Natureshaper – Full Size, Yet Packable Trail Building Tool

If you’ve ever done any significant trail building projects in the woods, there are a few things you’ll definitely be familiar with: Your tools breaking, your tools getting stolen no matter how well you hide them, and your tools being really awkward to carry on a bike. You may also be familiar with the frustration of using a small, foldable entrenching tool too: they’re okay for a bit of trail fixing here and there, but can only do so much with such a small blade. You need full size tools if you’re going to get anything built quickly or over a large area. UK rider Max Reynolds is attempting to solve all of these problems with the Natureshaper: A full size, modular trail building tool that uses connectors to attach different heads, handles, and change the length.

These may not look that exciting, but these custom made connectors are where the magic happens. The threads cinch everything down tight, and the keyways will stop anything that’s not meant to from spinning.

There are a lot of tools you can use for trail building and shaping, but the humble spade and mcleod are probably the two most powerful and important, and that’s what Max is concentrating on with this. Two different handles, a spade head, a trail tool head that’s basically like a triangular mcleod, and two shaft sections all pack down into a backpack, meaning you don’t have to worry about where to hide tools, or how to carry them.

Here are all the parts together. I mean, not together together, but in the same place as each other.

The whole thing is made from steel, with the connectors galvanised so no worries about weather getting to them for a very long time (you might doubt a modular handle, but given the ranger I was out with at the weekend was using a shovel repaired with gaffer tape several years ago, I think these will be fine).

Here it is assembled in spade form. If Transformers were from Yorkshire, this is probably the kind of thing they’d transform into.

They’re currently doing preorders, and the price for one from a limited first run of 25 sets is £299. You can read more on their website, and see a bit more on their Instagram page.

David Hayward

David started mountain biking in the 90’s, by which he means “Ineptly jumping a Saracen Kili Racer off anything available in a nearby industrial estate”. After growing up and living in some extremely flat places, David moved to Yorkshire specifically for the mountain biking. This felt like a horrible mistake at first, because the hills are so steep, but you get used to them pretty quickly. Previously, David trifled with road and BMX, but mountain bikes always won. He’s most at peace battering down a rough trail, quietly fixing everything that does to a bike, or trying to figure out if that one click of compression damping has made things marginally better or worse. The inept jumping continues to this day.