- [Seth] Berm Park opens in less than a month
and so a lot is happening between now and then.
Everything kind of sat there in the winter
getting rained and snowed on,
so the trails are getting buffed out and finalized
for the grand opening.
I'm working on a what-to-expect video for anyone visiting.
In the meantime, we're installing
these trailhead repair stations
in a few locations around the park
and I'm gonna show you how we do that.
The stations were provided by Park Tool Company,
the maker of these blue-handled bike tools
you probably see everywhere, including my shop.
Park Tool Company sponsored the green trail at Berm Park,
which is a super easy loop with little bridges
and rollers suitable for beginners,
and of course, kids whose parents manage
to drag them up there.
The trail is called Chain Whip and it runs
in a continuous loop right at the trailhead.
Here to help me install these trailhead repair stations
are YouTube celebrities, Calvin and Truman.
You might recognize them.
- All of this to retain the chain,
it didn't matter how much it was slapping,
it would be retained on the front
and when they start pedaling, it would be power transfer.
- [Seth] Before we can install these repair stations,
we need to pour footings to mount to,
so for starters, we're copying the bolt pattern
of the repair stand base onto a piece of sheet metal.
This will serve as a template.
So as long as we line up the bolt holes here.
- [Calvin] That's the concept.
- [Seth] We're calling it the THST.
See if you can guess what that stands for.
(upbeat music)
From here, we need to haul a bunch of tools,
concrete mix, Sonotubes, and water up to Berm Park
so we can end the day with something
to mount these stations to.
If we put it anywhere out there,
there's no more trails back that way.
There's not gonna be people riding by really fast.
After deliberating on the exact location of each stand,
we clear away the top soil and bust out that auger
I showed you last week.
So with my particular auger,
I don't know how much luck we'd with pot rock or roots,
but this looks like it was excavated at some point
so it should be a pretty easy drill.
(auger humming)
- [Calvin] Ah, man.
- Purrs like a kitten.
It's not too bad.
(upbeat music)
So you may be surprised to discover
that the eight-inch auger is perfect
for an eight-inch Sonotube.
Now Sonotube is actually a name brand,
but it's like the Kleenex of cylindrical concrete forms.
You put one of these forms where you want your footing,
back fill it, and then fill it with concrete.
You're then left with a perfect appearance-grade footing
to build on.
(upbeat music continues)
I usually just pour concrete mix in a hole
and poke at it with a stick, but this is kind of important
so we're mixing it up proper.
(smooth jazz music)
We're using gasoline because it leaves a nice finish
and evaporates quickly.
Just kidding.
This is water, and these new five gallon cans
will eventually be used for fuel once they dry out.
(smooth jazz music continues)
- So this piece here is squared,
same as the base of the trailhead station
that are gonna go inside quickcrete.
- So we're gonna let it set up
and then when it gets a little bit more firm,
we're gonna push those bolts in there and get 'em lined up
so that tomorrow we can come back
with the trailhead repair station, just bolt them down.
Now the trick here is to wait for the mix
to just start setting
and then line up the bolts for mounting.
This is where the THST comes in.
The mix hardens around the bolts
and then we can reuse the template for the next footing.
This is about all we can do today
since the concrete needs to fully set before we
can bolt anything down to it.
Knowing there'd be little to do after pouring the footings,
we came prepared.
So now we're gonna go for a ride, try and beat the clock,
try and find a place that will still sell us some food
before they close.
(upbeat music)
When I visited Park Tool a few summers ago,
these guys showed me all around
so it was great to be able to return the favor
and we even finished in time to find some really good food.
- This place is crazy.
- [Seth] Today we'll actually install the repair stations,
but one of them is custom made to be a lot shorter
than the others so kids can reach it.
We're setting it up with real bike tools,
as well as a few others, just to make it fun.
And to make it clear that this stand is a little bit
different from the other ones,
I'm making a custom label for it.
We're also adding some camera mounts to the stand
so people can use it to make memories.
- Custom short upright.
- [Seth] So that's the shorter one.
- This is the shorter one and let's see if it fits
after all our work yesterday comes through.
- Hey, that ain't bad.
The cardboard forms kind of soak with water
and just fall off, leaving a nice footing with bolts
sticking out the top, and thanks to our template,
the bases lined right up.
This is the stand we mounted lower for kids.
This should be at the right height
for anything up to a 24-inch wheel
and parents can mount their action camera
or phone to the stand to get a time lapse
or video of their kid enjoying it.
It's kind of gimmicky, but the stand itself is anything but.
I think kids are gonna have a lot of fun with this.
So let's have a closer look
at these bike repair stations, starting with the setup.
We'll address what everybody's already thinking.
I can read your minds.
(groovy music)
There's this plate here and on the plate
there are these little kind of fingers sticking out.
That's where you put the tools
and you actually get to choose where the tools go.
And if you wanna switch it out for a different tool,
you can just get a little crimp
from the hardware store and it's gonna work.
But of course, these stands come with a bunch
of tools that you might need at the bike park,
minus the tools that you could use to take the stand apart.
Doesn't have those.
These two bike grip looking thingies are where
you hang your bike from to work on it to get the wheels
off the ground so you can pedal it and everything,
and you put it up there like this, derailleur side out.
And so the front of your bike is always gonna be over here
and the back of your bike's always gonna be over here.
Tools that you would normally use at the front of the bike
should be on this side of the stand and vice versa.
At a bike park, you take a little spill,
your handlebars move, you're gonna need Allen keys
up at the front most of the time.
We take our multi-tool and we'll hang it
way up here at the front.
Pedal wrench, that's probably closer to the back
of the bike so we'll put it on this side.
Phillips head screwdriver,
unless you're taking off reflectors,
you're using this to adjust the limit screws on a derailer
and so we will put this at the back.
So Torx, actually a lot of SRAM stuff has Torx
up at the front, T25, and so we'll put it up near the front.
So now all of our tools are organized how we want them.
They were...
Cover goes up here with some security screws.
Now, like I said, this is held on with security bolts
and none of the tools on the stand
can be used to disassemble it, right.
They thought that through.
Let's say there was a greenway in a city.
Stuff is gonna get stolen, right?
Even if it doesn't get stolen the first few months,
some idiot's gonna come by with a diagonal cutter
and cut one of these off. If you climb this mountain
with a pair of diagonal cutters to steal
used bike tools that have been sitting
out in the rain, you are truly depraved.
And if somebody catches you doing it
by the way around here,
they're not gonna be happy with you at all!
Think twice before you do that.
So the location is extremely important.
I put an entire shop worth of tools
at the Ranger Station and guests could easily walk away
with them and I'd have very little idea who did it,
but nobody steals tools at the Ranger Station.
If instead of the Ranger Station, I put these tools in,
let's say, Central Park, they'd walk away pretty quickly.
So location is kind of important.
I have no doubt that some day Berm Park will suffer the loss
of a rusty tire lever or screwdriver
and you can rest assured
that the thief will receive no attention for it.
The other 99.9% of the time, visitors can rely
on these stations to straighten out their bars
or tighten something that's shook loose during their run.
We'll be adding an outdoor pump to the trailhead too
so you'll pretty much be able to leave all your stuff
at the car and ride worry free.
That's the idea.
Thanks to Park Tool Company
for making such an awesome contribution to Berm Park.
The kid trail, the repair stations,
and the custom shorty repair station
will usher in a new generation of riders
who learn how to wrench on their own bikes.
Thanks for riding with me today
and I'll see you next time.
(upbeat riding music)