Saturday, August 28, 2010

Finished the in-sloped turn

I dragged Toni out to help me finish the in-sloped turn.  She did a superb job and most of the work.  We came down and around a huge spotted gum.  The turn is on an area of with about a 10% sideslope, so we have bermed the outside, with the grade of the trail being sloped back into the inside edge (towards the tree in the pic) of the corner.  While this causes an issue with water not shedding off the trail properly in that spot, it also helps prevent braking through the turn as you can keep your speed up.  Additionally, the watershed for that area is quite small, I don't envisage water being an issue.
"Kookaburra Korner" - under construction

The kookaburra's came out to inspect the trail after we'd finished construction.  Snapping up the few worms etc we had dug up.  We just need a little rain now to help pack the berm down.

Huey, Dewey and Loiue, coming to inspect the track



We also caught up with a fair length of benching, both in the ingress and egress from that corner and further down the trail.

 We still have some more benching to go, about 100m, an up and over to build over a large log and some 1/2 bench with a rock cribbed wall where we had to go underneath a large tree.  The track is 100% rideable, 90% complete.

Several jobs have yet t be done to make the ride flow a little more eg a couple small berms etc.  These will be done as time permits.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Milestone Day

We managed to finish roughing the track in today, all the way through to the fire road.   We'll ride it a few times, see if the lines rides as good as it looks, then come back and bench the bits that need benching, install berms where we think it enhances flow etc, so plenty of work in front of us.

We have also coppiced a tree (Stringybark), that;s curing to be used as the "stringers" on a roll over on a large log we cross at right angles, we'll leave it a few weeks to cure before building the footings and fixing the treads.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

In-sloped turn and more track

More Track
We haven't been doing much to the trails of late, very sporadic but in the last two days we have been out there.

Yesterday I cleared and realigned more single track

In Sloped Turn
Today we were both out there, doing the same, as well as starting construction on what we hope will be a spectacular in-sloped turn around a massive Spotted Gum Tree.  Here's a pic of Toni at the top entrance to the turn, that part has been finished

That's some mighty fine benching !
of course the bottom side is were the most work is and we'll be attending to that next.  Two older trees that were partly rotted need gaps chainsawed through them, which was done and one large felled tree needs a ramp built over that... a project for another day.








Wood Pile
On another note, I finally remembered to take pic of the  pile were we scavenge wood for our trail features.  This pile is about 5 km from us and we drive right past if we are going to Grafton.  We have managed to find all the decking we need from here.  The wood is mostly hardwood dumped off cuts from a local mill.

Hopefully they keep dumping there as it's an excellent way for us to recycle timber and put it to good use.  We also gather smashed bits to use in the fire place, the next size up from kindling.  The wood is seasoned and burns well !