Winter Drainage Work

10am at the Woodlot. I meet up with Ryan and we head up to look at the entrance of Giant Killer to determine how to handle the issue of water flowing down the trail when ever there is heavy rainfall.

On our way up we fixed a few quick spots on the trail and then at the top we discussed some options and went to work on the most appropriate solution to the problem. In no time at all, it was fixed. A HUGE drain was put in as well as a grade reversal/damn to stop water and make sure it flows where we want it to.

After the water control was complete, we discussed how to fix the current state of the rooty mess at the beginning of the trail. My guess is that after a couple days worth of rock work, the trail will gain its flow back and you'll be able to ride the first section of the trail without any worries of going down on a root.

By the time we had finished the drain and the other little stuff we were both soaked to the bone from the heavy rainfall and were getting cold pretty quick. It didn't take up long to decided we'd just ride down Giant Killer, Bloggy and Shotgun to our vehicles.

I'm glad we were able to get the drainage work complete so that now the real rock work can be installed at the top of the trail. It's been a long time coming but should be well worth the wait.

Slushy Mucky Shore

I was out in the North Van area to drop off my shock (Rune) for servicing. Being that I'm not out here all that often and I had a few hours to kill, I decided to go for a ride up Fromme. I'd heard that the snow level was pretty low but it didn't deter me from having a go on Fromme.

Basically the snow starts at the 2nd gate at the water towers and once you hit the first switch-back you have to walk due to ZERO traction. Lately Bobsled has seen a lot of attention and was rebuilt to be a north shore DH pump track. I figured what better time to give it a go than in the snow, on my little Trance, with clipless pedals. One thing is for sure, this trail is a total hoot. Lots of twists and turn and many places to pop and boost for a little added fun. I did however have a bail of enormous proportions off a bridge. It involved a big wedge of ice diagonally across the trail in a corner before a bridge that just doesn't quite line up. I knew as I blindly came around the corner that I was going down. I was just lucky I picked a soft spot to land.

With my bail under my belt and the trail over, I climbed a little further up to ride Natural High which was a load of fun and then I rode a trail I'd never really noticed before Imonator which I'd refer to as an old school skinny wood laden trail that was a load of fun to ride but a real eye opener with clipless pedals. Next time I'm wearing flats when I ride that trail. I know Rob would love to ride this trail.

From there it hooks up to Baden Powell and then out to my car. I was soaked to the bone from the rain and covered with a bit of mud from my bail on Bobsled, but I had a smile on my face having just rode two new trails.

Good times on the slushy mucky shore.

Mucky fun

The weather today started off rather nice: overcast and a little bit of wind. I was free in the late afternoon, so I decided to hit The Woodlot on my Legend.

There weren't really any indications of snow down low on the hill, but once I was a third of the way up the snow and slush appeared on the climb. I decided to avoid the inevitable death march through the snow that would greet me at the powerlines so I climbed to Blood Donor.

At Donor I started my descent with few patches of snow here and there in the corners which made for a few exciting corner drifts as I negotiated the upper part of the trail. Given that there had been a lot of wind lately, I was pleasantly surprised there weren't any blow downs on the trail at all.

I then stopped at the top of Giant Killer to have a look at a few 'problem areas' that I hope to be able to address with Ryan in the coming weeks. Apart fromthe very top of Giant Killer I'd say the trails has not been in this good of shape for MANY years. The trail has seen a fair amount of drainage work and sculpting that has made the trail gain back the flow it's lacked for quite some time. I was truly impressed the work that has been done lately.

I then made my way over to Snakes and Ladders and along the way it began to rain. I guess the gods knew I intended to do some trail work and deserved to be rained on. I rode down the to bridge that was broken a few weeks ago and began working on bracing the bridge I had built. Due to the length of the span this bridge covers and the lack of large diameter stringers available, I had to used mid size wood for the bridge. These mid size stringers flex a little too much for my peace of mind, so I put in a large brace near the center of the span. The bridge is now solid as a rock and only needs a hour or so to finish the approach and clean-up and it will be open for business.

The remainder of Snakes is in okay shape and really only needs a little little raking and TLC to be buff once again. Considering I have not needed to touch the trail for close to a year I'd say I am quite pleased. Next time I come up, I need to bring some gas, bar oil and a chain file for my saw and a few trail supplies (nails and a rake).

The ride down Shotgun was a drift fest for me. I seem to have picked up a few corner techniques that is allowing me to ride a lot faster in turns and drift my bike trough the corners with a little more confidence.

Good times in the wet muck.

