Sunday May 4th: Trail build session

Thank to those who put in a couple of hours this morning, we had just the right number to achieve our aims, plus a bit more .

We started by digging-in the new way-marking post on fire road 28. This should now guide riders up the fire road rather than going straight on and missing some good sections out. It looks like there’s been a lot of traffic taking the wrong route so hopefully this should fix it. As it’s the only extra post needed so far on the VT, it looks like we got nearly right first go.

We then moved along to the “Roller Coaster” section. Here we smoothed out some of the short and wet bumps and hollows so you can now maintain your speed up the next incline. The first ramp has been smoothed on the right hand side but the left side hasn’t been touched so you can still “get some air” if you want to. The landing area is better as well now. A side slope was added where needed to assist drainage.

This is the “before” picture, although the camera angle doesn’t show the ramp very well.


This one and those below show the finished trail.

When we’d finished, we dragged forest debris and moss back to the trail to try and narrow it back to the riding line where it had widened around the wet patches, then moved back towards Luptons Leap and did some similar repairs and drainage to the bottom LH bend that takes you up to the first hill.

It was good to see so many “casual riders” enjoying the forest today…….just what we were aiming for . After lunch at The Ship (Blaxhall: very nice it was as well, and well priced), Tracey and me did about 15 miles around the forest and saw even more riders of all abilities making their way around the VT .

Shame about all the Gel Wrappers riders have dropped! If you can take a full one into the forest, please take the empty one out