Bike Park Report- Windham Mountain Bike Park- Building Kaaterskill Cruise over/under

Designing a trail system is one of the things Gravity Logic does best, just take a look at the most popular bike parks in North America and most of them have been designed and built with our assistance (and I’m super stoked to be able to now be apart of this). In a perfect scenario bike park trails don’t intersect, but sometimes trails need to cross each other, and then it’s up to the builders to get creative. About Midway down Kaaterskill Cruise, it intersects the blue jump trail Widlerness Roll, and the best place to cross it was right through of if the best tabletops on the entire trail which caused some concerns among trail crew and the locals alike. 

So our challenge as builders was to go through the jump without changing the lip or landing. To do so Keith designed a metal frame that we could set in the jump and then cover on three sides with wood to create a tunnel through the jump. Neither Gregg or I had ever built an over under feature so we were excited to see how it would turn out. Once the frame was completed, we set about removing the dirt needed to get the tunnel in place.

Once the earth was removed we set about moving the frame into place. After that we moved the dimensional lumber in and began construction on the side walls. Trail crew stayed late on their Friday afternoon to see the project through to the end so that we could open both trails for Saturday.

We completed the project without having to change the lip or landing at all, which was our goal. The tunnel allowed us to open over one mile of new trail to the public, and in doing so has increased access for beginners to get a better understanding of bike park riding on a green trail!

The crew that stayed late and made it possible! What a fun project to be apart of, bike park riding is getting better all the time in the Catskills thanks to the efforts of the Windham Mountain Bike Park Trail Crew, make sure to give them a high five the next time you’re riding there!

 

Bike Park Report- Windham Mountain Bike Park- Building Kaaterskill Cruise

I arrived at the Windham Resort in the heart of New York’s Catskill mountains in the middle of June, becoming the fourth machine operator from Gravity Logic to come lend a hand in the building of Kaaterskill Cruise, the newest trail in the Windham Mountain Bike Park. This green trail we are building was the missing piece in the existing trail system.

Windham Resort is most well known the the mountain bike community as the most recent host to UCI World Cup racing on American soil, but it’s more than just a few race tracks. Gravity Logic had spent a previous summer there, building two blue trails, Wilderness Roll a blue jump trail, and Batavia Skill a blue hybrid trail with singletrack and machine built turns. The park was missing an easy green trail to get beginner riders started in the building of the skillset that park riding takes, so that’s why we have returned in 2017 to fill the void and in the process build one of the longest green trails in a bike park here in America.

Gregg Winter was running the show on the ground when I showed up in Windham. A long time machine operator with Gravity Logic, he was overseeing the building of Kaaterskill Cruise. With four Bobcat mini excavators and operators we were busy chasing each other down the mountain, working in groups of two, one operator out front grubbing and creating the initial trail and the other following behind doing the finishing work. 

The hardest part of building a good green trail is keeping the trail in the green designation and not allowing it to become blue. No jumps no banked turns, just rollers and canted turns, it’s a great challenge for a builder to keep a trail green while making it flow and fun.

Week after week we continued to create more fun green trail for the masses to enjoy. Over the course of the five and half weeks I was in Windham we completed new sections that allowed us to open Kaaterskill Cruise farther down the mountain before tying it in to Wilderness Roll to get riders back to the bottom of the mountain. While the entire trail will not be completed and open to the public until next summer, Windham Mountain Bike Park now boasts almost 3 miles of green trail that is open to the public!

 

Building the Bachelor Bike Park- Season 4- Post 4- the completion of Rock Fall

Towards the end of season 3 we began building Rock Fall, a trail designated as a double black diamond, the most extreme designation in bike parks and ski areas. While Rock Fall is definitely the most challenging trail we’ve built yet in the bike park, and by far the best example of a downhill race track, it could’ve been designated as another black diamond trail. While it is much steeper than any of our other black trails, and also more challenging, it’s still in the grand scheme of things, not double black, the drops are small, and the jumps are caseable, but it is also much more challenging than Rattle Snake, our first black downhill trail, and most likely our best trail on the mountain at this point.