Escape to the snow

I managed to sneak out for a quick rip today. I had a very small window of time where I had no commitments, so I grabbed my pedally bike (Trance) and quickly drove to Maple Ridge park. I pedaled from the park into Golden Ears park via the horse trails and up towards Mike Lake.

For the first time ever I forgot my hydration pack. This goes to show just how big of a rush I was to get out and ride (either that or I was just so excited to ride). Fortunately I had a spare set of gloves and a toque in my car for the ride. The climb was rather pleasant and I rode at an easy pace. After a while I ran into more and more snow on the trail until it became a real pain to ride on, so at that point I turned my bike around and headed home.

It took me next to no time to get back to my car and back to reality. Start to finish my ride was an hour and a half. I felt refreshed and ready to get back to the grind.

Dawn Patrol

I was up early today, so early that I watched the sun rise over the mountains to the east and climb in sky warming up the cool morning air as I climbed up the mountain. It's been months since I've actually seen the sunrise. Every time I see it I make sure to pause a moment or two to take it in.

At Goldmine (the top of The Woodlot) there were a few centimeters of snow which made the ride oh so entertaining on the frozen icy roots.

Goldmine is the trail that I always use as the barometer of a bike's performance. I use it as the shakedown run for any new bike I get. Todays run down Goldmine solidified my opinion of the Legend MkII. This bike is truly fantastic. It's fast in the rough stuff, corners really well and has a solid pedal platform which makes picking up speed a very simple task. One thing I did notice is that it sits higher in it's travel than the MkI which means less pedal strikes (thumbs up).

There is one section of trail where I've never been able to go completely brakeless until today. I was able to pick a line and stay on the gas with 100% confidence and then lay the bike over in the corners without any issues.

After Goldmine I hit Snakes and Ladders where I've been doing some work recently to fix a broken bridge. Today I rolled up on the section to do some more work only to find that another tree had fallen in the area directly onto the teeter totter. Thankfully Tim and Rob had solidly built the teeter so once I cut the tree off, no repairs were needed. I then got to work framing and gathering rung from the broken ladder bridges. By the time I left today the ladder was fully runged and rideable. I'd put it at 80% fixed and rideable for those that really want to.

I only had time to put two nails in each piece of rung and then I packed up my tools and headed home. Shotgun was in great shape but hadn't quite thawed by the time I made my way down so in spots I was little sideways over frozen roots.

The weather today was amazing and when coupled with a decent ride on a fabulous bike and a productive morning of building, I'd say I was one happy rider at the end of the day.

Legend MkII - Installation Lap

Today I took my Legend MkII for it's first ride. I must say I love the look of this bike.

The build turn out to be rather light.

A little artistic flair

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My ride took me to The Woodlot. I made my way to Karpenter, Blood Donor, B-Line, Bloggy Style and finally Shotgun. Usually the first ride on a bike requires a bunch of tweaking of suspension settings and adjustments, but today I didn't touch a thing. I left all the settings on this bike the same as they were when they were on my Legend MkI and I don't really see myself adjusting anything in the near future.

The MkII rides really well. One thing I really noticed is that on roots and larger square edged hits, I just kept rolling over things and kept my momentum up. I'm not sure how he did it, but Keith made a good bike even better with this 2nd Gen Legend.

One this I should also mention is that people are starting to build again at The Woodlot. Tim is back to work on Karpenter and Lou, Eric, Garrett and ??? fixed the broken bridges on Blood Donor. Seeing this new building took this ride from good to great.

Krazy Karpenter

Blood Donor

Back-up Plans

Today I met up with Ryan late late in the afternoon at The Woodlot to start work on fixing a bridge on Snakes and Ladders that was in pieces from a tree falling on it.

I brought some nails, a hammer and my chainsaw. Once we were at the bridge I went to start up my saw and on my first pull, the starter cord snapped. I let out a BIG F-Bomb!! and then thought of how we could still get some trail work done.

Ryan and I went for a walk to my stash of tools where I have my bush saw. It's a McCulloch Eager Beaver that I inherited. I hadn't started it in over 8 months and had never used it on the trail, but she started without any muss or fuss and Ryan and I were able to dismantle the broken bridge and get the necessary materials for the replacement bridge. My parents always raised me to be prepared for the unexpected and today that preparation paid off.

A before and after summary

We packed up when we ran out of light and rode down to our vehicles a mellow pace because we couldn't really see the trail. It was was nice to be able to get out on the bike, but a little sad that I had to spend the entire time doing repairs to a broken structure.

Hopefully my next ride will involve more riding than work.

Sunrise ride: started good...ended bad.

