two together. And the other colours are long term projects for the summer!



24th January
Right, it's time to blog, and to blog properly. I managed to drag my crippled arse up the trails today after discovering from Oli that Ed and Harry would be up there, having postponed whatever else they were doing. I was shocked to find Harry gordon (there are too many people with similar names working on this! Ed, we envy you!) up there, and have yet to decide whether he will be credited as a trail builder for the project due to his previous unreliability ! I will give him credit now that he did help pile soil on a landing, and he polished off Ed's lunch nicely!
We got our proffesional looking plans out (see above!) and got it sorted between us exactly what was happening. Today we got working on taking the northshore drop down, as it slowed the flow of the trail, and after a brief (very very brief!) moment of me wanting to turn it into a Jump on Jump off stunt we decided to make it more universally friendly. To do this we took the entire thing apart, and planned from the start. The original line onto the north shore ( from now on noted as NS) was, well, wonky, and part of the reason it didn't work well. That, coupled with the lack of a smooth run in was what demanded attention. We moved where the ladder joined to the mud bank about a foot right, and tokk the flat 'drop' part of the NS off. All we managed to do after that though was to re-dig the post holes (as a rule I try to get at least 1/3 of the post in the ground and packed solidly in before continuing) as nobody brought a hammer! So, as Ed and I got stuck into dealing with that, Harry Fox and Oli dealt with the next jump along the trail. On the plans there was a double here, but after the NS jump had been re-planned, the others noted well that the amount of speed you had coming off that first jump would mean you would lose control going over the next double and trying to hack it round what is going to be a tight berm. So, the double went and the gap between was filled to make a really nice little pump into the berm instead, credit to Oli and Harry(s?) for that! I've also just got from Ed the mathematical reasoning for this. It seems sad, but we were laughing about being geeky about it so why not go the whole hog eh? Ahem, your attention please class...

Assuming air resistance is negligible, S = ut + 0.5at² Since u, the initial velocity is equal to zero when calculating the vertical vectors, and the vertical displacement for the rider to drop, s, = 0.7m. Because of acceleration due to gravity at 9.8m/s², 0.7 = 0.5 * 9.8 * t² Therefore using simple division and multiplication t = 0.377 seconds When resolving horizontal vectors using that the rider takes 0.377 seconds to drop to the height of the landing, velocity required for the cyclist = horizontal distance form the northshore to the landing / the time taken to drop by 0.7m therefore = 2.5 / 0.377. Thus the velocity for the cyclist required to reach the northshore is 6.63m/s or simply converted 14.8 mph. So Oli, in English, you need to go 15mph to reach the northshore landing

Finally today, we piled shite loads of dirt onto the landing for the NS jump and packed it in nicely, waiting for the ton of rain tomorow (sunday) to give it a good going over! Harry G flung quite a lot of mud in the vauge direction of the landing, so I'll give him credit for that or he'll get grumpy with me!!

Now all we need to do is smooth off the run in, get cracking on that berm, oh, and bring a hammer so we can get that NS up and running, coz the landing is a beaut! Here's the pics!

Harry G and Ed packing one of the support stakes, Oli and Harry f flatting old nasty jump!

Harry G. Gettin some dirt on the newly built landing

Somebody always just HAS to throw mud around dont they?

The profile of the section we've done some of today is below. Also, becase this is a trail restoration project there is a before and after profile! To see where on the map (at the top) this section is look at either end of the 'profile' image, and match the number in the box to where that number is on the black trail on the map. Look at the other end of the 'profile' and match the number there to it's number on the map, then you can see where on the trail and in which direction. They're done to a rough scale, look at the photos for a better idea!! ( as a starter if this confuses you, START to the right of the picture matches the start on the top of the map, and the I in the box matches the I in the box down from the start of the map. Got it now?)

January 31st

Yesterday (saturday) I met up with Ed and Oli at the trails again. Oli couldn't make it before 2'o'clock ish, so Ed and I cracked on with getting the first jump rideable. Last weekend we left the site with the posts for the wooden take-off in and with the landing half finished (we needed it to rain and bed in the mud we'd piled on before finishing it off!) We spent about half an hour or so setting it up properly, and about another half an hour cutting the posts down to size due to me bringing a stupidly fine toothed saw up (Hey, at least this time we weren't trying to hammer in the nails with a spade!). When It was up, a quick moment with the tape measure showed that Neither of us had any judgement of the size of the gap at all, as it turned out to be a 9.2ft gap rather than the '7/8 foot-ish' that we'd previously guessed!

