# What Fuels Your Trail Building Passion? slocaus, Walt Dizzy, Ripenpradise, bsieb, Tr



## 50cents (Oct 30, 2014)

People who PASSIONATELY build trails do so for a number of different reasons. Since this forum deals with trail building, I thought it might be an interesting topic for us to see why people have dedicated many volunteer hours to the trial building PROCESS. 

The process of trail building has gone on since the beginning of life millions (billions?) of years ago. Animal trails have been in existence well before man stepped foot on the earth. It would be interesting to know the history of each popular mountain bike trail we ride and how it came about from the early planning stages to its current route we ride today. 

I think it will be interesting to see what guys like slocaus, Walt Dizzy, Ripenpradise, bsieb, Trail Ninja, Transition Senior, Berkeley Mike, Plumber Phil, Summit Guy, Cotharyus, tw953, leeboh, cbcbike, martinia, bweide, ABud, DaveVt, pascale27, tbmaddux as well as other builders have to say about what motivates them to dedicate their volunteer time for others to enjoy their masterpieces.


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## Summit Ridge Guy (Aug 16, 2010)

I find it fun! I find it taps my creative side which I don't get at work. It involves problem solving and engineering. The work keeps me fit and young and then you are doing all of this outside in the woods!!


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## Trail Ninja (Sep 25, 2008)

The short answer is: the craving for notoriety.
The long answer is REALLY freakin' long. When people ask "why" I usually tell the Chelsea story.

This is Chelsea. She has FASD (fetal alcohol spectrum disorder). She comes from a very poor family. She never belonged anywhere until she joined the middle school bike club. In 4 years with the club she is the only one with a perfect attendance record. She doesn't ride well & her bike isn't the best by a long shot. She has just ridden for miles in the snow, her feet are frozen, she's soaked to the skin. She pushed her bike a mile up a big hill, it's getting dark... and colder. Now we're going to ride back down that hill, in the cold, and snow, and dark. All the adults riding with us are whining and complaining about the weather and the condition of the trail and how they have to spend another $5000 on riding gear. Not Chelsea! Look at that face!

How could I not continue to build trails as long as Chelsea wants to ride them?


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## Berkeley Mike (Jan 13, 2004)

I don't like building trails. I have yard work at home aplenty. But all I have to do is drop down a trail we have constructed, as opposed to roads/trails inherited from cultures who purposes them so very differently, to understand the value of what we can do. A wheel on the dirt tells the story clearly.

So I raise money, develop Public Relations, build community, creat events, and meet the naysayers head on. Why? Not exactly sure. It fits with me somehow; the riders are my people, my teammates, friends.


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## 50cents (Oct 30, 2014)

Trail Ninja said:


> The short answer is: the craving for notoriety.
> 
> How could I not continue to build trails as long as Chelsea wants to ride them?
> 
> View attachment 952134


TN:

That is a great story. I am hoping there will be others like it.

We all know mountain biking is a great sport due to the social and physical aspects. Possibly the same story could be told by an equestrian, but it's pretty hard for a young person to come up with a horse and feed these days.


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## bsieb (Aug 23, 2003)

I have always been a serious outdoorsman, and I was first motivated by having cool singletrack trails to ride in the beautiful places in my back yard, and eventually by the vision of an alternative to logging, grazing, and other extractive industries in my area and especially on our wonderful Zuni Mountains. My hope is that recreational use will facilitate the full restoration of this lovely but badly abused resource and eco systems, and eventually restore our five flowing streams. I love to ride my bike and hang in the woods with friends, so having fun is a big part of my motivation too. :thumbsup:


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## Ridnparadise (Dec 14, 2007)

*What fuels your passion*

I often wonder that myself. Funny to catch this thread when I have a spare hour. Funny because it is my free hour to have a beer and chill after a day of digging. Not a bad time to consider such things.

I remember making little trails through the bush where I grew up from about 6 years of age. Some were for bikes and some were almost just for belly crawling.

I saw my first professionally built, off-road bike track when I was 7. The big kids made it just over the bridge from the soccer grounds and until the council cleared the scrub, it was a hive of activity with everyone racing everyone through what now would be called a pump track.