This morning I was up before the sun and on my way to The Woodlot. I had a few hours to escape reality and I could think of nothing better than sneaking in a ride at my favorite hill.

I arrived just as the sun was starting to rise over the mountains and was greeted with this breathtaking view.

I climbed made my way to the top aboard my trusty Rune. At Cabin trail I geared up and let go of the brakes. One this is for certain, the Rune is WAY FASTER on the DH than my Trance. It had been a while since I was up on Cabin trail but overall things looked okay with only one or two spots that need some TLC. It's an all natural roots rocky rip that keeps getting better every time I ride it.

I then made my way to Snakes and Ladders where I spent a little time removing some trees that had fallen across the trail in the last few weeks and needed to be removed. I grabbed a stashed axe I had nearby and had at the errant trees.

A few trees that were blocking the trail

After the tree removal I rode down Snakes and soon discovered that mother nature had played a nasty joke lately on the trail and broke one of the bridges on the trail leading to the teeter totter and long log ride.



Considering the amount of woodwork on the trail and the number of bridges that have the potential to get broken, we've been really quite lucky with Snakes and Ladders. I hope to get back up here soon to fix this bridge by either replacing it, or piecing it back together with braces.

After viewing this scene of carnage, the rest of my ride kinda sucked. I rode the remainder of Snakes and then hit Bloggy Style that had seen a Freelap race down it last week which caused a whole pile of damage. This put me in an even better mood. Shotgun was alright but at my car I had the image of the broken bridge on Snakes in my mind. I guess I'm just forced to do a little more building in the near future.

Neapolitan Wood

This is the first real ride I've had in over a month, even though I have been up to the Woodlot 5 times in the past 30 days. Those 5 times were spent building on Giant Killer to replace a bridge section that had degraded over time and needed some tender loving care. It had been raining hard for the last 4 days so there was no snow on the trails and they were in great condition for a ride.

My route took me up Stovetop and then the road to the powerlines. My bike of choice today was my Trance which proved to be a good choice for the climb. The recent snow and wind has resulted in a fair number of fallen trees on the trails that will need to be cut out with a chainsaw (Stovetop, Blood Donor, Snakes and Ladders).

At the top, I geared up and snapped a shot of my new ride. It's a fun bike that gets you to the top with ease, however I just need to tune it a bit more for the DH side of my riding.

Once I was geared up, I made my way to Krazy Karpenter which was a lot of fun but a little hairy at times given that I have a hard compound summer tire on the front of my bike. After Karpenter it was up to Blood Donor. Overall it is in okay shape but for the fallen trees mid way down the trail.


So after Blood Donor I rode down to Giant Killer which I may be riding a fair bit more in the future to do trail work with Ryan. I stopped at the new bridge section to snap a few pictures and take in the aroma of the cedar of which the scent can be detected from far up the trail. The Neapolitan color of the wood is quite magnificent in person.

After Giant Killer I traversed over to Snakes and Ladders where I discovered that even more trees had fallen in the forest. Fortunately the trail is not blocked, but about 8 trees are snagged and hanging dead in the air above the trail and therefore need to be removed before they fall on their own. Apart from the trees, the trail is in good shape with only touch of dirt work/rocking needed on one jump landing.

I had a great ride on Snakes and then rode over to Shotgun which is sooooo damn fast nowadays and my ride was done. In the parking area I bumped into Cory so we talked a bit about bikes and trails and I departed home.

It was really nice getting out for a real ride and a little bit of trail work rather than it being the other way around. It was satisfying to see the fresh built woodwork of the bridge with the snow melted away on Giant Killer.

Mission Complete - Giant Killer Pt.5

Finally it is complete.

Ryan and I met today at The Woodlot around 8:30 in this chilly morning. In the last few days we've had a little snow and the weather has turned down right cold.

I fixed my chainsaw since the last time I was building so I had it with me in my pack with one mission in mind. FINISH THE LADDER. Ryan and I climbed at a nice easy pace to the build location and took in the sweet view along the way.

The view today.

So once we were at the building area we went straight to work on the bridge. Our plan: trim the wood edges of the bridge, rock in the beginning, rock in the end, remove some dead trees, modify the exit with the removed trees, tweak a few things for flow and fix the ladder section a little further down the trail. Today EVERYTHING went as planned. There were zero hiccups and all the work was done within 3 hours.

Overall, the bridge took longer than I had anticipated to complete, but the goal was to replace the old bridge with one that will last a long time and not need any additional work for many years. This new bridge is solid and adds a much needed easy line for those that don't want to ride the log ride. I found it better to take our time than to rush the work and in the end the results speak for themselves.

A before and after of some stump removal. This section now FLOWS!!