[Closed] Winter, a good time to trim a branch or two on your favourite trails..?

It wasn't too crappy to ride 😉 When I got home after seeing you I had to rinse all the mud and grit off my clothes in the sink before putting it in the washer!
I look forward to riding your trimmed trails. 8)

Yep, a good time of year for a spot of titivation.

In the summer I hauled a cairn of rocks next to swampy bit of a local trail. Planning to embed them and cut some drainage at some point over winter. Am worried I need twice as many rocks!

I started to cut and clear another trailette in the spring but to push it out a lot which will involve moving fallen trees!

The riding keeps getting in the way of getting on.

Am worried I need twice as many rocks!

You always need more rocks than you think! 😀

Yep Buzz, new trail time!

Although, I find it's more like uncovering old trails really. Nature reclaims them too quickly, but wether your, walking or riding or an animal it seems to me we all like similar gradients. A lot of the paths I find are ancient 🙂

And you defo need more rock! A bit of twinwall too...

I've got to get out with the saw and clear some big windfall from the last couple of years. Should have done it in the summer but did'nt have the motivation. Now it's going to be night time trail fettling, how many lumens for that? Maybe a Trout light would just burn the stuff off the trails.

Buzz, The only definite thing on Mendip is that you will always need more rock! 🙁

We were out with the folding shovels just last week. The ground is getting nicely soft for trail tweaking shenanigans.

Great time for "trailoring"! Get a wee multi tool thing for in. The garden and keep it in yer riding pack. Ride and tidy. Got plenty raking to do just now as well! Love it.

Saving my raking for the new year.

Branch removal first, then shovel/bench cutting/berms/rocking.

Let that settle in/go unnoticed then rake for Spring 😀

I prefer loppers, folding saw is OK as a backup for slightly bigger stuff.

will your lopper's deal with stuff like [url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/15253377@N00/5976905137/in/photostream ]this[/url] ruffi? 😉
I'll stick to my saw...

Folding saw is an ace bit of kit. So is a mattock. A mini mattock is good for in yer pack as well.

I also bought a £3.50 machete with a canvas guard from my local tool shop. Blunt as Hell but 10 mins with a file and oil stone had it nice & sharp 🙂

Lord knows what will happen if I meet a park ranger! 🙁

Loppers are great but why not remove the whole offending branch, that way it doesn't need doing next year..

All attempts at trail tidying are quickly destroyed by the local nimbys. Ok I get the picture but I would just be happy with them to stop booby trapping the trails that are there.

The dirty cock a roaches do that to me as well. Damn them all and hopefully those who leave big sticks/logs on the trails will develop genital warts.

[url= http://shop.tacticalthings.com/product_info.php?products_id=383&cPath=44#googlebase ]hand-chainsaws[/url] are the way to go.
£12 off ebay, can get through maybe a 10" log in a few minutes.

Has anyone reported folk leeaving logs/sticks on the trails to police? Its gotta be reckless endangerment. Its gonna be my next step with the problem but interested to hear if anyone else has done this.

Has anyone reported folk leeaving logs/sticks on the trails to police? Its gotta be reckless endangerment. Its gonna be my next step with the problem but interested to hear if anyone else has done this.

Have never considered this but I narrowly avoided a pretty nast fall down a bank after hitting a log left over the trail the other week. Was definitely deliberate as there were quite a few at regular intervals all the way down.

The thing is the trail was a footpath but I was genuinely lost and had been looking for a bridleway which was nearby. I guess nobody would have ever believed me though.

I doubt the police would be bothered about this kind of thing? That said if someone breaks a bone or worse due to a deliberate obstruction than it's pretty serious imo.

I fell out with a child menace and asked the police if I put a great big stick somewhere I know hes going to cycle and he hurts himself will I get done? Yes obviously was the answer. Surely this should apply in the woods then. Dont see a difference. Cue CSI fingerprinting logs to techno music and running through their stickman database to arrest the culprit in 1 hour......

How about we write up a very scary looking legal document we can laminate and leave on a tree or two. Anybody got the skills?

Anyways, I have a logburner so it saves me a job 😀

Where can I buy a mini mattock? And are those hand chainsaws really, any good?

I very rapidly graduated from loppers to a folding saw, using the same logic as Mugboo - Lop the branch and you're done for a few years.

I've got a fiskars Brash axe - a sort of hooked machete really, which is good for brash, but its 2ft long so I don't carry it while I'm riding, and those hand chain saws are ok for the bigger stuff that your folding saw can't handle, but they work best as a two man pull-pull arrangement.

The things I use by far the most though are the folding saw and spade.

I put the finishing touches to part one of my new project today. A steep in places, techy in others, slippery descent. Roll on Spring, it should be rideable by then 😀

Only got parts 2,3,4,5 & 6 to go!

I do worry that folks will ring the cops if they see a man walking purposefully into the woods carrying a large spade. I got distinctly furtive when collecting bucket loads of rocks, hiding behind trees when people came by. What would they imagine if they saw me?

Shallow Grave anyone?

Take a baby in a backpack, it makes you look more respectable 😆

Ebay for a mini mattock. 10quid. The tool I use most is my rake and then my wee gardeners multi tool. Got a few rocks to dig out and thats my next job.

Take a baby in a backpack, it makes you look more respectable

It works. They are too busy cooing at the baby to notice my chainsaw and hockey mask!

Obviously if it's an area you are working regularly on you might as well stash some cheapo tools 🙂

A folding saw is on my christmas list. 🙂
Pardon the ignorance but what is a mattock?