We used to ride to somewhere and then try to find a way back via creeks and open land, just to see what was there. I've done it as an adult too, just to see what was there.

The more you do that, the more you appreciate the importance of that chance for freedom. Somewhere you can go, but don't have to go to. The little places that you associate with freedom even though they may be next to busy places everyone uses. Unfortunately, over the decades you see access to our land shrinking.

Strangely, Australia with all it's open space has never been very accessible. Luckily, attitudes were casual. When I was a kid you could walk down the street or through your "neighbours" (anyone who lived within 1km of home) yard with a gun over your shoulder and it was OK unless you did something wrong. Then you got your arse kicked. However, if you wanted to find a place that was not owned by someone, you may have to sit in dad's car for many hours before the roadside fences ended.

When you add decades of bureaucratic interference to land access stress, you start to see your big world being taken away from you and everyone else. You haven't wanted anything other than to go on the land, but legally you can't anymore, because some government department controls it and says no.

When we pass I guess we all hope to have left a trail others will see and regard; whatever sort of trail you leave. There's something very challenging about leaving a trail that will survive the test of time.

In this place, that trail does not come without lots of advocacy and constructive interaction with the land manager. We work in National Park without mechanisation and have a weekly on-line reporting system that we developed with our local rangers. It may seem like a limiting work arrangement for those involved in large professional building contracts, but the alternative was getting close to exclusion from the park.

So, given all that background desire for free access to the bush, I now have the fortunate chance of being able to make and maintain trail that makes people happy. It makes me happy too. I like the digging and all the outdoor time and physical challenge as well. I love planning out trail lines, the effect of topography and ways to make riders think they want to ride a certain way in a certain place. It's also great to interact with others who love the same things and our inner core of diggers all value the company and insight of the others in the group; not just trail insight. With mateship comes constructive progress.

I guess it all adds up and you feel like you are on the crest of a MTB trail wave and that is enough to keep the passion up. That and the addiction....

Today we made this intersection















and tomorrow we ride this


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## Cotharyus (Jun 21, 2012)

I'll chime in here.

I started building trail because we couldn't find a way to run enough cattle through the woods where we wanted them to go all in a line to cut a decent cow trail right where we wanted it.

But as I got older, I got less selfish, and it became less about providing ME a place to ride (after all, there are other trails) and more about providing everyone with more opportunities to ride that are different from other places, or somehow more suitable to certain skills, or whatever. And still, to be honest, it's somehow therapeutic.


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## twd953 (Aug 21, 2008)

Here are some of my reasons for trail building in no particular order:

1. Digging/building takes me back to my childhood. My parents had 25 acres. Over the years we had a full size motocross track, full BMX track with starting gate and all, and a bunch mountain bike trails. Building and riding tracks and trails was a huge part of my childhood.
2. I am an engineer, so I like the process of designing and building things and solving problems
3. Seeing a new rider, kid or family with huge smiles on their face riding something I helped create is hugely satisfying. 
4. My kids love coming trail building with me.
5. I like being outdoors
6. I like the exercise. Gotta do something to avoid the cyclist's T-rex physique, and trail building builds the upper body. I sure as hell am not going to sit in a gym and lift weights.
7. I like giving something back to the sport that has been a huge part of my life for 25+ years
8. I like having new/better trails to ride
9. I like having legit trails to ride that were built by the mtb community for the mountain bike community where other non-sharing user groups are less likely to try claiming mountain bikes don't belong.
10. I like spending time out in the forest building with friends


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## Ridnparadise (Dec 14, 2007)

twd953 said:


> Here are some of my reasons for trail building in no particular order:
> 
> 1. Digging/building takes me back to my childhood. My parents had 25 acres. Over the years we had a full size motocross track, full BMX track with starting gate and all, and a bunch mountain bike trails. Building and riding tracks and trails was a huge part of my childhood.
> 2. I am an engineer, so I like the process of designing and building things and solving problems
> ...


Yep....


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## leeboh (Aug 5, 2011)

I like to ride good trails? Be outdoors and get some exercise. It is also a great way to get to know where all the great trails are. In our core trail group, say about 30 -40 riders, there is an encyclopedic knowledge of tons of riding. On my local, a town conservation property, there would not be almost any upkeep without me. Just picking up sticks and clearing drainage. Does not take that long and riding is so much better for it.