We broke ground on Rock Fall half way through the 2015 build season. To keep people from poaching the trail, we began our building below the beginning, at the first road crossing, but it’s difficult to build a brand new trail almost directly under the chair lift and not attract a lot of attention. We spent a good part of the last month of summer creating the new trail, and then put it to bed for the winter.

(upper Rock Fall, this was the first section of trail we broke in 2015)

Rock Fall was also the first trail where I was given the opportunity to lead the build, and also make decisions to follow or  not follow the flag line depending on our opinions. Up until this point  Tom had always wanted us to stick almost directly to the flag line, but after almost 3 full seasons of proving myself as a builder,  I was finally given some free reign in the decision making process. Not being someone who let’s power go to my head, anytime we found the flag line not working we came together as a group and all came up with a line we liked and then we would pick the best choice, you know democracy. In my opinion, the best trail has the character of all the builders involved, anyone that thinks they know better or best, is full of themselves. It was a great way to end the third season of building.

When we returned to the 2016 build season, we found Rock Fall buried in snow, so we focused on maintenance and other projects until the long hot days of summer melted the snow, and allowed us access to begin work again. We had a goal to complete the trail in time to use it in the Oregon Enduro Series race we were hosting at the end of August. The aim was to include every aspect of a downhill race track we could in the final build, and I think we did a great job. We’ve got big jumps, steep lines, banked and flat turns, and some small drops. It’s gonna be the most challenging trail in the system when it’s all said and done, and after a few seasons of being ridden it’s gonna be really fast.

Rock Fall is a hand built trail except for one section. In 2015 Carson Storch brought his trick jump.up to the mountain and we built him a landing so he could work on his bag of tricks when he wasn’t traveling for FMB contests. The landing was right under the chair lift and when we connected the trail I to this section. We figured why not use this as the line, so we built a step up and then 2 stepdowns with the mini excavator and they turned into the best 3 jumps on the mountain. We got Rock Fall ready to open the week before the race, we cut a section that we  are planning to build in 2017 out to save time and made a fall like e section as a go around instead. Although the trail was very soft when it was opened, it has revieced a lot of positive feedback from the community of riders, and I feel we finally built a trail that challenges even expert riders. I can’t wait to see what comes of this trail in the next few seasons.

 

Building the Bachelor Bike Park- Season 4- Post 3- plate compacting, a necessary evil in bike park trail production

(treadwork in the bike park is almost always made possible with the use of the plate compactor)

I was a trail builder for years before I became employed in it. I was lucky enough to get brought under the wings of pirate trail builders with the first bike shop I ride for back in Mt. Gretna Pennsylvania in 2003. We had access to private property on a wooded inside behind the shop, and we’re given tools and training by our “elders” but also the freedom to learn and create without much standing in our way. It was beautiful, and created a 13 year passion of putting in work, with the old mantra, no dig, no ride. I’ve built bike trails dirt jumps, and wooden features for 9 years before I had my first seasons love/hate affair with the plate compactor. It serves its purpose, creating a quick fix to get bikes on fresh trail in places like central Oregon where the soil has no clay content, and is instead made up of volcanic ash, sand, and shitty lava rock.

We use the plate compactor on every section of machine built trail we create, and as much of the single track as we can get access to. We have even had top to bottom missions on the mountain when we’ve been blessed with summer storms that create enough moisture from the fallen precipitation to make it worth the time and effort it takes to walk a heavy vibrating cumbersome machine  a few miles down the mountain over crazy terrain. It’s a chore that every member of trail crew over the years has had to put in time doing, and it’s a real test of strength and patience. Over the past 4 summers I can only guess at the amount of hours I’ve spent running said machinery, but I must be closing in on expert status at this point. 

