more trail !

More trail....... those are the two words every ardent mountain bikers likes to hear.

Jack 'n Jill !

We have started building the new trail, tentatively named "Jack 'n Jill", as Phase II (we are currently working on Phase I) requires you to go up the hill, albeit no pail of water at the top... who puts a well at the top of a hill anyway ?  The name also fits in with the nursery rhyme theme for the trails on the southside of the property.

(L)Toni - (R) Clayton

Clayton Young made a brief appearance to learn the skilled art of "finishing" the trail, taught by the zen trail finishing master, Toni,.  He seemed amazed at the amount of work that was put into a trail, always wanting to take the "easier" path or just "scratch 'n ride"... au contraire, the trails should be there for a long time and will be ridden often so the last thing you want to do is make them "ordinary".

The trail progresses

Phase I, II and III

Jack 'n Jill Phase I has been roughed out 98% (one corner to go), the build is well under way and finishes with an access to Glenns Ck Rd.  The trail corridor for Phase II has been selected. This part of the trail  involves a long climb on a hand built, rolling contour trail ie LOTS of benching and terminates at a temporary connection to Red Riding Hood.  Phase III has yet to be decided !

Toe Bone - Maintenance

One of the sins I committed when first building was to build a structure that relied on the fasteners for it's strength.  This is verboten under IMBA trail building rules to which we are trying to stick to, the years also showed why.  The decking started to come off.  So out we went to redo it properly.  We felled timber for the decking by using coppicing of local timber right beside the structure, we debarked then left them for several weeks to "cure".

New stringers curing and decking being detached

To fix the problem we had to pull up all the decking, lay stringers beside the current ones, using an Adze to smooth out the difference in the stringers and then reattach the decking.

New stringers atatched, Adze work done

Competed structure, done just before the Social Trail Ride.

Structure now looks great ! The "Log Bridge Ride of D'eath" indeed !