Viewing 9 posts - 41 through 49 (of 49 total)
  • Trail Maintenance – Should we all do our part?
  • ahwiles
    Free Member

    having trotted out my ‘yes/no tread lightly guff’ on the 1st page, i feel it’s time for a confession.

    there’s a byway near my house, it’s on my local bike/run loop.

    i think it needs a bit of work to contain a water-course that over-spills in heavy weather, never mind my ‘scuffing out a drainage channel’ suggestion, this job’ll need a mattock, and some 8″ drainage pipe.

    some people would call this byway a ‘natural trail’ – is it balls.

    cakefacesmallblock
    Full Member

    I suppose one question would be; had the local deer / fox / badger got the ability to use a mattock, or had an account at Travis P, would they “fix2 it ?

    Cheeky-Monkey
    Free Member

    wherever there are formal, permitted man made trails, there are a group of pixies who maintain and improve them

    If you call me a “pixie” I’m going to take a mattock to you.

    No offence, like 😉

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    brooess
    Free Member

    I would like to see more riders help maintain the trails. It keeps the trails running well and helps to reduce the level of environmental damage we make.
    But after a couple of years on my local volunteer team I’ve come to understand there are all kinds of techniques, dos and don’ts, unintended consequences etc etc.
    So doing maintenance on your own may or may not be helpful – depending on whether you have the right knowledge and experience. IMBA is very helpful here.
    I’ve had a call from the head of our team politely pointing out that what I thought I’d done correctly was in fact a very poor job…

    We also have a maverick local trailbuilder whose work is great in someways but after rain his trails are an unrideable mess as he’s not using the known techniques…

    So DIY is all very well but be aware you might be making things worse and better to join the local volunteer team IMO, and be willing to be properly taught

    TooTall
    Free Member

    I’ve recently moved to the USA and trail maintenance here is a normal part of cycling life. Nearly every mountain bike club or group does some trail fettling at some time and it is their involvement and adoption that has pushed the landowners to accept and indeed embrace it. Many parks at city, county and state level used to ban or shun mountain bikers, but the riders stepping up and accepting some responsiblity has changed that to the better.

    unklehomered
    Free Member

    If you call me a “pixie” I’m going to take a mattock to you.

    Pah, you’ll have to find the mattock first * 😳

    *not really, we have now found the mattock.

    Scienceofficer
    Free Member

    Our loosely affiliated group generally sticks to clearance of existing trails and pursuit of badger trails, which usually need to be lifted and widened to produce something rideable. In this regard we are actually bringing more trails into use, but we keep it pretty low profile and don’t trumpet about the location of a lot of it.

    We also do some titivation of trail surfaces, mostly to improve resilience in the wet and to wooden the time of year we can ride it. Usually it’s stuff like limited scale bench cutting, stone on boggy bits, etc… We’re not big on putting berms and doubles all over the place though.

    deadkenny
    Free Member

    Well, I had a go at clearing as just got hacked off with the killer ferns that seem to have gone nuts recently. No tools but they pull up easy so just cleared them from a trail as much as I could though didn’t have time to do it all! Also dug out some glass that was ready to shred a tyre or two.

    bentudder
    Full Member

    Rather than pulling them up, a quick way to move them back and kill the fronds is to bend then at 90 degrees, snapping but not parting the stem. Much quicker, and a load less work. 🙂

Viewing 9 posts - 41 through 49 (of 49 total)

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