(a behind the scenes look at what goes into treadwork with our dirt in the bike park)

The other part of the process is the need for water. The plate compactor is almost immoveable in the dry dusty soil of the Central Oregon summer. To wet the trails we use a fire truck with a 300 gallon tank to deliver water to the trail. So depending on where the trail is in he system, and where the closest water source it, it can turn into a real project, but one that is completely necessary if you plan on opening a new trail to the public without letting a winters worth of precipitation help harden the tread. One of the old school COTA (Central Oregon Trail Alliance, our regional trail advocacy group) rules to trail work is build new trail in the fall, so it can setup in ridden all winter and harden some before spring allows riders to access the trail. But in the world of commercial recreation, you are driven by the public’s need for new and more, and this leads to opening new trails as soon as they are built, which often opens up trails that are too soft to truly be enjoyed.

(Bryan watering a tread repair on Cone Run)

We have access to a few hundred feet of hose, that helps us get creative with how.deep into the woods we can water, but it’s never enough, so we do what we can where we can, and then pray for rain, which unfortunately rarely comes in the summer. It can be a laborious process, if the crew is small, but it takes time to make things right, and we do our best to be thorough and think about what we are doing when maintaining and changing existing trails.

(testing some freshly compacted trail on Cone Run)

One of the best parts about compacting sections of trail, is getting to test the trail while it’s hard and fast, it’s the best way to replicate how the tread will feel after a season or two of hardening and getting ridden. While it’s exhausting work running the plate compactor, it’s also rewarding to get those chances to ride it and make sure it works.

(Lava Flow of the top of Pine Marten, we affectionately call this the yellow brick road, which creates access to most of the upper trail system)

It’s not my favorite tool of the trade, but no matter how I feel about it the plate compactor is an integral part of trail building and maintaining in the Bachelor Bike Park, so regardless of personal preference, it’s a tool, I have had to use and master on the way to becoming an experienced trail builder. It’s crazy to think, I’ve just written an entire post about its use and importance, the minute and often overlooked details and tools that go into trail building.

 

Highlights of Trail Crew- #builderslife #mymountainbikelife

(@lobowitz walking the cat walk aka the magic carpet in the skills area)

One of the joys of being a member of a trail crew, is getting to meet, work, and ride with so many like minded individuals. Overall, trail builders represent a very small percentage of mountain bikers out there playing in the woods, and it’s always nice to associate with people who understand and even better care about your rants and raves on the subjects. It’s an opinionated group of individuals who often are far too passionate about the use of dirt, rocks, and wood to create unique, fun, and sustain trails. So most of the time we clique up and become fast friends, working together as well as hanging after work and on weekends to ride bikes, drink beers, and talk shit. It’s great, and something that helps bring me back year after year.

(@reed.huettl being a goof moving a pipe for some drainage)

Most years we see some return to trail crew, while others move on, which is great for new ideas and abilities to be brought to the team. This season was the first in 4 years that every member of trail crew had a downhill bike of his own, which in my opinion is awesome. The first season of trail crew, I was he only member who had a downhill bike, which made testing speeds of feature and trails interesting, (it’s way easier to accelerate on an cc bike or an enduro bike than a full fledged downhill bike)

(season 2 preseason shuttle laps with the snow cat on lower Lava Flow)

Over the years, we have seen a large number of guys come and go, leaving their marks and memories on the trails throughout the system. It’s been great getting to know all of them, and some of these work relationships have turned into great friendships as well.

(@erichamms @lamb_bear_pig @dscreach season 2 posers somewhere on Lava Flow)

Each season sees it’s own challenges. The work is hard, the vision differs, and communication about the job at hand doesn’t always pass clearly from ear to ear. It’s a meeting of the minds in the woods where we have to work together everyday and move towards completed tasks, most days it’s easy, but some days attitudes are high, energy is low, and/or motivation on the project at hand can be lacking. This is where teamwork and understanding what it means to be a member of a team are imperative to making the most of the project and man power. Everyone has their breaking points, some physically, some mentally, and some emotionally.

