(upbeat band music)
- Some of you remember the early days of Berm Peak.
You remember the deal I made with Mrs. Bike Hacks.
If it's behind the trees, if it's in the woods,
I can build whatever I want.
I can just build bike stuff to my heart's content.
But recently we did have a newborn son
and my two and a half year old daughter
has shown a tremendous interest in bicycles.
So Mrs. Bike Hacks finally broke down
and said I could build a little kid's bike course here.
Now, truth be told, I had already graded this huge area
above the fire pit.
But it was supposed to be for a swing set and jungle gym.
We're gonna have to improvise a little bit.
And there's some conditions to me
building a little kid's bike course right next to the house.
Condition number one, it can't look like this.
Condition number two,
the trampoline has gotta go up there too.
So it's gotta look good
and the trampoline needs to live up here.
I think we can handle that.
(motor rumbles)
So, because this track is gonna be so much bigger
than the spot I had originally graded,
I need to remove organics.
So that's loam, roots, leaves, plant matter.
Anything that's not clay or rock has gotta get removed,
because it'll rot away and get soft and ruin our trail.
Where do we put it when we're all done?
Well, you'll find out.
Now another thing we're trying to do
is get additional dirt for building berms and rollers
and other parts of the track
and we gotta dig holes for that.
Some people refer to that as a borrow pit,
because you're taking out dirt
and then you're dumping organic matter in it.
If it's any place you're gonna walk
or a place that's gonna matter,
probably don't want to do that,
because as it rots away, it's gonna settle,
and once we have all the dirt we need,
we can start shaping it, tamping it,
and ultimately tuning it up by hand.
Before we start shaping any of this work,
I have to bury a culvert underneath it
so that when the water goes down the track,
it can go underneath it and out into the woods.
Keeping the track dry is gonna make it last
a lot longer and make it a lot easier to maintain,
especially because we live in a temperate rainforest.
(upbeat rock music)
So the track's pretty much roughed out.
The excavator's parked where the trampoline is going to go.
There's a little step up over here.
Not really, it's a roller,
but it could be a place for kids to learn how to get air.
My daughter's two and a half, she's on a balance bike,
this track is gonna grow with her skills,
but I only have about an hour left to work on this today,
and so I'm gonna tamp it and see how it looks.
(groovy rock music)
(birds chirp)
(energetic bluegrass music)
Big list of things to do today.
First of all, gotta get all this stone out of the trailer.
I'm gonna do that first, because it is rather unpleasant.
So some of the stone is for appearance
and some of it is to armor the drains and slopes.
But all this stone is for a start ramp
at the top of the trail to get a little speed.
It's only gonna be like a foot high,
but it's gonna look cool.
(groovy rock music)
So what this rock feature is gonna do
is provide a mini start ramp
and the sensation, the experience of going over rocks
without all the dangerous parts about going over rocks.
This thing is packed with particulate and gravel and clay
so that there's nothing big and sharp sticking out.
They can ride over this on a balance bike
with a 12 inch wheel and it's gonna work fine.
(motors rumble)
So everything I set out to do here is pretty much done.
I have to shovel pack everything and tune it up,
but for now, I have a lot of material to move.
(upbeat bluegrass music)
So a lot of the natural areas are just getting leaves.
I'm gonna blow leaves over there
and make it look like it did.
But the more landscaped areas
are actually gonna get mulched.
So I have an entire trailer full.
I have to move all that by hand,
and then we have five tons of granite pea gravel over there
that's gonna go in the areas where people hang out.
And I'm probably gonna need another five tons.
And so this is gonna suck.
There are other areas here, particularly steep back slopes
that are gonna get seed blanket.
You lay it down and it just stays there,
keeps the moisture in, provides a little bit of shade,
and hopefully help those seeds to establish themselves
on the slope and hold it together with their roots.
(upbeat synth music)
(slow band music)
The landscaping border was the worst call ever.
Maybe if I would've done this in a different order,
it would've been worth it.
I could have expended less energy
and shovel packed this entire track.
A fifth of an acre of grading, a hundred feet of seed mat,
three tons of stone, four cubic yards of mulch,
10 tons of pea gravel,
and like 20 liters of water (upbeat rock music)
and Gatorade.
And it's time to do the finishing touches.
(shovel hits)
Toddler bike trail.
What are we gonna name it? (upbeat rock music)
- [Grandma] Wow!
- Oh!
So I suspect a lot of you
would get some pushback from your spouse
if you wanted to build a big pump track in your yard.
Well, here you go.
Here's the blueprint.
Here's how to do it and make it part of the yard,
a hangout space, a space to create memories,
a space for outdoor fun, and in my case,
a place that we can keep adding and changing and altering.
Now, is it a pump track?
Technically no.
It's a downhill track.
It starts up high and you roll all the way down.
I think that's easier for little kids on balance bikes,
but we could easily turn this into a pump track.
We could easily make it more difficult, add more features,
build trails off the top of it.
This is a base layer for a new fun area of Berm Peak
and I have plenty more space around it.
I hope you guys enjoyed this build.
I hope you learned something.
And if you didn't,
I hope you at least found it entertaining.
And if nobody watches this video,
well at least I have a pump track to show for it.
Thanks for riding with me today, and I'll see you next time.
(groovy rock music)
(machine whirring)