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## leeboh (Aug 5, 2011)

Our mt bike club ( NEMBA) has a great relationship with the town conservation department on another parcel. Miles of trails, 175' of boradwalk, new kiosk fundraising etc. I let them know I'm doing some upkeep. Not digging dirt or making a new trail. That would require some discussion. One other guy does some chainsaw work as needed to clear blowdowns. So nothing formal really. Like I said, corridor trimming, picking up sticks, branches, logs and clearing some existing drainage. They have their hands full with other conservation properties( 10) and housing/ wetland issues. Illegal atv use is another issue they have to deal with as well.


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## cbcbike (Apr 11, 2004)

twd953 said:


> Here are some of my reasons for trail building in no particular order:
> 
> 1. Digging/building takes me back to my childhood. My parents had 25 acres. Over the years we had a full size motocross track, full BMX track with starting gate and all, and a bunch mountain bike trails. Building and riding tracks and trails was a huge part of my childhood.
> 2. I am an engineer, so I like the process of designing and building things and solving problems
> ...


This sums it up for me...


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## ~martini~ (Dec 20, 2003)

I build trails for the love of being in the woods. 
I build trails for the kids. To see their smiles when they're out there.
I build trails for you. To hear your hoot'n hollar when you're out there. 
I build trails for me. To dance with the trees.


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## Walt Dizzy (Aug 18, 2003)

Short answer: I love to ride and there isn't enough trail that I can get to quickly.

Longer answer: I have a need to make stuff, and this is the only thing I've found that scratches that itch properly. I'm a mediocre home repairman, a pretty bad musician, a dangerous-to-self machinist, and I no longer care to do my own auto repairs for a variety of reasons mostly having to do with the need to show up at the agreed-upon time for my paying job. Which, come to think of it, isn't very satisfying either.

Any claim I would make to being a trail building expert should draw a skeptical guffaw. My love for the work is the opportunity to try my best, learn from my mistakes, and put trail in where time and money are scarce commodities.

Working outdoors on bike trails pulled me through depression. I won't exaggerate and say it "saved my life" but it put color and meaning back into a pretty dark and unhappy chapter that is thankfully, mostly behind me now.

Walt


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## bweide (Dec 27, 2004)

One reason I design and build trails is so there will be something I created still around when I am gone. My day job is computer programmer, so my entire life's work can be wiped out with one good magnetic pulse. However, the trails I design and build sustainably might still be around a hundred years from now with people walking on a path that my mind concieved and executed on.


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## ABud (Feb 12, 2012)

Diesel Fuel.


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## Trail Ninja (Sep 25, 2008)

bweide said:


> One reason I design and build trails is so there will be something I created still around when I am gone. My day job is computer programmer, so my entire life's work can be wiped out with one good magnetic pulse. However, the trails I design and build sustainably might still be around a hundred years from now with people walking on a path that my mind concieved and executed on.


2 years ago I had the opportunity to ride on a trail that I built 48 years ago. It was actually a very profound experience. I had been told I was dying and was on a pilgrimage of sorts. Saying my goodbyes to family & friends. Yes, I consider my first trail a friend... or family.
I'm positive that one will outlive me since it's now part of a much larger system and in a conservation area.


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## DaveVt (Jun 13, 2005)

Virtue. Put in to that which you take joy from. Just wouldn't feel right to watch trails go to **** without helping to fix them. 
Quality of life. Moved out of Stowe to a town with no dedicated bike trails....started building them. 8 years later we have 15 miles. My life is better because of bike trails in my backyard.


