chainsaw trail day at Calvin Crest

Packed up bob with tools and supplies and headed out to Calvin Crest Saturday. Great ride out and back.

We had five chainsaws in action with the Wolfe clan volunteers - a very nice family. I was included to feel like one of the family. This was the first work done on the trail beyond marking. Put in 40 work hrs and knocked out over half the heavy cutting in the cedars. Guessing a little less than half a mile.

For several reasons, this trail will progress more slowly than expected. I think there will be less than 3 miles completed by the end of 08. Hopefully, 09 will have enough mtb trail to make it worth the trip. The trail will be used by campers, hunters, 3D archery, etc. in the mean time.

The rivers are way up. Here is the Platte at hwy 77 around 09:00.

And high water on the Elkhorn at hwy 36 around 18:00.

30 May Manawa Update (Very Wet)

Lake Manawa Trails are super saturated right now to say the least. 2.5 inches of rain last night and early this morning.

Please don't try to ride there for several days. The race promoters are in rescheduling discussions with the Psycowpath Director as I type. Watch the Nebraska Cycling site for news.

One puddle on your way out of the south long section is atleast 15ft wide right now, probably 2 feet deep in the middle of the dip. (Where the black pipe is sitting)

Both sides of the trail where you cross the road are covered with water for 35 feet or more each side. Picture attached doesn't really do it justice.

tp interior climb treadwork

Glad to hear there was a good turnout for the Manawa Trailwork yesterday. I intended to ride out but after a couple hours at Tranquility, decided to continue there and ended up with about 5.5 hrs and 130+ yds of tread widening and about half a dozen nick/grade reversals shored up or installed on the southhill interior climb.

Many were skipping this climb b/c of the ruts/sod clumps in the tread. Though more work could be done, this is worth the effort to climb, especially with Chris widening the tread for the sweeping downhill just before the cement water runoff crossing.

Looking back at the second switchback.



Looking up from the fourth switchback. This is the hard part of the climb where the gearies drop a gear and the ss'rs stand and pass them. 8-)


Rerouted after the fifth and sixth switchbacks for natural grade reversals. This section traverses a larger water route that remains stable b/c of the grass. This section will probably require those who sit and spin to stand b/c entrance and exit ledges were left steep for that purpose.

Found out later that Doug was working on the other side of the hill benching the switchback at the start of the iceplex loop.

Manawa Trail Day Rescheduled

Trail day for Manawa has been moved to tomorrow night, Wednesday.

Due to the recent wind storms, a lot of branches are down. We'll need at least one or two people with chain saws. If you have trimmer, bring it. Loppers and rakes too. Bring your boots. It could be muddy.

Meet at 5:45 at the trail head.

Stay tuned to the blog if weather continues to not cooperate.

Tranquility course update

The entire south side and the majority of the north sections of tranquility have just been freshly mowed and are in good riding condition. Mowing will now continue every 2 to 3 weeks as needed throughout the growing season. There are also a couple slight alterations on the south interior climb that will be installed soon to address channel erosion. No major changes though.

For fun check out the brush fire damage that took place last Sunday afternoon at the top of the big hill above the tennis courts. 2 fires trucks came out to put out the blaze that was probably started by kids. The fire did make its way to the trail in 2 spots but did not cross. Our trail became a fire break.

Have fun riding.
Doug

Volunteers Needed: Manawa

Volunteers are needed to prepare the race course for the 4th Psycowpath Mountain Bike race at Manawa State Park.

When: Tuesday, May 27

Time: Meet in trail head parking lot at 5:45, head out at 6. Plan on a couple hours.

Bring: loppers, rakes, McLouds, shovels.

To Do List: Dickey will be on the tractor mower, so we'll need people to rake up behind him as well as behind those trimming the single track. The utility road straight-away at the start of the long section needs smoothing out. The log pile before you pop out onto the gravel double track needs some attention. Need to cut down any hanging branches or overgrown weeds.

Also, Steve has asked for two people to stay until the end to make sure he doesn't have any trouble with the mower (it's happened before).

Gatorade will be on hand.

Also, this is a good opportunity to come out and renew your membership and get a shirt for $5! Offer ends 5/31!

tranquility race layout

Received an email about the Aug 16 Tranquility Tire Tantrum. A couple guys are training for the race and want to know how many laps. Since Beginner Men are currently taking about 40 minutes to complete one full lap, we decided to cut out a couple climbs to bring the mid-pack lap time down to 30 and have the Beginner Men do 2 laps. Beginner Women, Juniors, and 1st Timers will do 1 lap.

