I am trying to get a bike play area (pump track / gravity track) built in Southampton Sports Centre. The people I have spoken to think it is a great idea and are in favour but want to extend my plan to include a couple of trails around the Sports Centre.

Where I can route it through woods it is fairly easy as we just need signs but I am not sure how to run it across the plain grass areas. We are not expecting massive traffic and would like to avoid armouring the trail if possible. Do I:

A) Put a couple of small posts either side of the planned trail and let the bike traffic create the surface

B) Scrape the grass off a 3 foot wide strip to show the trail

C) ?

talk to whoever mows it – posts will make their lives difficult I’d imagine.

Ridign across grass is a real pain – I’d be looking to get rid of it.

Even with little traffic you’ll end up with a very wide trail quite quickly as people try and ride aroudn any puddles/nud that does develop – you might be better biting the bullet and making it year roudn usable to encourage traffic to stick to the path.

wwwas – we would look to armour the trails where they wear most. Trouble is the cost of putting a proper surface on 5-10 miles of trails is prohibitive and also can result in over sanitised trails.

I see what you mean about mowing, I hadn’t thought of that.

Paint it

WCA – through trees etc it’s less of a problem – people can’t deviate form the route that much – it’s really the open spaces you need to concentrate on where they can just keep going aroudn an ever increases muddy puddle – you need to give them an incentive to stay on the bit you want them on.

wwwas – That is my dilema. It is a permenant trail so I can’t paint it. I need to raise the money for it so it has to be cheap.

I was thinking of having small posts with either numbers or distances on them so people want to ride to each post, sort of like slalom gates but it will be difficult to police the bits in between, especially if puddles form

Anyone got any similar trails in parks near them? How do they work?

WCA: I used to help with the old Beastway races at Eastway Cycle Circuit and one of the challenges there was creating new trails in a fairly limited area. So we often used to mark out a section of the course which went across a grassy field.

By the end of a 1hr race there’d be a path carved into it that would last for weeks!

Mark out the ideal path with temporary stakes. Go ride it, ideally with lots of people. Hey presto, one cycle track. 🙂

Crazylegs – Funny you should say that. I have just imported my GPX route I rode last night into Google Earth and as well as the lines showing my trail you can see the clear imprint from where they ran the cyclocross track!

I reckon we should be okay with a few posts in the ground to act as gates.

Weed killer, instead of painting it, spray with Glyphosate based weed killer. It’ll mark the line of the trail whilst fresh and reduce rolling resistance. Once the lines established the grass will grow back quite quickly on the areas not being ridden as it’s a non-persistant herbicide.

Just note you do need to qualified to use herbicides on other peoples property, it’s not just a case of wacking it down.

*Awaits WCA starting an “I can’t breathe! -Have I got Farmer’s Lung?” thread. 😆

scrape the top of with a spade in a kindof scything digging kinda motion, you kinda get the technique down after a while, made all our trails through the forest that way…. doesnt take as long as you think… three foot wide though might suck – I was only making singletrack about a foot to a foot and a half wide.

either that or hire a motocross bike for the day, super easy

3 miles at 3 foot wide by hand! I think not.

I like the idea of weed killer to mark the trail perhaps with paint down at the start so everyone is encouraged to ride the same line.

People tend to follow like sheep unless an obstical is put in their way, so once you get the trail line established, they will probably follow it with the odd post/arrow to prompt them at direction changes etc. Give it a few months and it’ll be obvious where you’ll need to do some armouring, drainage, enforcement of the line etc. If you’ve got worries about losing the line or people riding off in all directions, I wouldn’t bother with any obsticals or features, unless they are really easy. I still find it massively disappointing how many people tend to just ride around anything put in their way, however easy it might be. Stuff that the rest of us (a minority I sometimes think) consider a challenge to ride over/thru.

Banana – these trails are designed to be extremely family friendly so the biggest obstacle will be blades of grass. Apparently I have more chance of getting my play area built if I expand the scope to include other peoples interests and the people who’s support I need want some family trails.

My bit – http://southamptoncycle.wordpress.com/

Borrow a bike trailer
Make yourself a big vat of Napalm
Attach distribution / dripping device to vat and open valve
Ride route (helps if you can arrange for some Apocalypse now stye soundtrack
Ignite napalm
FIRE!!!!!!

Take pictures and enjoy

I’ve seen the weedkiller one done before – the track v quickly establishes itself, and no lasting damage – it’ll revert if left.

hire one of these and a wacker plate for a day

does this

Mark the edges/corners with logs/sand/stones/small children.