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## Ridnparadise (Dec 14, 2007)

Virtue for sure (nice post) and some of it is not what riders may expect. The walk home has its own virtue


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## bsieb (Aug 23, 2003)

Another thing that really inspires me is to have a whole lot of land with varying terrain to develop trails on. Sort of like a freshly stretched canvas for a painter or a big block of white marble for a sculptor. Opportunity and possibility are the parents of inspiration. Inspiration produces trails that interact well with the terrain, like composer writing a symphony for an orchestra. I'm stoked to be developing at least one, maybe two, new routes this season, to the point where the YCC crews can improve the corridors next season. Both areas are visually stunning, so plenty of eye candy to factor in. You only get one chance to design a trail system, and like someone else said earlier, you want it to be brilliantly executed and last a long time, because future riders love and enjoy it as much as you do. I still find that very energizing some 20 years down the trail.


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## pascale27 (Aug 26, 2011)

I love being in the woods....with my bike, on my snowboard, or with a McLeod. It gives me a chance to unplug....a chance to look at terrain, natural features and create something. People thank me or the small group of guys that I build with...but honestly I build stuff I want to ride. I take pride in what we do and know the stuff we build will still be around after I can no longer ride.


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## Ridnparadise (Dec 14, 2007)

After recently finishing a major project (there's actually a one day closure of old lines still to do), we are currently enjoying the chance to be trail gypsies. As satisfying as it is building new trail, the pressure to get it done ASAP and manage trail invaders can become a bit intense. Being able to target things that may not register to the average rider until they enjoy riding there more next time is really satisfying. 

Whether it is clearing invasive vines and plants, providing more interesting riding lines by trimming back branches, clearing fallen lumber, basic drainage maintenance, corner renovations, or preferably a combination of all of that over a targeted section of trail, it is so good to be able to get in and do the deed, get out and ride something better the next day. If the trail feels better (not just easier) you feel really good about the day's work. 

Now the day we close off the old section of trail that finalises the last big project will feel like another strategic hit. I'm looking forward to it and a few other things we have on our emergency repair list. Sometimes I think it is the variety that offers most satisfaction, sometimes the planning, but mostly I really like going hame after leaving an unexpected gift for riders to enjoy. Especially if I am one of them and today I was.


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## tbmaddux (May 22, 2012)

Here's my take on it from the inside of a borrow pit during our build day about 8 days ago.






Another thing that motivates is support. We're trying to get an excavator for our "Build It, Ride It!" campaign over the next few weeks. This week, anyone can show their support by sponsoring me to build trail. If you donate $25, I will build trail for 1 hour and if you donate $80 then I will build trail for 4 hours. Please check out Team Dirt's campaign and put me back in the hole to dig!

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/build-it-ride-it

We have a goal of 30 miles of trail over the next 5 years, and an excavator will get us there!


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## Ridnparadise (Dec 14, 2007)

50cents said:


> Rip:
> 
> You to this point seem to be the leader in the trail building passion category. I normally read your posts several times to understand your post. I am currently working more on trail maintenance projects and short re-routes of existing trail to reduce future erosion potential. I will be posting a new thread asking people what motivates them to volunteer for maintenance projects?


Sometimes I overthink it. Saw your other thread and have already contaminated it. Just kidding - I appreciate the interest. Probably I should put this next bit in that thread, but yesterday I went for a ride alone and had a rethink of a particularly nasty bit of trail erosion. A narrow, exposed line (70% sideslope) has collapsed despite very rocky ground. To get through you have to carefully negotiate jagged rocks and twitch the front wheel around and over stuff in a gear high enough to stall, but low enough to avoid spinning your crank into the rocks. Gets the heart rate up when clipped in for sure and it is only a blue, intermediate trail. A better solution than the one we had discussed came to me and it is probably the perfect place for keen, new volunteers to learn a few things. I am hoping to get some up there with a few of our regular crew and see how they feel when they restore what is mostly a really good trail. It should be 50m of torture that will last forever.


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## tbmaddux (May 22, 2012)

Hey 50,

Thanks! Be sure to donate! 

Lots of POV video on YouTube. The shots that Mariah and Summer did for the campaign are the only non-POV stuff I've seen there.

Here's the POV that our trail coordinator (Eric) shot for opening day (2014) of upper Highballer, which was hand built by us:

upper Highballer

and here's the same guys riding lower Highballer, which was machine built by Jason Wells of IMBA Trail Solutions and then finished/tuned by us, a lot faster, which is why we're seeking our own excavator:

lower Highballer

Here's maps on MTBproject and Trailforks. Lots more info that I've dumped at this thread in the Oregon forum.