(Season 1 members of trail crew keeping street cred high on the Kiwi connector aka Cone Run)

So many different personalities, so many different riding styles and backgrounds in mountain biking, so many different opinions and work ethics, it’s amazing that we’ve never seen a full fledged fist fight in all the years. It’s come close, a wrestling match season 1, and more than a few arguments about opinions on riding and building abilities. It’s easy for cockiness to get to men’s heads, and trail crew has seen its share of these issues coming to light, but at the end of the day, it’s more about the greater good than the opinion of some.

(season 2 end of the year trail crew photo minus Matt R)

When work and pleasure mix into one in the same, life can become interesting. Almost every member of trail crew got the job because of a passion for mountain biking. Most came with little to no formal trail building experience, so the learning curve begins with learning to build together and work together, while at the same time become fit enough for 10 hour shifts 4-5 days a week for as many months as summer lasts. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.

(midday breaks are mandatory when your building trails into the sides of a volcano/mountain)

(sometimes you just gotta huddle under a tarp and drink cowboy coffee to make it through the changing weather patterns at the end of summer)

(the best way to work together, is to drink together too)

(the trail crew that builds and rides together should also eat drink and get to know each other)

(beers and friends, the real rewards of trail crew)

(competition on and off the bike)

Every year it’s different faces, but the stories and goals stay the same. To build mountain bike trails in the mountains is one of the most important passions of my life and sharing these experiences with all of these guys will remain some of he greatest memories of my mountain bike life. I am so glad that a love for riding trails has turned into a love for building trails and has become a way for me to put my college experience to use.in the real world. Becoming a trail builder has fit my personality so well, and everyone I’ve met and worked with along the way has helped shape that.

(dudes, views, and trails, this is why we do what we do)

 

Building the Bachelor Bike Park- Season 4- Post 2- the ongoing labor of love in wooden features

One of the joys of wooden features is the fact that no matter what you fasten them with, typically screws or nails, break or loosen over time and due to use. Bachelor by no means is a bike park known for its large amounts of woodwork, but there are places throughout the trail system where it exists. For the most part wooden features have answered a need for treadwork  to exist, our longest/largest wooden feature dubbed the boardwalk, is an over 300′ length of decking that we built to avoid needing to use a machine to come in and bench cut the tread wide enough to exist. The problem was that the hillside where the boardwalk is located is all sand, and any amount of earth work in the area would just lead to more sliding of the sandy hillside into the bench cut, becoming a never ending battle for trail crew to deal with. This season, with the increased focus on maintenance, we spent quite a bit more time, riding around the trail system, one or two at a time, with a backpack full of nails, screws, and hammers and drills, checking the soundness of each feature periodically throughout the season, and replacing missing hardware wherever we found it broken.

(Bryan tending to the boardwalk on one of our many maintenance missions to repair existing woodwork in the trail system)

This season, we are approaching maintenance in a different way than we had in seasons past. The past 2 summers, we had a maintenance crew who’s primary responsibility was to walk the trails with a rake, and remove loose rocks from the trails. While this is a much needed practice, since the lava rock constantly moves from the surrounding hillsides, trail maintenance in my opinion is a much bigger picture. As trail builders, it is my opinion that we should be constantly looking at existing trails, and pinpointing things to be changed to improve the ride, and creating wish lists for changes in trails, then as time allows execute these changes. One of the best ways for a bike park to stoke out its regulars, is to fix, change, or eliminate sections of trails that don’t work, and those who use these trails regularly will either see or feel the difference. In my opinion, it’s a win win, and it shows the public that the builders also see the flaws in existing trails, and see the benefits of making changes. It seems like some builders think once a trail is done, it’s done, and doesn’t need changed or improved to remain relevant. That has never been how I see trail building. Like any other art form, the process is always changing, and being flexible with those changes and executing the fixes, is like updating a piece of art. Trail building is an interesting skill set, part construction, part landscaping, part art, and all a reflection of what we as trail builders see in the terrain, and how we approach moving through it. It can be a beautiful process, if the crew works as a team, communicates, and respects the collective vision of the trail. Understanding the trail designation (green, blue, black) as well as the intended user group, and creating a trail that properly represents that, is the ultimate challenge of trail building, especially on a commercial recreation level.

