Platte River Trail Days (2X)

Hey all,

Couple days delayed on getting this out. Paul the Trail Leader down at Platte River State Park is having two trail days to get the course ready to race 7 May. Psycowpath is back in town.

Trail days are 3&4 May starting at 4pm

See the map

Missouri River Flooding

Once again, the Missouri River is at or above flood stage through Omaha/Council Bluffs. That means that section of the trails at Lake Manawa are under water (see photo).

pipe bridges for north tp gullies

Eric donated 10" pvc pipe from his farm. We used 95' for two gully crossings.

Paul and Mike cutting the 5' lengths for the return route.

Chris and Eric working on the upper level.

Eric, Chris, Paul, and Mike on the finished product.

No endos and quick drying for this crossing now.

Dave brought his wheelbarrow to bring some drier dirt over the outbound gully pipe. I expect big rains to overflow these four pipes so take a peak after a heavy rain before bombing through this - the pipes may be bare.

Looking the way you cross outbound.

Fortunate to have a great work crew that lives within a few miles of the trail.Things went pretty quickly - about 10 hours of labor to install.

edit:
Mike is really quick at posting his pics and quips:
http://bikingfools.blogspot.com/2011/04/playing-in-mud.html

teen serve at swanson apr 15

Brought out 5 teens from the homeschool service organization "Teen Serve" to work in the cold 43 degree rain last Friday. Found ponchos for four of them, but most pants, shoes, and gloves were soaked after 2 hours in the steady rain.

We started clearing the whole trail corridor for getting back to the singletrack, but norrowed down to clearing the tread of brush and digging out the roots.

Thanks guys, for working in such conditions without complaining. You were honoring to the Lord that day.

Manawa Clean Up

Manawa Clean up day is 1 May 2011.

Meet at shelter 6 at just before 1 pm. The clean up effort is expect to last approximately 2 hours. THe parks department will provide the trash bags.

Raffle and food to follow at 3pm.

Wear your THOR shirts if you have them!

treadwork done on north tp expansion

Nice cool day to finish the treadwork on the north Fort St expansion. We had 11 people plus Cody working 1.5 hrs for 16.5 total work hours. Thanks Mark, Dave, Chris, Bill, Paul, Brian, Greg + 2, and Steve.

We used Steve's blower to dress up the tread inside the trees. The first pic is just after the 180 at the southend of the treeline.

The next pic is the short grassland around a storm sewer drain in the middle of the treeline.

The final pic is in the grassland just before connecting to the wetland doubletrack.

This marks the end of construction. We still need to sign a couple places and install some pipe in the gulley for quick drying when we finally get rain. To get the entire doubletrack, ride to the right around the electrical tower just after the gulley north of the last ball diamond.

The doubletrack around the artificial wetland lakes was already there by illegal use of motorized vehicles, mostly 4x4s, quads, and motorcycles. Its a nice section to ride two or three abreast and talk. Watch for walkers and dogs too.

Thanks again to Melinda and Dennis at Omaha Parks for working with THOR and authorizing the expansion; and thanks to all the volunteers over last Fall and this Spring taking pride where they ride to help maintain and expand. Unfortunately, I didn't record all the non trailday hours put in by a few. I'm guessing about 125 hrs, Chris thought closer to 200, for the 3+ mile expansion. The use of Tigger (zero turn mower), Little Blue (sod cutter), and the established doubletrack made this possible in so few hours.

Enjoy the ride!

What is going on at Swanson

You will see quite a number of new flags vicinity of the east side of the Swanson parking lot. The Bellevue Parks Department has asked THOR to create a new trail from the parking lot back to the existing trail head. This has started from the existing trail working our way to the front, we still have to work a few details with the City where the entrance and exits are going to be.

We will be soliciting volunteers for additional trail days to get this opened sometime this summer, keep your ears and eyes open for the announcement. If you have some time you would like to put in at your leisure please feel free to get in there and help open the new corridors where the flags are in the ground. Clip clip clip!

tranquility sod cutting sunday apr 10

Work to be done: cutting in the tread from the wetlands doubletrack to the west treeline, halfway meadow, and return to the doubletrack. This should finish the sod cutting on the north Fort St. expansion. Only thing left is drainage pipe in the gulleys between wetland doubletrack and Big Papio loop. Finishing expansion just in time to move into maintenance mode, i.e. mowing.

Date: Sunday, April 10
Location: Kansas Ave and 126th Ave.
Time: 13:00

Some grilled meat from the last trailwork cutting in the tread up to Fort St. and back. Thanks, Paul!

Trail crew. Greg's girls enjoyed working on the trail, raising up kids in the way they should go. Good job, Greg! The youngest was the trail boss and she cracked the whip on us. Thanks Eric, Paul, Chris, Greg and family.

Adams Park

Going to do a little trail work on Monday April 11 at about 6:30. Only need to weed eat or hoe a little bit of grass off the trail & rake the tree area.
Preparing for the Bike Rodeo on April 16th. Also Omaha Devo mountain bike practice will be that day and we want them to have a great trail. There is a short meeting at 6:00 about the rodeo that you are welcome to attend. Start as early as you like.

Any questions to poloscab@yahoo.com

Thanks
Dan

Race Weekend Update

Both race venues are good to go. The season opener is on!

Swanson Update

Walked Swanson last night cutting nicks in areas that hold water so they will drain...hopefully. Yesterdays light rains should absorb shortly with all the wind and sun forecasted for today! Should be rideable this evening. Don't forget Swanson Trail building 9 April starting at 8:30 am.