A mattock is sort of like a cross between a pick axe and a spade. Really useful for trailbuilding. Dig in/gouge out with the pick side and scrape out with the sort of spade type side. Saves a lot of digging. Google image it.

I use an old roofing hammer as a mattock.

Please, all you trailbuilders, respect landowners.Do not nick stone from walls or do other damage to the environment.

This kind of vandalism is probably going to cost us goodwill and our best "natural" trails round where I live (woody footpaths which the landowner has let us ride since forever)

Otherwise, have fun!

My kind of trailbuilding is so low key and zen like, even Janet StPorter would like it.

To me that is as important as how it rides. All my stuff is just reinstating, with a little bike related imagination, old paths that have disappeared over time. Wether they are animal or human made, I have no idea!

And nicking dry stone Walls is cheating.

I detest people calling this vandalism. Pack it in. My trails are best practice minimum impact. Come ride them and call it vandalism after that. IMBA rep had a wee look the other day and I had to point out features from 10ft away.!

Last week I was out on a long ride and chose to take in my favourite bits of local trail the pixies have been busy but seem to be bolloxing it (IMO) they're converting the challenging, interesting trails to monster billiard table smooth berms and pointless kickers...

I know who's doing it the same lads that turn up on comical DH bikes in beanie hats to ride the 30 second runs and then whinge that it's not Gnarr enough, fair enough they're building, but these goons always seemed determined to remove any real challenge from a trail and turn it into a smoothed out roller coaster, my own philosophy is let things bed down and develop their rough patches, technical sections and tricky bits "Naturally", clear some brambles (or repeatedly crush them under your wheels) and only maintain any feature that really needs it in order to be rideable...

TBH the more they build and more visible it gets to the NIMBY dog walkists in the area the higher the chance it will all get torn down, ultimately ruining the spot for those of us who use it regularly, and do maintain it but seldom add "big" features...

Winter is the time to build, but some people lack the imagination to do so subtly...

Get the same thing up my way. As Ive said my trails are low key affairs using natural features with no digging involved. Get a few dafties that have built by badger setts and jumps in the middle of walkers paths and that does no one any favours.

Anybody substantially altering a dog walking path is a tool who will spoil it for the rest of us 🙁

Bigthunder - I didn't call all trailbuilders vandals. I said dont do damage to other people's stuff, for example pulling down their walls and don't spoil the natural environment. That would be vandalism. I am sure your trails ride just lovely but that is nothing to do with my point.
Our local woods will possibly be closed off soon due to iresponsible trailbuilders.

"Dog walkists" lol

I get what yer saying cheese but theres so many people that disagree about"spoiling their environment" that its very hard to be decent. Ive been moaned at for raking up leaves - ruins the ground cover was the opinion. One mans vandal is another mans trailbuilder. I agree with you about sensible trails but please dont bring the word vandal into it. Thats for neds who scrawl on walls. How can they close off woods?

Last year some twonk used a bright spray can to scrawl BNP on trees in one of my local woods. Now that's vandalism.

Please, all you trailbuilders, respect landowners.Do not nick stone from walls or do other damage to the environment

Agreed. There is a temping dry stone wall collapsing just adjacent to the spot I'm going to be working on. But I thought it a little unethical to help it on its way and carted my rocks in from half a mile away using buckets - ow!

Just put in a new trail at Stanmer Park - mostly moving a few leaves - and lopping the odd sapling in the way 😀 - I have a hidden shovel there - but usually just rely on a pruning saw. I love putting in trails 😀

My theory is that as long as someone in each area does a little trimming and maybe a little drainage, everything rides a little better. Sometimes by trimming a bit you can move a trail out of a boggy section.

There is a gorse lined trail over near Apperley Bridge that needs some trimmage...

If Im making a trail its not unheard of for me to fix stuff like fallen walls - not for the trail but coz it neeeds done.

I get what yer saying cheese but theres so many people that disagree about"spoiling their environment" that its very hard to be decent. Ive been moaned at for raking up leaves - ruins the ground cover was the opinion. One mans vandal is another mans trailbuilder. I agree with you about sensible trails but please dont bring the word vandal into it. Thats for neds who scrawl on walls. How can they close off woods?

I see where your coming from there but in many cases theres a bit of a balance to be maintained, in my own local woods most if not all of the trails are technically "Cheeky" that is to say the OS doesn't seem to show any path of any sort, they're definately marched along by the Dog walkists as well as there being some examples of rather extensive Bike trails away from the main routes the trouble comes when people build Newer, highly visible features (that look pretty dangerous to non bikers no doubt) into trails which criss-cross the main paths...

I've only encountered one situation in these woods where I wound up rowing with some mid-life failure over the risks to his untethered Rat-Dog from bicyles.
Other than that Walkers and Bikers seem to co-exist relatively happily, the odd Tut or glare, but very few blocked or destroyed trails, my worry is that anything too extensive and Big being built too often, will draw the attention of the landowner who will probably be more sympathetic to any whiging walkers (it only takes a couple) and might go from tolerating MTBs to banning their access...

Ive a meeting with the ranger soon so hopefully will be able to make him see sense. His attitude towards logs/branches on trails was so be it. Bit of a humpty email or two exchanged with him and it transpires hes a rider as well! Wasnt gonna show him my trails due to his dark side work but then I thought why not? - Im proud of my trails and I want him to see how sensitive Ive been. Walkers and bikes can co exist and its also one of the best reasons to build trails - to seperate bikes and people. Just hope he will see sense. I dont expect it all my way but I do expect the same consideration as others. Fingers crossed. As for banning access - I just cant get my head round that. Dont think that can happen in Scotland.

Good luck dude.

Thanks man. Keep y'all posted.