We all need somewhere to ride our bikes, right? There are more and more places to
ride nowadays from private bike parks to public forests, but what most have in
common is they're built by human hands. People are often really keen to build new
trails and explore new areas, but first it's worth asking yourself is it worth
repairing and revamping the trails that you already have?
It should go without saying, but you may need permission to dig on the trails.
Don't just start digging in places where you're not sure who owns the land, because
that could land you in some legal hot-water, but also leads to land access
issues with mountain bikers. I ride here, which is Eastridge in Shropshire,
and there's a volunteer organization called the Eastridge Trail Partnership,
so that we're actually working on the trails and not just digging all over the
place so ask around. Ask local riders. Ask the local bike shop, and
see if you can get involved so that we're working together to build new trails.
Be careful not to start showing up and working on trails that you're not really
supposed to be working on. It can be a big nuisance to experienced riders when
someone shows up and starts tweaking a trail when they don't really know what
they're doing. A good example of that is this really hard section. It's kind of
rooty, rocky, off-camera section. There's a challenge to ride fast,
and someone showed up and built a berm on the outside to make it
much easier. In an ideal world, we would have trials to suit all types
of ability, so don't presume that everyone likes the same thing.
So, the tools you'll need to build or maintain trails is a shovel,
great for building jumps and moving a lot of soil around. A mattock,
really handy for digging big obstacles out of the way. Quite a wide one is
good for just grabbing stuff, so very useful tool. And then some
shears or maybe a saw, something like that to clear the bushes and
clear the branches out of the way. Sometimes a really easy
way of just revamping the trail is to go back to the line it originally
was. It's a bit of a modern occurrence, this, but trails seem to be
straightening out. I guess some of that is down to Strava, where people
are trying to chase the fastest times, but who wants to ride a trail with no
turns? So in this case here, you can see this is where everyone rides now,
but up here is the original turn, really nice turn, so that's encouraged people to
ride the old trail. You might find you might need to dig a bit of a berm or
something just to make it flow a bit better. We'll just try and block
this line off. Okay, you don't want to be laying big trees across the
tracks. That's going to catch people out, but just try and encourage
people to use the proper trail if you can. So, I'm just
going to clear some of the loose brush so that people can turn up
easier into the old line, so get rid of that. And also, I'm just going
to chop these bushes down a little bit so that people can see it a bit
easier, clear that out of the way. I'm also going to lay a branch down
just across the straight part of the trail so people are going to see that
and be encouraged to ride cool way. You see where this part
of the trail has been benched out a little bit. By that I mean sort of
cut into the camber so you can keep some grip and keep your speed across
here. The problem with that is when it rains, the water can sit in the
bottom, and that's going to leave you a puddle and obviously it's going to be
muddy, and that's going to dig out further and further. So a good little bit of
maintenance for these is, as you can see, someone's done already.
They've dug a little drainage ditch, and actually, it's got full of bits of cones
and sticks and mud, so that's not going to drain very well, so I'll just clear that
out. If that wasn't there, just dig yourself a small drainage channel so the
water rolls out of there, obviously not too big so you've still got that almost
part of a berm to ride across, but so the water can drain out of there and keep this
part of the trail working really nicely. Something that's common on fast,
hard packed downhill sections are braking bumps. This is where somebody
brakes hard and digs a little bit of a hole, and they just get worse and worse
when more riders go over them. Personally, I don't mind riding braking bumps.
Like this one's okay. You just smash through it, but if you get lots and lots
of them, you might want to think about smoothing the trail out a little bit.
Chip away at the top of this braking bump so it's not quite so severe.
It's really hard-packed. It's just been smashed into by so many wheels.
So, I'm not going to try to fill in the bottom of these dips, because I think
that stuff is just going to pull back out when people ride it. So I'm just
going to chip away at the top of that braking bump and then push the soft
stuff off to the side of the trail, and that should do the trick.
If you're building a new trail, the place to start is by looking for the flow of a
trail. I look for gradient and obstacles and try and make the trail flow as best as
possible. Even on the climbs, you don't really want to stop, start a climb.
If possible, make the corners really work together and start clearing the trail.
Here in the woods, so, actually, I try and plan my corner from tree to tree,
and then clear the space so it's rideable. A mattock is a really great tool for
chopping at stuff, for also just pulling this top layer of soft,
mossy stuff off the top. Sometimes all you can do is literally just clear the trail
using your shears and saw, and then your mattock to pull the top off
and then ride it in. It's a really good way of checking how that trail's going
to flow, and if it's a group of you, just riding it repeatedly will make that trail
work, hopefully, and pack it in. So, once you've cleared the trail, just
keep packing it in, either by riding it or by foot, but remember to keep an eye on
where you want to go down a trail. And maybe use the trees as a pin-point, so you
can look, "Okay I want to be above that tree," or, "I want to be going around that
tree," whatever. Just try and use the terrain as best as possible. Maybe you
haven't got a lot of dissent, and you're trying to widen the trail up and down,
or maybe you just want to bomb straight down. Up to you guys. That's the fun
part. When building jumps, plan the run-in and the run-out so that it works, and it's
nice and safe, and try and use hard-packed material. Either wet dirt or just
hard-packed clay is going to work really well. If you use logs and then throw dirt
on those, they're probably going to sink a little bit, and they can take a couple
days to settle down properly, unless you're using really hard dirt,
and then pack it down by foot, and then that jump should be ridable straight
away. So, I found a nice little patch of soft dirt, and I'm just going to revamp
this jump that's already here by chucking a bit more dirt on top,
shaping it, and packing it down. With a little bit of experience of building
jumps, you'll be able to try and judge properly the angle of the take-off
you need to clear that distance with the speed that you've got.
If you build the jumps too steep, they can be really kicky and give you that feel
of being bucked front wheel down. Also if the jump is soft when you hit it,
it can also do that, so try and get that angle nice and mellow to start with and
pack down the base of that jump as hard as you can.
So, there you go. There's a few tips on maintaining and building trails.
It definitely works really well for us here in my local woods.
We've got a Facebook group. Once a month, we go out and we just revamp existing
trails, so there's not always a need to build new trails. So, now you've got your
new trails and some jumps. Click up here for how to jump so you can learn how to do
it properly. And you can click down here for my video on how to bunny hop.
Everybody should be able to bunny hop. It's a key skill, or click on me to
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