The we cracked on with smoothing out the run in. The entire woodland is unfortunately coated in fine pine needles that, with a bit of water and time, have created a slick surface. The job was basically to scrape all that rubbish off the top and then get on with removing the dodgy off camber lie of the slope and the little dips. The final 5 metres of run needed to be as smooth as possible to carry speed for the jump. 9 foot isn't big, but this is a really techy jump and needs buckets of commitment to carry out!
--'The run in to the first jump, sorry its a fuzzy picture!'--
As I was sitting scraping away at the final run in to the ramp, Ed started at the top of the woods removing the moss/pine needle coating and doing some levelling out. With all the hard work done, Oli turned up. Being the only one there who didn't have a reason to duck out of doing the jump,(Ed's going skiing very soon and wants to avoid injury, and I've got a broken leg!) he regretted turning up at all!

We then got on with piling the final load of dirt onto the landing, which had kindly been hacked out of a nearby pre-exsiting giant pump by Ed. We cleared the tools away to one side, laughed as I stuck my crutch through the trail into what was presumably a rabbit warren,
--'Thats a deep hole!'--
and sat down to tell Oli how easy the Jump was going to be (he wasn't too reasured when we told him that all the complex maths -see above somewhere- had been bolloxed up by Ed! ). After a few run in's to check his speed He did it, and he hit it absofukinloutley perfectly!
--'Oli hits the jump, perfect first time!'--
After doing it twice more, him and Ed layed out the Logs for the berm and we smoothed the run out for the landing. I had to bugger off at this point and I think the others followed soon after!

Sunday 1st february
I didn't go up today because my ankle was sore from being abused for 4 hours yesterday, but Oli and Ed made the effort and have produced some immense work! They've Built the berm after Jump 1 completely and we've now got about 3/4 of the trail that is rideable (Although only about 1/4 of the trail is finished) because they used a couple of old bits of ladder to fill in the bigger holes on the 'tech' section of the trail (see map at top!). They also added some more length to the first landing to make it a little easier and less painful in the case of cock-ups! Here's some pictures of their work, and i'm not going to write any more because I don't know what went on today fully!

Early stage of the berm
Aaanddd done! Nice work!
Smoothness!
Looking up the tech section with the new berm at the top. you can see how the ladders have been used to make it rideable, I hope to put a couple of fast low doubles in here and to weave it around a couple of trees as well!
Looking down the tech section from the berm (that's a different bit of ladder in the foreground, than in the other picture, the 'tech' is about 50m long!)
Looking up to the first jump from the berm

And a decent video from Ed as a quick walk down the trail to what is rideable. As I said previously, we've only actually built up to the first berm!



Saturday the somethingth

Sorry, there was no update for last weekend because it didn't happen. Oli went skiing at the last minute, and it was so snowy round the lanes that Ed could'nt drive to the trails. BUT...

Tonight, I got my act together and went round to our sheds with one thing in mind, extreme recyling. A proper dig through a pile of wood that was going to be burnt, and wood that was sitting around looking lonely resulted in something I'm quite proud of. This is going to be wedged in our 4x4 and taken up the trails at somepoint, so without further ado, freshly made, MY AMAZING RECYCLED KICKER!



and finally a picture of the elusive me, that hasn't appeared in any other photos, perhaps now you can see why... lol


Saturday 21st
After a promising message from The foxes saying they'd be there all day I went up the trails at three-o-clock ish to find no one at all. It turns out that Harry gordon had brainwashed the buggers into being lazy gits and sodding of to ride some pre made trails just because they didn't have a key to the shovels! I can kinda understand, but I have a feeling that without monsiuer Gordon wingeing about doing work the Foxes would have got on a collected rocks for the rock garden or summat, so Oli and I are veery against him getting too involved. Just a bit annoying having someone being so negative about it really! Anyway, moaning over, time to talk about the trails themselves!

The section marked as the 'technical section' has been proving to be a bit tricky in terms of what exactly we're going to do there. Currently, after my idea of putting a double in and some small drops (We're talking 1ft here) to 'roughen' things up and make it damn hard to get through in one piece we have taken on the stupid task of making a rock garden at the beggining followed by a smoother section and then a skinny bit of trail around a tree over a bit of northshore which is covering a hole in the ground, and out.
So far we've collected some big rocks (well, the others, I can't carry rocks!) and some medium ones, and plan to have a few big pedal and rear mech munchers, some sharp tyre bursters, and some loose ones, to liven things up a bit! Rock gardens seem to be pretty hard to build, I recommend finding a bit of ground thats rocky and diverting your trail to run over it! Here are some pictures of me and Oli getting to grips with it at night on friday (extreme trail building!)

Oli trying to build the rock garden

Me trying not to fall over whilst digging!

Monday 23rd
I have just re-planned the first section of trail, from the very beggining to the landing of the frist drop. We want this trail to be technical, but we also want everyone involved to be able to ride it. Currently the first drop is challenging, to be nice about it, but instead of just having a flat path around the side of it, there's going to be a line with berms and a jump, easier, but no less fun!

