Kudos and a huge thank you to the crew of 10 volunteers who spent yesterday in the terrential rain building on Upper Blair Witch. 66 Hours of Volunteer time yesterday! One of the toughest weather conditions for a build in a while. It was great to see some new faces as well!
MASSIVE MASSIVE MASSIVE thanks to Coates Hire for supplying us with the machinery for the weekend and giving us an awesome discount on the hire. We appreciate the community support greatly as it will benefit us financially going forward. Thanks to Nick from Coates and also Jim from our club for setting this up. You guys are legends!
Thanks to Renae from PV for also helping us prep for the build.
What we achieved:
- Re-aligned the very end section of the trail to slow riders down (reasoning below). - Drainage along the end section. - Rebuilding of berms. - Rebuilding of trail junction with berm/rollover crossover. - Closed off one b-line to keep riders to the main trail. - Drainage along the side of the fire road to guide water off the mountain bike trails and causing eroision further down the hill. - Added a roll over at the beginning of Snipe trail to keep water from running down trail and into flora.
Reasoning behind changing up the end section: Two main reasons; Safety and Sustainability. The original track was rutting up due to the speed that riders were riding at which was causing riders to brake hard. This left this section to forma rut with the combination of water run off. By making riders lose speed and take a higher line, there will be less chance of braking occurring and also help the water run off slow.
Currently both Snipe and Upper Blair Witch are two way trails. Having riders head into Snipe at high speeds and using Upper Blair Witch as a "pre-run" was unsafe and could easily cause head on collisions. Re-adjusting the end of Upper Blair Witch assists in giving riders more time to brake if they see an oncoming rider.
Want to learn more like this? Attend our builds - they're free and you'll feel good about yourself when you ride over the stuff you built.
Don't have time to attend? - Donate via becoming a member, attending our races, skills clinics or donating via our website.
We hope to see more people at our next build on Sunday April the 22nd!
