September

Wednesday 30/09/09

Back onto the trail maintenance today, and in between random downpours I managed to get some more foliage cut back on Katore Jumps trail

Before

After

Further down the trail (after)

Tuesday 29/09/09

Todays trail maintenance was actually road maintenance. Undertook a private job for Southstar shuttles to even out some of the fresh metal that has been dropped on the muddier parts of the road. Riders might want to temporarily avoid Hill road and Tawa because of this loose surface material. It will pack in quickly though I imagine, with school holidays running this and next week and also the start of daylight saving shuttles tonight and Thursday.

after (there were quite a few holes like these)

Monday 28/09/09

Todays trail maintenance was in the rain, I have started clearing Katore jumps, This trail is quite closed in. I have started by doing a walkthrough and tackling the worst areas, then will keep going through till i get on top of preventative clearing as well. I am hoping for drier conditions through the week, but getting amongst it and on with it anyway. I couldn't take photos due to how wet it was, poor light, muddy hands etc. In addition to the buddliea on this track is our old friend gorse, reminds me of Riverhead :o)

Monday 21/09/09

Todays trail maintenance was on Hot X Buns continuation of the preventative veg clipping

Before

After

Before

After

Friday 18/09/09

Todays trail maintenance was on the Genesis Pump track looking at tweaking the middle section, where speed was being lost. we added a little roller to the middle of berm as an experiment, with mixed results i.e it works if you are going slow and it does not work if you are going fast. Will do some more work to refine this. 

Tuesday 15/09/09

Todays trail maintenance was back on the same section of Hot X.

Check out the buddliea on the left, Ferns on the right, whilst not presenting a problem now, they would if left, as we get further into spring

here you can see ferns on the apex of the corner obscuring the sight line. before

and after, with good visibility it will be easier to carry speed.

Monday 14/09/09

Today's trail maintaince I started a pre-emptive attack on the Buddliea on Hot X buns! Started at Half X buns and started working my way down. Trail is not overgrown yet, so my photos really don't do it any justice. I have opened a couple of sight lines on the insides of  a couple corners to try help make it easier to carry speed.

If you are aware of already overgrown areas, let me know using the contact page.

The section of Hot X that I was on was dry, you'd hardly of known it had rained over the weekend. There is a thinning operation near the top of Hot X/Direct rd for the rest of the week, there may be extra vehicles in the area.

Friday 11/09/09

Nothing to do with trail maintenance, but I went down to the MTB trail world cup at the Rotorua lake front, for a bit of a looksee.

Dave D called this zone the Hatupatu zone, whilst watching i only saw 1 rider out of 8 actually make it through to the other end, so I think the name works. I think we should get Rob M to show them how it's done :o)

 

Thursday 10/09/09

For toadys trail maintenance, Jeff and I looked at tweaking one of the steeper sections of track on HH that is getting rutted out, there are some berms that are not getting used to there fullest potential either. we think by introducing this berm to drop the height of the trail in an easier grade it should help with the maintenance and introduce a little more "carve" back to the trail. This is a fairly large job so will take a few visits to finish.

A berm will be shaped into the bank on the right...

Tuesday 8/09/09

Todays trail maintenance was on the Genesis pump track. it is 90% finished and 100% ridable. Judging by the tyre marks i'm not the only one who thinks this...we are going to let it pack in a bit now and see how it gets ridden in. Thanks Mark T for your help and support!

we have mellowed the big rollers and now they are working loads better.

Track can be ridden in both directions. Check it out

Monday 7/09/09

Went up to Hatupatu to have a look at the rock that is nearly in the way of the trail. Riders have been able to make their way around it, but we have been thinking it would be great if we could ride over it and have it as more of a trail feature. as it is a pumice rock I thought i might be able to chip my way into it to make a little more favorable riding surface...

The rock laughed at my puny efforts with the pick axe, but I still think it is doable

Thursday 3/09/09

Behold the Caretaker!!

Todays trail maintenance I headed back up to Corners to check out where the reported fallen tree was, it looked like someone had already cleared it with an axe, so thanks for that whoever that was. Later in the day the Timberlands chainsaw contractor came down to fix it up and he tidied it up. I went to work on this bit of track about 100m into section 3 of Corners.