(FTL woodwork, more cause for continuing maintenance on woodwork throughout the trail system)

When we built First Time Line (FTL as we affectionately call it) our first designated green trail, our goal was to build something to represent any and everything a new bike park rider would see once they decided to graduate from sunshine accelerator (chairlift) and take Pine Marten Express (chairlift to mid mountain and the top of the trail network in the bike park). This was  one of our wooden feature to do just that, low to the ground, and super wide, just a great way to introduce new riders to the way wood feels under tire. But even features on easy trails need attention and maintenance over time. So periodically, throughout the season, we revisited these features one by one in an attempt to keep them safe for the public to ride, as well as try and slow the deconstruction of these features over time.

(one of a few large and natural wood features on Dark Side of the Moon)

On Dark Side of the Moon (DSM) Kiwi Paul of Dirt Mechanics who was the main builder/designer on the trail wanted to go the all natural route when he decided to add some wooden features to this trail. Being more rugged in material used, the features required more sturdy hardware to hold them together, and beyond some destruction from fallen trees, they are definitely holding up to the test of time better than many of the dimensional lumber built features that exist on the other trails.

(run-in to the option line drop at the bottom of Big Wood)

(run-out/landing for the Big Wood option line)

• While this was a new construction project, in an entry otherwise on maintenance of wooden features, it still fits the bill, so I’m gonna write about it. This is the first feature in the bike park where we mixed dimensional lumber and natural wood into one wooden feature. Aesthetically, it’s pleasing and beyond that it’s big and sturdy. It’s also the biggest drop in the trail system (sure there is a 7′ drop in the skills area, but those are fluff features, where as this is real time and real speed. It is a step in the “right direction” in my opinion on features we’ve built so far. It’s big and tests your courage, but safe and built to work right into the natural terrain and slope of the hillside. One of my least favorite things about jumps and features in too many trails are the vision of a feature that doesn’t fit into the natural lay of the land. Builders seem to get wild hairs up their asses and on a manic whim decide to throw in a feature to show their skills. My personal viewpoint on features are they only belong where they work in “organically” to the terrain and for the natural flow of the land, and I feel like this feature did a great job of doing just that.

 

Building the Bachelor Bike Park- Season 4- Post 1- back at it again

July, the snow in the Oregon Cascades has once again receded enough to get back to one of my favorite times of the year, the return to trail crew, and work on the Bachelor Bike Park. This marks the 4th summer since the day we broke ground back in 2013. We are entering our third summer of operations open to the public, and in that time we have worked hard to maintain and change old trails, while at the same time expanding the trail system, in an attempt to create terrain that truly entertains all abilities and styles of riders looking for a bike park experience. It’s a labor of love, one which can build you up and/or break you down, sometimes all in the same day, or the same project. Being one of the last 2 members of the original trail crew, I have seen many come and go, and stuck it out through all the ups and downs. This year, I am looking forward to a few things. With no new trails on the master plan for this season, trail crew focus for the season is on finishing our first truly dedicated downhill race track, Rock Fall, a trail we put to bed last season about halfway done. Beyond that, and until it is melted out enough to work on, we will focus primarily on updates and changes to the existing trail network. I for one am really happy to put a bunch of our focus into maintenance and changes, as after 3 seasons of riding what we built, we can all see things we’d like to see change, to increase speed and flow where possible, fix jumps and features that don’t work as well as they could, add new options to existing trails, and take out unneeded sections where we are allowed to do so.

