Still Mountain Biking?

With all these motorcycle related posts lately you might be wondering if I am still mountain biking. Well, the answer is yes! I am still doing what I can, though the volume is down a bit in the last month or so.

I did get out today to help move rock onto a new trail that is being built by contractors for us here on the eastern edge of Cornubia Forest.

What 28 tonne of rock looks like.

Three of us moved about 15 tonne (33 000lbs) of rock 500m down the new Gramzow Road trail. Not a bad effort but I will admit I did need an hour snooze after lunch but I am feeling pretty good for an old bloke, all things considered.

The pile was under half the size once we were done!

I organised a gourmet morning tea for the volunteers and the contractors (the grant budget doesn't really stretch to cover the build costs so we are helping in more ways than one) courtesey of  The RATS Cycling Club.

Subs and coffee milk. Yum.

Trailworx, the contractors are going to some trouble to retain this trail as it is on quite a steep hill, in a narrow road easement. This means there are 24 switchback turns in quite a short horizontal distance. Good fun riding down but hard yakka coming back up!

Starting the retaining.

First course complete.

This is going to be like no other trail we have around here!

A huge thanks to Shane and Mitch for coming along, on short notice and on a week day to help out. There is no way I could have moved 15 tonne on my own.

Done....

and dusted!!

Cheers.

That Time Of The Year

Yes, it is trail building time again !! 

You may remember the last few years we have worked like slaves each Saturday for 15 weeks or so turn out a new mountain bike trail here in Cornubia Forest. Well, if not have a look here and here.

The next stage in our masterplan went into action this morning as a fully paid dig. Yep, thats right. We have obtained grants that are paying for Pete from Trailworx and 10 labourers from charity group Boystown to craft the trail out of the hillside that we have carefully marked out.

And it couldn't be going better. We cleared the corridor, then Pete  punched out about 300 metres(yards) of the 1200 metres of trail that we have to build, all on the first day!!

We are scrambling along behind him, trying to clean up the untidy bits. But it is bliss to see how easy a small excavator makes things.

This is what it is looking like so far.

This trail will give a whole new feel to Cornubian expeditions. Come along on Saturday the 8th of February for the huge tidy up day, then ride it, talk about it and enjoy the free BBQ and drinks.

Oh, yeah. Put your thinking caps on as well. We need a name for this trail and we don't have long to come up with one....

Boo-Yeah!!!!!!!!!

Got My Mojo Back !

I haven't been feeling much love for trail building for the last few months. In fact, you could say I was over it big time.

Today, we had a regular planned repair day on the lower section of Wallum Froglet trail to fix some of the minor "blues" that we made before we had a solid understanding of trail building principles. That is not to say that anything was too sketchy or poorly built. Over time several sections would have deteriorated into ugly rutted puss.

So, we took responsibility for the mistakes that we made, manned up and got it done.

I must say it was actually nice to be on the business end of a mattock, shovel and rakehoe at various times this morning. The business end of a wheelbarrow....not so much!

Creating something out of nothing with a bunch of like minded mountain bikers is soothing for the soul. I really appreciated the fact that the guys who turned out this morning shared my vision for the trail and they did a fantastic job adding features to the trail that will be there long after I have parked my last mountain bike.

Massive thanks go to Geoff, Andrew, Kev and Aaron for your efforts today. May "Trail Karma" pay you back tenfold.

And me? I can hardly wait for the next trail care day now......

Cheers.

A Day In The Sun

Sunshine is finally bathing South East Queensland again and I have been out working on getting more than my fair share.

I managed a ride on Sunday morning with Dean0 that worked some of the kinks out of my arms and legs that were put in there on Saturday morning at trail care. That ride was much needed. Thanks mate.

On Saturday it had been basically just Neil and I absolutely burying ourselves with what felt like countless barrow loads of rock and gravel to keep the berm builder's efforts fed. 

Neil had the good sense to go home at 9am and afterward I was wasted for the rest of Saturday. I even suffered the embarrassing forearm cramps later at home while trying to wash my hair. And its not like washing my hair is very taxing on my strength any more!

The trail is looking awesome and you can't really blame people for wanting to go for a ride with such magnificent weather after the last 6-7 weeks of rubbish we have been dealt. Although, that rain is why the trail is looking so awesome, actually.

Thanks to the regulars again this morning. You know who you are. 

Low Flying

Not much happening around here this week. Another solid week of work left me feeling pretty run down by Friday and sure enough I have developed a bout of the dreaded "Man Flu". I am hoping it isn't a particularly virulent strain but am taking it easy in case I have the version that floored a mate a few weeks ago.

So, how do you take it easy when "infected?" By taking a morning off trail building and rolling along behind an excited bunch of 8 to 12 year old kids on muddy trails.