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## tbmaddux (May 22, 2012)

Your request has highlighted the need for more. I need to get off my bike and camp a few of our features on a busy day this summer and put together something... it's just so hard since photogenic days are also great days to ride ride ride


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## Silentfoe (May 9, 2008)

I'm fairly new to trail building but this thread intrigued me so I thought I'd add my story. 

I've taken a couple weekend classes from IMBA and spent many days working with experts to learn their trade. Over the last few years I've begun building trails in my local area with a couple of groups, all legally and with permission. It was enlightening. Last year while coaching my High School team we were riding in an area near my house when it suddenly hit me what great potential the area had (we were currently riding on dirt roads). I went home that day and began the process. I learned who the landowners were and made contact with them. I spent days out in the field with the owners talking about trails, the land and basically just earning their trust. After that it was days on end with surveyor flags, walking and re-walking sections until I thought I had it right. Then it was back to the landowners to get their final approval. We adjusted some things and then got to work. Individually, with peers and also with groups on organized digs days. Since February of this year we've built nearly 4 miles of pure, flow singletrack, mostly by hand. I've personally put in 76 hours.

So why do I do it? I think I love the process. Seeing something come from nothing. To start at a row of flags and two hours later to look back on actual trail. To later hear from friends who've ridden YOUR trail, exclaim how fun it was, how much flow it had, or even where they think it could be improved. To go out on your bike on a Sunday afternoon to ride the new trail and to run into at least 5 other bikers you don't even know, riding your trail. To know that this is helping to put your town on the mountain biking map. And most of all for me, to be put on this season's race schedule as a venue for the High School mountain series. All on a trail system that wasn't there a year before. 

I think that's a small part of why I do it.


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## Ridnparadise (Dec 14, 2007)

Silentfoe said:


> I'm fairly new to trail building but this thread intrigued me so I thought I'd add my story.
> 
> I've taken a couple weekend classes from IMBA and spent many days working with experts to learn their trade. Over the last few years I've begun building trails in my local area with a couple of groups, all legally and with permission. It was enlightening. Last year while coaching my High School team we were riding in an area near my house when it suddenly hit me what great potential the area had (we were currently riding on dirt roads). I went home that day and began the process. I learned who the landowners were and made contact with them. I spent days out in the field with the owners talking about trails, the land and basically just earning their trust. After that it was days on end with surveyor flags, walking and re-walking sections until I thought I had it right. Then it was back to the landowners to get their final approval. We adjusted some things and then got to work. Individually, with peers and also with groups on organized digs days. Since February of this year we've built nearly 4 miles of pure, flow singletrack, mostly by hand. I've personally put in 76 hours.
> 
> ...


Good work. 4 miles in 2 months is a massive amount of trail. You guys must have Jim Carey's Mask. We have trails with sections that take that long to hand build 50-200m.


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## Silentfoe (May 9, 2008)

Thanks. I'd felt we'd made good progress. A lot of days it's just me out there by myself and so it blows me away when I see how much is accomplished when I have groups of 20+ out there. Right now we've even farmed out one of the sections as an Eagle Scout project.


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## bsieb (Aug 23, 2003)

Silentfoe said:


> Thanks. I'd felt we'd made good progress. A lot of days it's just me out there by myself and so it blows me away when I see how much is accomplished when I have groups of 20+ out there. Right now we've even farmed out one of the sections as an Eagle Scout project.


Good on ya Silentfoe, it's a rush, for sure! You seem like a good manager, at that rate you will have a lot of trail in a year, a decade/s.


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## Silentfoe (May 9, 2008)

I think it's pretty addictive. Some days I have a hard time choosing between a mountain bike ride or quality time with my McLeod.


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## Trail Ninja (Sep 25, 2008)

Silentfoe said:


> I think it's pretty addictive. Some days I have a hard time choosing between a mountain bike ride or quality time with my McLeod.


45 years later...
Yup, it's addictive.