The puddle I had drained had dried

After draining the puddle i shovelled the soft stuff away and dug down the drains on the outslope i took the excess material and built a berm where it seems a couple of riders have gone straight on, hopefully the berm gives a visual indication of which way the track goes

And provides a nice pre- berm into this sweeping 180º berm

Wednesday 2/09/09

For todays trail maintenance I was advised of tree down on Link between Rude and mad if so dealt to that.

trail clear now

Then it was over to section 3 of corners to have a look at a couple of the ongoing problem spots 

There were quite a few puddles and a fair bit of deadfall from the heavy rain and high winds we have had. Drained many puddles and started raking out the outslopes,clearing drains etc.

Got up as far as this bit, there is a jump, that if taken at speed, puts you very close to the tree. Drained the puddle, but was not quite sure what to do, I can see the possibility of an alternate line around the highside of the tree to drop into the following berm.Ran out of food so called it a day, I shalll sleep on it and have another look tomorrow.

Tuesday 1/09/09

I met Red in the forest today, he is doing some fantastic work with his PD crew. If you liked the work his crew did at the Duck pond, then check this out!

Todays trail maintenance started with a check to see what 25mm of rain and an Nduro had done to HH, I was very pleasantly surprised to find minimal impact, I think my focus on drainage is really starting to pay off and I should now be able to focus on repair to some of the features, jumps berms etc. I did have to remove a lot of deadfall but that is usual after heavy rain.

No ruts through HH problem area 1, bricks are visible and a little uneven due to different compaction rates, I will need to adjust them when we have some very dry weather. I can also start to repair the approach to this area now the drainage is improved then (re)build up the jumps take off.

Moved on to HH problem area 2. Some ruts, but nowhere as many as there used to be, drain seems to be working well, I still made a couple of tweaks though.

Walked through pedally section, and drained puddles that do not yet have drains, fingers crossed we have dry weather for the rest of the week into the weekend, so HH should be as good or better than last weekend.

Still having trouble with this soft spot on this take off, again shovelled out wet soil and opened the drain even more to the left adding additional drains further up the track. I think if I can get the soil to harden, problem will be solved.

August

Friday 28/08/09

Todays trail maintenance was on Genesis pump track, we were both starting to get a little impatient with how long some substandard soil was taking to dry on the big rollers, so we shovelled it off and replaced it with some pumice soil. Subsequently where we have replaced the soil there is still more work to do raking these into much mellower rollers, they'll still be a bit too tall.Thanks Mark T!!

After that it was up to Hatupatu to deal to a windfall with DoC ranger Simon. Cheers Simon!!

Thursday 27/08/09

Todays trail maintenance was on HH. As last weeks puddle draining exercise was very successful for better weekend riding I dashed out and did it again today. Tried to improve drains as much as I could and still cover most of the track. Corrective work has held up really well so far, I was very surprised to see how hard the track is in the best drained areas, very encouraging. There will still be some squishy bits at the weekend on HH, but not as many as there would have been had I not bothered...

Tuesday 25/08/09

Todays trail maintenance was just a quick job on LRRH, had my bike out and checked yesterdays work to see how it coped with the rain last night, so far so good. Then rode down to the first jump after Jakes shortcut. The take off transition was very rutted and soggy. On closer inspection the soil was a contaminated pine needle and silt mix, so I shoveled back to the original hard packed layer and then cleared and enlargened the drain, then cambered the approach to the outslope.

After

Did not intend to spend too much time out there but stopped to clear some deadfall off Corners

After

Monday 24/08/09

Todays trail maintenance was on HH, I decided to hit the 2 worst problem spots and see if I could improve there longer term ability to shrug off the rain.

started by re-levelling some of the bricks

and opened the drain mouth even further and cambered the track slightly towards it.

Then moved down to the next spot and added a little material, Can't add too much as the rain and traffic will rut it out straight away.

Opened the drain mouth up (to the right) and cambered the track towards it. Can't wait to see if these improvements will make a difference when it rains.

while I was out over the weekend, I saw Red and his PD crew clearing the vegetation from the entrance to roller coaster. Today I got a pic of their finished work, Thanks Guys!

Sunday 23/08/09

Todays trail maintenance was on HH, I'm looking to shape up a berm I used to really enjoy, you can see the work done in previous updates, the pipe seems to be working well. Today I extended this berm and looked at trying to establish a decent curve up from top to bottom, I did a lot of work on it, but I have hardly changed it. I  also enlargened some of the drains along this section.

before

After

Saturday 22/08/09

Todays trail maintenance was on HH, now that some of the puddles have dried out, it was back in there to try and fix some of the ongoing problem areas and to do some preventative maintenance.

started with this rutted area

then the berm just after had a flat spot that was collecting water so dug out the soft stuffand lowered the inside

Before

After

Then went on to tickle up as many other spots as I could do quickly, as I wanted to get some shuttle runs in also. In particular I fixed up one of the highlines that had not bedded in too well. (no photo)

Friday 21/08/09

Got the chainsaw out to deal with the tree across hill rd but Timberlands got there before me and had already dealt to it. Thanks Timberlands!