Not single track, just fire roads but it was still enjoyable.

While I wasn't trail building this morning I was still keen to see what the lads had done so we headed the kids ride across to Cornubia to check on the progress and help with the sausage sandwiches.

The main gully crossing is a very special area. We are trying our hardest to cross it with absolute minimum impact, only making the trail corridor just as wide as it needs to be.(above) Looking left from this spot you see a beautiful moss covered stream bed and fern laden gully.

This trail will allow riders and walkers alike to better appreciate the environment we actually live in.

The kids thought it was pretty cool too judging by the smiles on their faces as they inspected the work.

There were quite a few new faces in the group which was great to see. Ash, from Nerang, came along to lend a hand and share his experience. He added some nice rock armouring to the gully crossings.

Derek is working on a technical trail feature right at the start of the trail. This trail "qualifier" will sort the men from the single speeders.....

We soon got onto the serious business of eating sausage sandwiches at the BBQ. Once again the kids were a great help in this area!

Oh, and the low flying part? Watch this snippet from the British Superbike Series. Anyone that has ridden one of these road racing monsters knows how stupidly impossible this is.....

Miss-almost-11 got to ride her new bike today. Someone was pretty pleased with herself about it too!

Cheers and thanks for checking in.

More Diggings And New Clogs

Well, Saturday morning dawned cool, with blue skies over Cornubia. Perrrfect conditions for trail building.

The council had come to the party during the week with about 3 cubic metres of clay laced blue metal and the same of rock, so it was to be a morning of fitting berms to the already constructed benching.

The guys jumped straight into it and we managed to move most of the material by about 8:30am! Mountain bikers are fit buggers and make short work of this type of job. I think we would give paid labourers a run for their money! Enthusiasm sure makes a difference.

I had set the Go Pro up on a tree with the Gorilla Pod and took about half a bajillion photos of the guys building the first berm. While trying to stitch these together into a stop motion video my computer somehow managed to dump most of the shots so that all I was left with was 40 or so photos of Tom putting the finishing touch on the berm. It was a shame because I had the guys from the first rock until it was absolutely complete, all in focus, clear and at a cool angle. Bugger!

We managed to beat the rain with showers beginning to pass over during the last twenty minutes. With no new benching to erode, the rain would simply pack down the new berms. The "flow" of this trail build is making it an absolute pleasure to turn up at 6am each Saturday. I think the others are feeling it as well because there is an under-current of quiet excitement about where this trail is going, both physically and metaphorically.

 We retreated to the shelter, downed a few sausage sandwiches and admired with quiet satisfaction the bare spot where a few hours previously 4 tonne of rock had sat.

We are trying to come up with a new name for this section of the trail. As such, we are open to suggestions. Keep in mind that the trail it links onto is called "Resurrection". Some of the other names here are "Stupidly Happy", "Wallum Froglet" and "Jigsaw". Feel free to offer any thoughts as they will all go into a vote as we near completion, with the most popular name being assigned after approval by "the powers that be".

The trail already feels at one with it's environment..... 

Freedom.........

So, I ask you, "what am I going to do on a Saturday morning for the rest of 2012?"

"Not get up at 5am and trudge up a hillside to dig trail" is the answer!

WOO HOO!!!!!

As of Saturday the 14th of April, at about 11:30am to be precise, we locked the gate behind us after the final build day on the Wallum Froglet trail.

The guys really put in a massive effort for this last build day.

There was intensity in every one's actions. The wheel barrows full of rock and blue metal were wheeled down the hill with purpose. The empty barrows were whisked up the hill with minimal chat to be refilled. Every one wanted this thing finished, today.

In fact, we were so focused that there were no photos of the final day! It even rained on us as we cooked the wind-up BBQ! It was if the bush was saying "so what?, now piss off!"

So I snuck up there, thumbing my nose at the rain the following day to get some trail porn pictures....

This is the trail head, which will be tidied up a bit yet. But we did move 2 cubic metres(yards) of rock and about 2.5 of the 3 cubic metres(yards) of blue metal that was delivered to us.

Actually, I did get one photo of the final day. It was taken with my smart phone, after nearly 5 hours of hard slog and the lens is suitably fogged up.

Then the heavens opened up on us, forcing us to scoff our sausages and mutter under our breath. But....and it is a huge BUT, we were finished.

There were no hiding the smiles and feelings of accomplishment. I am very proud to have been involved with such a great group of people in building this trail. There is no greater indicator of passion than turning up, week after week, to hard physical work and getting nothing but enjoyment out of it!

I feel very proud and privileged to have been involved.

Thank you all.

Now, lets go ride.....................................................