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## clockwork (Dec 9, 2006)

^^^

Couldn't agree more


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## Ridnparadise (Dec 14, 2007)

If I can post this Youtube vid, it shows a trail we completed just after New Year 2015. It would have been fully opened for Christmas, but it was repeatedly damaged by poaching in adverse weather and we could not get parts stable despite being completed. About 1/4 was completed a year or so back and a tiny bit is almost unmodified from 15 years ago, but the rest was linked up top to bottom (or vice versa as it is a 2 way trail) to bypass a lot of very eroded old trail. About 1/3 was machine built using a government grant and a bike raffle sponsored by Specialized Bikes and Just Ride - our LBS.

I cannot tell you how many times this trail has been accused of being "Toooooo Wiiiide and Tooooo Smoooooth". I don't know the rider. If he went a bit faster, especially over the rhythm section near the bottom (popping 4 doubles and floating the larger tables) it would have made things a bit smoooooother. I love riding this trail, but it beats your forearms up going down(?) and makes me want to push too hard all the way up to get out to lots of our other trails. (Disclaimer: The 2 trails intersecting the top of this one are definitely rougher, but not narrower)

Scuse me if you checked in before I pressed the wrong button and wandered off. Here's the vid link






Building this trail involved dealing with all sorts of ground conditions and drainage problems. Rock here, floating stones there and deep organic mush at the bottom combined with solid annual rainfall to make this National Park trail a construction challenge. It is a blue trail until the last few hundred metres, where it merges with a green trail. It is a trail where speed is possible. Sightlines are critical. Sideslope varies from <5% to >65%. Some trees will grow a lot. Others not.

It's really hard not to be enthusiastic, excited and even desperate to get this this sort of trail up and running. The trail mapping took many months. One corner on this trail took 3 months to complete (big rock wall over a creek). 1.8m of rain fell in the 3 months after opening, requiring lots of attention. Completing this project involved closing 3km of old trail. Lots of those closures are seen in this video. Try and spot them! Getting old damaged revegetated is a particular pleasure, although not easy work. Over half was all done by hand - the rest by or LM.

We had 20+ on one closure day and one IMBA training day (which sadly committed us to 3 weeks of rectification work), but all the rest was built by 3 volunteers.

That's what fuels my passion


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## Cotharyus (Jun 21, 2012)

That's a sweet looking trail.


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## Ridnparadise (Dec 14, 2007)

Thank you. It is fun. In the following pic it is in the hills behind the footy fields. I took the pic yesterday after another big rain event (about 150mm at the trails). It's the 5th of this size or larger so far this year. As you can see, it was sunny 12 hours after it ended, finishing with a couple of hours of 90kph winds. I have no doubt it was heavily ridden today - the 5th time this year.


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## ray.vermette (Jul 16, 2008)

I liked playing with Lego as a kid. For me, trail building is Lego for adults.


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## slapheadmofo (Jun 9, 2006)

Ridnparadise said:


> That's what fuels my passion


Dude - nice job. Congrats - that looks like a really good time.

Sucks having to fix stuff instead of building new stuff though - I feel for ya.


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## bitflogger (Jan 12, 2004)

Walt Dizzy said:


> Short answer: I love to ride and there isn't enough trail that I can get to quickly.
> 
> Longer answer: I have a need to make stuff, and this is the only thing I've found that scratches that itch properly. I'm a mediocre home repairman, a pretty bad musician, a dangerous-to-self machinist, and I no longer care to do my own auto repairs for a variety of reasons mostly having to do with the need to show up at the agreed-upon time for my paying job. Which, come to think of it, isn't very satisfying either.
> 
> ...


Walter mostly said it for me but we've been doing this together for 15 years.

Trail Ninja's story rings a bell. Our ski club outreach program has kids that need a hand and love beyond the basics, and it mixes them with kids who have the best. We developed a kids MTB program there. It's totally cool to see the child from a troubled part of town or who is an adopted refugee equalized with child who arrives in a $150,000 car.

I remember being an awkward chubby kid so I tried to be helpful with one boy who's mom dropped him off at the trails. Last season his mom held back the tears and said I changed the boy's life. At that time I was getting sick of the work whether it was trail work or as club officer. That was enough to keep me at it some more. It was totally cool to realize this escape to get some exercise and be creative made such an impact on a kid.


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