Thursday 20/08/09

We have had a lot of rain on the trails in the last couple of week, so I thought todays trail maintenance should be focussed on checking the drains i worked on previously and some of the fresh soil that was moved around.

Found these trees across Hill rd did not have chainsaw so left for friday morning

Despite the enlarged drain to the downslope on the left, the take off of this jump was still collecting water. I scooped out the soft stuff left it to dry and put a small amount of soil to relevel.It will need more soil to finish. The transition may feel a little sketch until finished. I enlargened the drain even more and added more outslope camber to the trail. the landing had held up well I shall see how this weekends traffic will affect it.

Very impressed to see how dry the hairpin berm was and other sections of trail back from this where I have maintained the drains, Result!

Where it is difficult to put drains in we have puddles, I have drained all of these, mostly by moving the water up or down the trail to the nearest availble drain or makeshift pit. I went through all of HH and cleared all of the puddles where I could, This should give the track the best chance of drying for the weekend.

Tuesday 11/08/09

Received reports that there were trees down on the challenge track these have now been cleared by the council's contractor.

Monday 10/08/09

More work on HH. The 3rd to last jump had a dangerous take off where there was previously a puddle at the bottom of the transition. I improved the drain then cleared the face of the jump of pine needle contaminated soil to reveal the original shape of the jump then repaired the damage to match the original shape of the transition. This jump also had no landing so I rebuilt that as well.

Then moved back up the track a bit, to the berm i was working on previously. Now that the pipe has reduced the water level collecting in this corner, it has dried out and now i can look at re-shaping the berm.

It would seem that the state that this berm was in was causing people to heavily brake over the jump prior to it, so i repaired that as well, (but it could do with having the landing built up a bit more)

Friday 7/08/09

Did some preventative maintenance on HH clearing drains and de-berming the outslope of the last 3rd of the track. Unfortunately I did not get to the 2 worst problem areas, but they are top of my list for next week. I did check out how the hairpin berm was riding in and it looked good with lots of tyre marks near the top. Thanks to the Marcus and the Palmerston North riders for letting me get a couple of rides on their privately booked shuttle.

Thursday 6/08/09

put some more work into the pump track, had a rake and ride fine tuning the trail to make it easier to pump round, still not quite finished but it is becoming more fun each time we do some work on it. Thanks Mark T

Wednesday 5/08/09

Worked on Huckleberry hound today, took the pipe from the last location up to the hairpin berm. Dug the pipe in on the pre-berm as water was collecting there. whilst i was there digging started considering the shape of the main hairpin berm, i like to take quite a high line around this one so reshaped ther berm to try and have a little bit of 'near vert' near the top edge. The shape of the berm was pretty inconsistent all the way around but i managed to get 2/3 of it shaped up. Ill see how it rides then have another go at it later.

Before

Pipe in

Aiming to get an almost skate park bowl shape.

After

Tuesday 4/08/09

More work on the Genesis pump track, have finished the basic shape, now it is time to refine. i had not been on my bike for a few days so couldn't help getting in a few laps before sundown. had lots of fun, but track is a little hard work at the mo. More fine tuning will be done this week. very happy with the bits that work. Thanks Mark T

Overall layout

nice shape rollers

started raking out the tall rollers to make them flow (still more to do)

Sunday 2/08/09

downpours of rain through saturday did not discourage riders looking to get some shuttles on Sunday. Many riders looking to get some practice in for the mudbuster DH race next weekend. So we assisted by dumping a couple of loads of pumice rock on the road to fill a mud hole rut to help keep the shuttles moving. Thanks Ott (my wife)

 

Thursday 30/07/09

Back to Huckleberry Hound to continue ongoing drainage improvements.Tackled this berm near the end of HH

dug new pipe trench

Fitted pipe

And finished it up. will need to go back to fully finish it off as i wanted some of the soil to dry before i built it up any further. I will be extending the first berm, something i could not do before as the original drainge pipe was there and was too short.

Tuesday 28/07/09

Went up to take care of the last major puddle in section 2 of Corners.

digging channel to drain the water

pipe installed

after (loosing light)

another tree to take care of, not blocking trail, but i will get rid of it.