I’ve got a half-finished (more like half-started) pump track in my back garden. Haven’t been able to touch it in months as the clay-ish soil has been a nightmare to work with with the amount of water in it.

I’m going to dig out the insides of the berms (and likely fill them with gravel) so that the water drains away, but the surface itself will still be rubbish. So after seeing something on facebook earlier, I’m thinking about just getting hold of a load of type 1 and chucking that down. I’m wondering if it would be enough to just use this sort of material as a surface on the features (berms and rollers) or if I’ll really need to build them entirely out of it?

The initial plan was to have the back of the berms and the like turned back to garden with plants/grass/etc. The thinking being that the plants would bind that together with a decent riding surface on the other side. Wouldn’t exactly be a major loss if that wasn’t the case though.

if anyone has any of their own backyard track building experience to share, I’d be happy to hear it – need it ready for BBQ season!

watches with interest. 🙂

Also watching with interest but in more of a ‘how do you get a pump tack in the garden passed the missus’ sorta way.

Though I do have a nice hip jump on the drive

The missus owns more bikes than I do, so it wasn’t hard 😥

The pump track at the wedding was awesome to have though 8)

So I need to buy her a couple more bi……

The pump track at the wedding was awesome to have though

..… wait, what?!

which day is BBQ season this year in the weege?

Mmmmmmm….. Burgers!

pics of pump track at wedding required or it didn’t happen!! also garden pump track pics required.

sits back and waits 😯

What consistency is the soil if you let it dry? sand or clayey?
shovel some out and leave it to dry somewhere (Your garage?)

Oh.. and what do you mean by type 1? soil or stone? I’d seriously consider concreting the finished top surface.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/hgzCM6]PBEL4781[/url] by mark_p2511, on Flickr

Dunno about the consistency – hasn’t been dry since October! Would put money on it being clay though (hence the clay chat in the first post)

Thinking of type 1 as in stoney foundation stuff

Is that Biketrackpeople’s track? It’s an overused word but you, sir, are a legend.

type 1 is crushed stone, fines to 37mm iirc. Type 2 is the same only smaller lumps. It’s pretty much what we use at glentress. (and we have MC for detailed gravel grading/choosing/raking/frowning at) but then we’re trying to make a semi-permanent, high build effort, low maintenance surface- that’s not neccesarily what you want…

Suppose the question is, how permanent? Do you want to tweak lines and shapes, add or replace features? Crushed stone and a wacker plate hire would make a very strong track but it’d be a pain in the arse to modify and needs to be done right. A rougher build’d not actually be that much quicker since you’d still want a good solid base, but easier to change/tweak. If I was building a pump track, I’d not build it too strong initially because the odds of doing it right first time would be basically zero. But also because I’d probably want to change it over time anyway for variety.

I was wondering how much sand might be in it really.. but it kinda sounds like you CBA finding out… yeah.. go for type 1 stoney foundation stuff and seriously think about concrete or something else properly all weather for the top surface. I reckon even whacker plated T1 would end up a rutted crumbly mess over your way.

stupidly dry over at MCs and it’s clay based under his field and even that never really ever got hard/dry enough (fairly decent drainage too)

As you say really NW, semi-permanent so that it can be tweaked as required. It’s only going to be a small figure-of-8 type setup so not much scope to change the layout in future, really the only tweaking will be to make sure it works as hoped

mtbel – Member

I was wondering how much sand might be in it really.. but it kinda sounds like you CBA finding out…

Having nearly been swallowed up by it, i can assure you it’s not sandy.

just added a wee bit up there ^

if it’s really that wet you’re going to need to add rock/sand or move house 😉

Ps. you riding this weekend?

Northwind, are the Glentress features build from the ground up using type 1/2 or do you use the natural stuff with that on top? Guessing the former?

I recon it’d be much less trouble just to buy a new modular pumptrack from us. Rich is now trying fiberglass for longevity.

Oh.. and what do you mean by type 1? soil or stone?

I thought he was talking diabetes! 😆

(And, yes, that’s why I’ve had a look… wonder if Northwind did too!)

If you’re willing to sell one for the same price as a few tons of gravel then I’m all ears Steven!

If this thread gets us booked for some more weddings we could probably do you a deal.

Haha fair play! You’re also going into the Cringletie House wedding brochure by the way!

if only you weren’t taken Steven

I’m sure her indoors could name a price.

On a serious note, would it be worth or even possible to put in some proper drainage?

Having just read Voldemorts comments on MC’s field maybe drainage wouldn’t help.

40mm-0mm scalpings.

My pump track is over chalk and is still unrideable most of the winter.

A layer of type1 or similar say 80mm thk or so would make a good surface. The t1 will keep a bit of moisture out and should allow a clay base to Berms to be used.

In clay You need to ensure water can drain off somewhere. You need to build up from ground level And allow water to drain off the riding surface. Create borrow pits. These will probably end up ponds but there is not much you can do if it’s a flat area but you will get nice frogs.

I’m lucky as mine is half and half which saves digging. Well it would do if it wasn’t on a slope. Mine is mainly topsoil based (using what I’ve got) and once bedded in works ok but it’s mush in the wet. And it’s pointless riding in the wet anyway as you don’t roll as well anyway.