(prepping the skills park for the 2016 season)

Work begins for the most part in the skills park. Last year was the first season we built a skills area, and this year the plan is to improve and expand on what we did before. This begins with a 3 foot drop and a three pack of tabletops. It’s a great place for trail crew to harden their hands with tools and work out the bugs of operating machinery and moving dirt for the first time for some of us all season.

(@bruce_freakin_lee aka Brystar aka Bryan flexing his machine operator muscles)

We divide our time between the skills park and getting out to the trail system and checking out the affects of another year of changing seasons and precipitation on the trails. This involves chainsaw work clearing fallen branches and trees, drainage checking, changing, and cleaning, and all the other joys of maintaining a trail system built on the side of a volcano (reads a never ending battle of baby-head-lava-rock removal).

(Culvert placement on Lava Flow)

Most people who ride bike park, only think about the “flare” the jumps, the drops, the woodwork, all things that make it “gnarly” or whatever adjective you use to boost your ego on social media. What more than 90℅ of them don’t wrap their minds around is the fact that most of the things we do deal more with removing water from the trail, and maintaining the tread that connects the features, and most riders never notice the changes we’ve made. I don’t know how many small projects we’ve worked on that no one notices because it’s not a new feature, but never the less, improves the way the trail works and rides.

(Walking the 5′ drop to the top of the skills park with the sky jack)

It takes us a few weeks to complete this seasons version of the skills park, but when we are done, we have 3′, 5′, and 7′ drop, the 3 pack of tabletops, a “slalom” line and then a few wooden kickers with nice big “infinite” backsides for your sending pleasure. When it’s all said and done, it’s a big improvement on what we built last year, so all in all a step in he right direction, and judging from its use, popular with the public as well!

( @lobowitz aka Zach and @reed.huettl aka Reed celebrating the opening of the skills park for the 2016 season)!

(3′, 5′, and 7′ drop line ready to ride on the skills park at the Bachelor Bike Park)

( @alex_grediagin in the slalom line during one of our cross country races)

We open the park for the season, #mtbachelorstoked to be back on the hill doing what we love, building trails and doing hotlaps with our friends in the park!

 

Building the Bachelor Bike Park- Season 3- Post 1- So it Begins Again

(Trail crew discussing the start of a new season of building on Mt. Bachelor)

June begins, and the low snow levels have allow us to once again return to the expansion of the Bachelor Bike Park. So begins our third season of trail construction. This is the earliest we have been able to start trail work since this project began in 2013. It feels great to be back at work on the ever expanding trail network that is becoming the bike park. We begin the building season on  2 new green trails off of the Sunshine Accelerator chairlift.  

With 2 machine operators working on the 2 new trails we spend our days chasing the alternating machines as they make their way towards their first goals of the season.

First Time Line FTL 1 of 2 green trails we are currently building to make the progression towards the rest of the mountain easier for our first time guests will wind down from Sunshine Accelerator back towards West Village Lodge. With fun turns and small jumps it will offer a mellow fun bike park experiencing that we were lacking last season. So far the trail is riding super sweet with great flow and no need to pedal to have fun.

Here’s another turn on FTL, this trail will also be a great warmup for more experienced riders to start their day on and prepare to move up the mountain towards the more advanced trails in the system.

The second trail we are building right now is unnamed but as of now we are calling it Level 10 Swizzle Stick Master (After a random sign we found in the woods the other day). This short connector trail will get you from Sunshine Accelerator to the lowest section of Lava Flow. With bigger turns in the trees this will be the next step in progression in the trail system. We connected this trail to Lava Flow at the end of this week and our now moving forward on making some more changes to Lower Lava Flow before we begin working on expanding the small skills area we started last season.

A couple of the sweet trail crew rides we will be using to test the trails this season. The crew has lost a few members and gained some new faces. New riders with different styles and mountain bike experience should add new flavor to the old trail crew, it’s looking to be a great season on the hill building this bike park.

(Dan getting some pre-season turns on Blade Runner)

Bikes and trails, summer has officially begun and I am looking forward to a great season of trail expansion in the Bachelor Bike Park.