More trail building

Being gainfully unemployed has led to me working on the trail pretty much full time.

Well OK, maybe not FULL time...but I'm up to about four hours a day before I get too knackered to carry on.

So far I've built more than 1/2 km and reckon I have at least another 500-600 Mt's to go until I merge with an existing trail about 40-50 mtrs above my current position.


Things were pretty slow going for a while as I had to cut a lot of full bench into rock to make the trail follow the saddle up. I also had to put a switch back in and build no less than four retaining walls.

This section is all finished now. Although its steeper than I would have liked, it drains well and makes for good riding....



Now that I am at the top of the saddle the going is much easier and I'm making good progress. In fact, I have a well defined process.

First of all the trail is walked and marked (there are white ribbons tied to trees in this photo)



Then the trail is cleared...



Then the trail is cut...



Then after triming, compaction (using our dogs fat arse) and a few days to let the soil settle there is the final test....

....the dog run....



If our dog doesn't want to run it..then the trail isn't finished...

Tomorrow I have this lot to clear....



It sure beats working for a living.....

Trail Blarzin!

Well its been raining pretty much solidly for 10 days now....

The trail has been holding up well though and the wet weather has made cutting bench and carving sandstone a whole lot easier...



Of course the rather excelent condition of the trails is mostly down to the fact that I am religously following IMBA's 10% rule wherever I can...

So this is too steep...



and this is just right....

Trail Blazing....

Despite it being the world's capital for bicycle manufacture there are no 'official' mountain bike trails in Taiwan.

The roadies are well catered for with big mountains and quiet roads, the casual riders are also represented with over 100km of nice, flat (and boring) asphalt bike paths around the city.

There is also an amazing amount of hiking, but they have mostly been built on fall lines and as a consequence have hundreds of concrete steps to navigate.

Taipei is surrounded by mountains so the potential is enormous. The trails we do have are pretty awesome, but there isn't many of them and we have to climb on the road to get to them...(via Starbucks though)

So, as a member of the gainfully unemployed I find myself with rather a lot of time on my hands.....and I have decided to do something with those hands...

Here's a few photos of the trail I'm currently building just at the back of our apartment....

This section will eventually be a berm leading into another one just off camera...



Straight bits are also needed though....



And I've got a retaining wall or two to build...



The idea is to create 2-3k medium difficulty loop so that riders just wanting a quick blast don't have to climb for an hour to get on some dirt...

Watch this space for updates....