Don’t use cement as you will need to amend it/add bits/Extend it/consider quaterpipes/fencerides/get rumbled by the missus and have to reinstate a bit of garden…

legend – Member

Northwind, are the Glentress features build from the ground up using type 1/2 or do you use the natural stuff with that on top? Guessing the former?

It depends on the ground really and also what the trail’s to do. Like, much of zoom or bust is in good dirt and it didn’t need to be armoured to the max, so large parts are just dug down. The main trailcentre stuff is generally much more armoured- we dig down til we get good dirt but then fill back in with aggregate, so you get a big solid body of material, very tough. The bigger projects like berm baby berm are machine built.

(well- it’s all built from the ground up, we tried starting in the sky but it didn’t work out 😉 )

Do you have the bible?

And a similar thread http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/trail-building-clay-question-chemist-wanted

ignore that lee likes bikes crap. if you`ve ridden before you will know what will work and where you need rollers.

Northwind is there any science behind how much you armour or dig down? a bit of terram and drainange could save you lots of stone? considering road construction – if the ground is ok you could get away with a quite thin layer of T1 and the loads are much more than the odd bike.

<all a bit off topic btw>

TBH that’s not a decision I make, I dig oles where I’m told 😆 I’ve a good eye for drains and line of sight but that’s about it so, I leave the major decisions to other folks generally when we’re doing permanent. Unengineered stuff like five year plan where we’re just smashing in as-dug I’m much happier with

There’s probably more thought in drainage and planning than digging tbh, it’s just that the armouring takes a lot of muscle. Sometimes, we’re digging where we can not where we’d choose so it can be pretty poor ground, too.

Generally what we try and do, for a permanent red/blue trail section, is dig right down to mineral soil- which can be shallow, can be fairly deep, but means the trail’s anchored and pretty much immune to frost heaving, and we’ve got to be pretty unlucky to get a seep. And then topside drains leading away from the trail or culverted under where need be. Sometimes lowside drains where the location demands but they’re not as effective and they silt up.

We don’t use much terram etc- I think there’s a resistance to importing that sort of material. But we’ve used it a little in specific locations where it works better than piping a culvert.

But this isn’t always possible, so it’s all “as is required/possible” really. It’s an annoying process tbh because often we build what looks like a really nice trail, then bury it. But GT has ridiculous wheel pressure from all levels of rider and not enough maintenance team so…

Doing a thin t1/t2 top doesn’t really work for us because of the way the surface wears… It’s not like a road where we build a finished article, normally. When we walk away we’ve built a sort of trail embryo then riding turns it into a proper trail. So it’s not just wear resistant, it’s sort of wear-positive. Over time the rideline narrows and roughens and abrades away so a thin cap can break through into the dirt beneath which causes holes and general bother. (also, lately, we’re more and more troubled with shortcutting which requires the trail bed to withstand people leaving and rejoining it- annoying) The trail lifecycle’s probably something like 10 years long, with a couple of years of being artificial and smooth, a load of years of happy mid life, then a couple of years of kind of falling apart. I like the last bit.

Most obvious when we’re working on older trails- we were deberming and draining on falla brae the other week and in quite a few places, the cap was holed and not only had that caused a hole in the trail, it was harder to fix because we couldn’t dig into the surrounds without also breaking the cap. Whereas with the approach we use now, there’d still be a tray of solid material- the hole’d be smaller and we could shape and deberm it.

None of this makes much sense for a back garden pump track though! Or probably for most trail centres.

Oh, too late for an edit- we’ve also used terram a few times when we just can’t get to a base we like- wet ground around tree roots and the like.

Personally I’d tarmac the jumps-n-berms stuff 😆

ignore that lee likes bikes crap. if you`ve ridden before you will know what will work and where you need rollers.

Northwind is there any science behind how much you armour or dig down? a bit of terram and drainange could save you lots of stone? considering road construction – if the ground is ok you could get away with a quite thin layer of T1 and the loads are much more than the odd bike.

Sorry but PTN is an excellent book with a massive amount of great advice. It’s well worth the triffling sum of $10 for the pdf download and it supports a guy who has freely shared vast amounts of info about PTs years before they were ever really being built in the UK.

There’s not that many useful parallels that can be taken from road construction and used for trails. They’re much more akin to upland footpaths than black-topped or metalled roads.

I’ve helped build the PT at Rawcliffe Bar (outside York) that a mate Craig Smith / Knacker designed. A joint venture between him, York CC and volunteer group SingletrAction. RB is mostly Type 1 with a thick layer of fines watered and whackered into place as a running surface. You might be able to get away with just Type 1 but I’d rather have the fines to create that smooth, fast surface. IT seems to have worked but like all PTs will suffer from poor riders / poor techniques / damage / weather so will need topping up and maintenance.

Alternatively you could also go for a smaller grading of stone and ask the quarry to add a bucket load or two of dust to it. The dust is the fines that are left after the crushing process and are generally a waste / not suitable engineering fill so they’re glad to be rid of it.

Personally I’d rather build from subsoil which then lets you re-shape easily but that depends on other conditions being suitable which doesn’t seem the case from OPs earlier posts.

You can always tap Knacker up for advice via the dedicated page on FB for “Rawcliffe Bar Pump Track”. Can’t recall if it’s a closed group or not but if it is that’s just to avoid spammers and crap.

Good luck with it. PTs rock 😎

MC’ll still have the PDF somewhere from when we did his. Sure he’d share.