I just finished cutting in a bypass of the iceplex loop.

The right goes down towards the iceplex and the left stays on top of the southhill. We will be moving the 3 mile marker about 50 yds to here to sign the bypass.

The climb after riding along the south side of the creek is also removed. Click here for a map.

Yellow = trail
Red = finish line
Blue = parked cars and race only access
Black = bypasses for Junior/Beginner race

Current thoughts are Sport will race 2 or 3 laps and Expert 4 laps.

Jewell Update

I took a ride at Jewell yesterday, and tossed a lot of tree turds along the way. The new parking lot was being poured as I rode. I don't think it'll be done for a few days, because they were just getting started on the curbs. The dirt was nice-tacky but not soft, with only one greasy spot. There's a big ugly treefall blocking the trail in the area just west of the cemetery. I pulled off some branches to crawl around it, but saws will be needed. Also, it looks like someone jacked with the new bridge. It's been moved out of the spot where it was dug in.

Reminder

The race course at Platte River will be closed from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Saturday, May 17th for the horse rides.
Race registration opens 8:30 a.m. Sunday.

impromptu tp work 07-May

Took a couple pics of trailworkers Wednesday night at Tranquility - Dave and Greg spent a couple hours on the first mowing of the year.

If you have a mower and want to spend an hour or so mowing, please let Doug know at Tranquility@TrailsHaveOurRespect.org.

I took the edge off some older trail, then rode some with bob and tools fixing some nuisances. And Chris, Doug, and Paul spent 7 hours on some benching on the north hill.

TRANQUILITY PARK CITY CONSTRUCTION CAUTION

The city parks department has asked me to notify riders to please use caution when traversing the maintenance roads at Tranquility. Apparently there have been a few complaints from city workers operating trucks on access roads in the park that they have had mountain bikes come flying by them while backing up or moving dirt. Most of these instances have taken place during the week days. I'm sure 99.9% of riders do a good job of staying out of construction equipments way so I am just reminding everyone that a driver in a large truck doesn't expect to see a mountain bike riding across the road. Therefore, please use special care when crossing the maintenance roads especially on the South side of the course.

Thank you,
Doug Larson
Tranquility Trail Leader

Membership Drive Report

Results from last weekend's kickoff of the 2008 THOR Membership Drive are in and once again support for what we do was reaffirmed by many generous people.

We had a total of 19 new or renewed memberships. On top of that, many bought food from our grill masters as well as delicious cookies from the very talented Khamail Wilderman.

If you missed us last weekend, don't you worry. We will be at all the Psycowpath races but if you want to score a shirt for $5, the offer is good only through the month of May.

Props to members Tim Wieland, Doug Larson, Martin Bixby and Dan Christenson for making it all happen! And thanks to everyone for your continued support of single track in Nebraska and Iowa.

Platte River SP (6 May 08)

Conditions are superb for riding at Platte.

The trails will dry quickly due to all the hard work the trail crew put in several weeks ago, they cleaned all the small sticks and logs away from the edges to allow water to drain off and make it easier to run weed eaters.

Several new reroutes or line improvements also took place so don't be surprised when you spot some new sections. Heads up for the new black jump just past the rock garden area, easily bypassed to the left (marked) if your not into big big air.

You will see yellow ropes across several of the trail entrances, these are meant to keep the horses out of the single track areas not hikers or MTBers.

Get your Marathon legs going!

Jewell Update

Jewell's in wicked decent shape right now. Being ever the antisocial one, I snuck out there during the race on Sunday for a couple laps, including a clean-up lap. It's super clean now and the dirt is perfect. Someone ran off with the section of concrete pipe I was using as a mini-bridge/jump. The logs are still there and they look pretty stable. They still make a nice little jump.

Tranquility treading work

The rain sucks for Swanson's race today but I am going to be trying to make the most of a wet situation by benching tread on the new meadow section on the North side of Tranquility today. Anyone with an available Mcleod is sure welcome to help. At the Swanson race I will be borrowing a couple more Mcleods so we will probably call for an improv Trail Tread day after another good rain in the near future. Good luck to all the Swanson racers and on Sunday.

Thanks, Doug