Here is the 'artistic' version of the top section. The black trail is the original trail, and the red is the new plan!
There will be a berm going off behind the first little berm into the ladder and crossing the track before the ladder. It will then roll down what is currently a mud drop, berm around again and there will be a hip onto the ladder landing. This landing is also going to be extended so there will be about a bike lengths worth of 'case space!' and I should think I'll widen it as well so it can be hipped better!!

Here is the version that matches the symbols etc on the original map for easier understanding!

Feb-March, various dates

After the last build, and after my planning, Oli and I went up and started work on the hip jump at the top section. When I got up there, he'd already been hard at work however and finished off the rock garden. The rock garden is at the beggining of the tech section on the main map! I think he went up with Ed between my last session and this one and worked on it then as well, but whoever did it whenever, here is the result...


The biggest rocks are about 10cm high, and the 'rock garden' itself is about 10 foot long. It consists of a load of well dug in rocks, and some looser ones to give it a bit of bite!! When I arrived, I put the very final touches to it by putting a small kicker (about 10cm high off a log) to launch the rider into, making it even more interesting, but not quite allowing anyone to clear it entirely!! Anyway, back to the hip jump!
Firstly we dug the second berm around the back of the original, but came across some problems. The soil was actually fantastic, and cut out really well, but halfway round digging it out, there was a big root. It wasn't the sort that you can just carelessly hack out with a spade either, it looked kinda important, so I left it, and tried to put a pump along a straight section midway round the berm to remedy this. I failed miserably, it all went veery tits up, heres a picture of how the berm started to look. (its right hand of the two btw) It looks kinda promising but then Oli rode it, and it just kills your speed as well as having a near impossible line!


In the end, after a lot of what ended up being pointless digging, we got onto building the hip itself. After a bit of an initial bodge with the posts we got it looking a bit more solid and piled on the dirt, then it got dark, so we sodded off, leaving it looking like this...


Then, when it was light again at somepoint, we came back and finished the job, making it look a lot nicer, But I don't have a picture of it finshed, watch this space... no really, I'll whack the picture here when I've taken it

Because the berms were so shite, it turned out to be easier and waay faster to go around the original berm (which we built up a bit) and just go down to the left of the ladder!!Oli rode it, got it perfect first time and it was deemed a success!!


The next time I got up the trails was last thursday (Its march 9th today, go figure!) with Ed and We left the tools alone to get some filming of the trails done, partly to keep me sane, and partly for this blog, so you can see how well its going!! We even improvised a helmet cam using gaffa tape and my compact digi cam! the angle isn't great but you'll just have to live with it until I get a proper one!! Here is the full video of the trail, and below it, just the helmet cam.





The trail does look very short at the moment, and to be fair, all in all its about 200m ish long at the moment, though with another 100m to be added on yet, and the fact that there are going to be five or six full trails as well as a few single jumps/jump sets adds up to what we hope will be a great set of trails! And, remember, we're building quality, not distance, or all the trails would be done by now!!

After filming, Ed and I got digging to create the next part of the track. We are now on the part just after the big berm at III. on the map. Its going to be insanely tricky to put in the hip jump and massive switchback as drawn on the plan, so we are taking the track left where the hip jump takeoff is drawn and continuing from there. only with a jump before the berm at V. (we are also missing out the doubles) Where we are planning to take it there is a tree down across the track, so in order not to piss the forestry commision off we ain't gonna chop through it, we're gonna jump over it, then continue along berm VI. and to the finish!! Heres a picture of the track cutting across, and down to the tree across the track! I hope to get the trail profile drawings done soon, and I will re-write the map to show where the trail is actually going now (some of the other bits of trail are being re-sorted as well...)


Seeing as the competition has been extended to july we can get a LOAD more done up there. Hopefully (this may sound wishful, and it probably is as I have to have a big frame on my leg to fix it properly so won't be building for a while) we can get two more trails done, and long ones at that. One, found and started by Oli is a fast swoopy berm trail, so fairly easy to build, and I've got my eyes on another I haven't told the others about yet...! So far in relation to other bits at the trails, we've re-dug the three doubles (where two are marked on the map next to where the green zig zag and curvy lines cross) to make them lower. They don't work well in the wet as ed demonstrates below, so will be re-dug again soon!


Also, we've put in the wooden kicker I built a while ago. We found a one off big jump spot with a perfect landing that gets gradually steeper meaning you can go as fast as you like off it, and the massive run in can also be linked nicely to halfway down Oli's trail, so you can flow and fling yourself off it, or just keep flowing!! Here's a picture of it, well two pictures...



I'll mark where it is as well when I re-draw the map to update it a little!! errr, I think thats about it for the moment, I hope to go up this next weekend and maybe finish track one (yet to be named, any suggestions PM me, Oli or ed) so I'll update soon after then!!