I’ve had permission to improve a small section of trail, to try and stop it turning in to the annual mud-fest. Photos are shown below, the section of trail is generally ascended, is 8metres in length with a drop over the length of approx. 2metres. The ground is a mixture of sand and clay and it becomes exceptionally muddy/slippy over the Winter. My initial thoughts were to cut in 2 drainage channels, near the top and then mid-way. What do the professionals think?

among other things: there’s an awful lot of leaf-litter in there, that’ll hold onto a lot of water, and keep the sun(?!) and wind from drying the trail. Rake out the leaf-litter? (and the top few inches of mulchy compost)

French drain. Just like saying it

Can’t really tell from the pics tbh. It always comes down to basically 3 things- keeping water off the trail, getting water off the trail, and what the trail’s made of. From the gradient I’d assume the main issue is the actual surface but that’s potentially quite a lot of work to resolve…

I’d see if there’s quick wins- if it takes water from above frinstance try and divert it first, you can sometimes do a lot with very minimal drainage- and I think quite likely as ahwiles says I’d want to clean up the surface a little, you’d be amazed how much difference removing ground cover can make…

But mostly I’d be having a wee pilot dig beside the trail to see what’s under the ground. If it’s a skin of organic crap on a good substrate then a good scraping off would be the thing to do, but equally it could easily be two feet or more down to good ground and that’s a whole different ballgame.

Whereabouts is it?

That’s not a section of trial I’d put the effort into, for all the reasons north wind cites.

Leaving it as a mud fest can help as people take their own lines and keeps the future spring bracken from over growing, unless you want to trim it all down mid summer.

1 in 4 Gradient (25%)? I’d put in steps and a handrail…
(although Northwind does talk more sense).

With a 2 metre ascent over 8 metres, and clay in the soil, I’m tempted to say the best thing you could do all round is put shallow steps in, but profiled so that the outside edge had more ‘fill’ in and could potentially be climbed on the bike on the outside edge

Not easy to explain but sort of like:

Add angular (not rounded) crushed stone, with the intent of embedding the crushed stone into the existing soil. This will add shear strength (to stop tires cutting into the soft ground) as well as more traction by reinforcing the soft when wet clay. This will take a lot of stone, and will be a LOT of work!

Edit – just putting a bunch of loose crushed stone on the surface won’t work; it has to be forced into the existing soil surface.

Thanks for the replies – to answer point made:

– good point and an easy win on raking away leaf litter
– the soil is pretty much the same all the way through so digging down won’t get to better trail surface
– the trail does need effort putting in to as it’s a connector trail to more, better techy stuff
– can’t be left as a mudfest as it’s a raised section

The water is run-off from a hill and this is almost like the end point of a funnel, hence why it turns muddy so fast. The idea of cutting in steps is good but I think given the sandy content of the soil, they’d just erode. What about cutting in a gulley at the top of the trail, that runs across the trail at an angle ie in theory collecting all the water/channelling it away right at the very start point?

is the trail higher than the surrounding ground? if so just scrape back the grass and any other vegetation to allow water to run off. you’ll need to go back at least a metre.
any drainage you cut needs to be over a rake head’s width otherwise it will quickly clog up. you may also need to lay ‘persuaders’ to stop people riding through the drainage at the side of the trail, otherwise their tracks in soft ground will put the water along the trail, not away from it.

I’d rake/scrape off as much of that leaf mould as you can, to at least get down to some sort of base.
Then you could dig a drainage trench at the top of the steep section – only any use if the water is coming from further up the trail of course. If it’s coming through the hedge at the side then you’d have to put a ditch in at the base of the hedge and a cross drain at the bottom of the hill to take that water away to wherever you have fall.

Really it needs a load of hardcore too, as was said earlier it needs to be something that won’t slide or roll and big enough not to get absorbed into the ground. Crushed spar or something like that with some finer stuff on top to blind it a bit.

Bear in mind that any sort of drainage channels that you put in will need frequent clearing out, especially across the trail as traffic will drag stuff into them. You could make the cross drain as an open topped timber channel, say about 200mm wide x 150mm deep. Timber sides to stop it falling in and the timber base makes it easy to get a spade in to clean it out.

Is that distance right – only eight metres?

[video]http://vimeo.com/194849704[/video]

I’m probably not far beyond your experience in trailbuilding, but I’ve been doing a bit of trail fairy work in the past year. Everything Northwind and JoeG say sounds like stuff I didn’t know last winter. I’ve learned:

Doing small experiments in trail repair here and there will only take an hour or two for each, and if you then watch them through a few seasons it’ll teach you a lot about making effective changes.

Drainage alone might not do much if you’re leaving a potentially boggy trail surface, but it depends on surrounding grades. A well placed drain can make a positive difference, but that trail surface is still catching and retaining water.

The more rock you can put into a trail surface, the more you’re reducing its capacity to carry water. As well as giving it structure, it will also radically change the rate it dries at in wind and sun, and consequently how much of the year it stays dry for. If it’s not loads of tiny angular crushed up rock like JoeG says, then go for the biggest rocks you can. Anything you can lift with one hand is likely to just float around in the mud, getting kicked out by back wheels, horses, motorbikes, etc. The biggest rocks you can lift or roll safely are much less likely to move once you’ve put them in place, especially if you dig out a bit for each one and assemble them like a jigsaw.

A folding saw and an entrenching tool fit in your pack and can solve some trail problems in minutes.

If you build from scratch, the IMBA trailbuilding guide has some good advice, particularly on drainage and grade reversals. There’s a video series on youtube covering the basics. It’s a good foundation but won’t necessarily build fun trails. If you think of even your favourite trail centre runs, chances are they don’t follow it to the letter.

Wot Del said.

Resurrection/update…

10months my (on-going) trail work appears to be paying dividends and the trail went through last winter and now the current wet-bouts without churning up. Cutting in 3 drainage gullies and raking up leaves appears to have worked really well. I’m now facing 2 burgeoning issues and would like some advice, please:

1 – on the incline section the original muddy spot is just re-starting with the recent wet weather – I’m thinking of getting a bag of chippings to fill in the slight depression/give a patch of hard surface where water lays/tyres rip up the trail when climbing – thoughts?

2 – further up the trail where it flattens out, grass has now established on the trail over a section of 10metres. I notice the grass sections are already holding water and feeling squishy – what to do? Rake out/kill the grass? Leave it?

or option 3 – get a section of driveway grid, press in to the trail and then in-fill with gravel.

further up the trail where it flattens out, grass has now established on the trail over a section of 10metres. I notice the grass sections are already holding water and feeling squishy – what to do? Rake out/kill the grass? Leave it?

Any low off trail dig out and fill with gravel/stones and low point on the trail build up a bit so they are not low points.

Noted-thanks! I’m thinking a bag of chippings ie larger than gravel, so it’s more durable in that it’ll give a firmer bed.