Heads up at tranquility

Heads up at tranquility

The inner loop climb got hammered pretty hard by the last storm. Deep ruts and washouts are pretty bad on the top 1/2 of the climb and the descent is rutted as well. I'm going to work on re-routing some of the problem areas in the near future. I'll get the descent fixed asap. Be careful rolling thru this section. I guess this is one of mother natures TTF's...

Blue line at tranq is open for business!

Join us at 6 at the fort st trailhead for an evaluation ride of the revamped blue line at tranquility. If all flows well, the section will remain open as work continues. Thanks for all that stayed off the section during it rebuild.

I'd recommend taking it easy the first time thru. The water bars were overbuilt to see how the newer design would hold up and flow.

Hope to see ya there...


**Section is going to remain open. Turned out very well imo. Go ride it and give us some suggestions to name the section.

Tranquility -blue section on north descent still closed

Just a reminder...The blue section on the north hill descent at Tranquility is still CLOSED! Even if the debris blocking the trail is gone, the section is NOT OPEN for riding. If you ride by this section and the branches are moved, i'd appreciate you putting them back. If you catch the individual who keeps opening the trail back up, please tell them to stop. I wasted another 1:30 rebuilding destroyed berms tonight. This is time that should have been spent finishing the last berm.
Thanks!

Tranquility - Temp closed blue section on north descent

I closed the blue section on the north hill descent today to continue working on it. If things go well, i'm hoping to have it open again by mid August. Had a chat with a designer on the berms and i am going to give his ideas a shot...



The berms that a roughed in are not fully packed and cut in yet, so please do not ride them. This will destroy the berms and lengthen the time the section is closed...




Trying to finish my original vision for the section. Should be sweet when done!

Tranquility Trail Day July 2nd 8-10am

Hey Folks,

We are having another trail day at Tranquility to finish up the tread work that didn't make it last Sunday. Meet at the Fort Street trailhead, we will work the south hill climb and the prairie from 8 till 10am to beat the heat of the day. We will have some equipment on site. Bring your water, bug spray, shovels, hoes and your coffee. I'll bring the doughnuts!

rsvp here or facebook.

Thanks!

Great Trail Day at Tranquility

Had a group of 15 out to Tranquility today to get the trail ready to race. Around 30 hours for the group and another 8 hours for Dale and Tigger. The trail is all clear of downed trees, the canopy was raised and the re-routes are fully cut in and ready. Had a couple of groups out with trimmers cleaning up the north tree loop and the ridgeline/wall rides.



Good group out racing the storms rolling in...



Thanks to Frank, Eric, Martin and Dickie for the extra equipment need to complete the job...



good food, good people...



Thanks to Paul for grilling up the Grub!



We still have some tread work to do before race day. We may be looking at doing another trail day next weekend. Watch the blog and facebook for further updates.

Tranquility trail day this sunday!

Trail Day!
Sunday, June 26, 2011 at 1:00pm
Tranquility Park
Meet at Fort St trail head

Looks like we have some trees down on the fort St loop, so we are going to need a few lumberjacks to handle those.

We are planing on doing treadwork, trimming back limbs across the trail and mowing/weedeating the sections tigger can't reach. Bring bug spray, water and shovels if you can. Thor will have some tools on hand for you to use as well.

Please rsvp either on the facebook page (thor trails) or here on the blog.
Hope to see everyone there!

South side of Tranquility open again/Trail Day

Tranquility is now a full loop again with the installation of a temporary re-route till the city finishes its project. We are not going to invest much maintenance to this re-route because it could be gone at any time.

Due to the dirt piles, the berm after the last camel hump will no longer be used.
There is a link at the top of the south hill to get on the camel humps. We will be riding the camel humps backwards for the time being.

If the city is working in the area, please stay clear.

Trail Day!
Sunday, June 26, 2011 at 1:00pm
Tranquility Park
Meet at Fort St trail head
Please join us for the final prep for the Psycowpath race!

Thanks!

South section closed at tranquility

The city is working on a dirt moving project and is very busy in the area. We are temporarily closing the south section to give them room to work and to evaluate trail impact. Please avoid the area until further announcements.

thanks,
Tranquility Trail Crew

3 men and a mower

Got a flat tire about 7:30 Saturday night at Tranquility. Had to leave Tigger on the trail overnight till we could get a tube Sunday.

Between Paul's floor jack and Dan's van jack, we wrestled with keeping Tigger from rolling down the hill. After the third time of rejacking, success. Thanks to these guys taking time out of their holiday weekend to help maintain trail and equipment.

Just like the rite of passage fixing a bike flat out riding, so with Tigger. Learned to check the tire pressure more often; not to drive on the flat tire; metal bike tire levers will take a mower tire off the rim; block wheels when jacking; don't slime a tubeless tire, tire patches won't stick afterwords.

Finished the Inner Loop and mowed finish area for STXC. Guys out riding had to push their bikes because so muddy in flats. Monday mowed Meadows, Southhill Descent, and Southcreek Flats. Paul wacked through the trees along the creek Sunday. Will need to increase the frequency of mowing with the rain and heat.

teen serve working tranquility

Want to thank Teen Serve for helping with trailwork at Tranquility last Friday. The soaking rain the night before changed the tread work agenda to branch trimming and trash pickup in the Fort St Loop.

The trail corridor width is now from tree trunk to tree trunk.

Each of the workers got a THOR business card for working the trail and finding other trails.

Phyllis, the Teen Serve coordinator, appreciates the opportunity THOR provides for the teens to work on trails. She hopes we have work for them in the Fall too.

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

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!

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.

tp north starting to take shape

Great turnout for less than 24hrs notice. Thank you guys and gal for changing your plans so quickly to help bring the trail in north Tranquility Park closer to reality: Eric, Susan, Mike, Dave M., Dave N., Paul, Michael, Todd, Brian, and Chris.

I was with the sod cutting crew working the out and back trail along the Big Papio Creek between Fort St. and the the wetland doubletrack north of the baseball diamonds. Eric called in some markers for access to a great 16" sod cutter.

With 6 people in about 20 work hours, we cut a mile of sod and pulled it off to create the tread! I, for one, am still sore the next day.

On the westside, Paul took these pics clearing the dead branches in order to create the trail corridor. Those 5 got in about 15 work hours along with assorted scratches and at least one puncture.

For those who need more advanced planning, this Sunday, 03.27, starting at 13:00 will be another trailday at north Tranquility. This will involved finishing the westside trail corridor and raking the multiple inches of leaves off the tread.

trailwork at tranquility tomorrow (Sunday 3.20) at 13:00

We have access to a sod cutter and plan to cut sod on the north side of Fort St. Will meet in the far north baseball parking lot at the NE corner.

Will have 3 or 4 people, one to run the cutter, and two or three to throw the sod out of the trail corridor.

We also have work on the west side, cutting dead limbs and clearing fallen limbs, brush piles through the evergreen trees.

Please bring hand saws, mcleods, no power equipment. We don't want to upset the homeowners with lots of noise.

Any questions, email or call Dale.

Trail Conditions

Over the last couple days there have been trail condition updates on Facebook. Here's what has been reported:

Tranquility: Open
Swanson: Open
Lewis & Clark: Open
Lake Manawa: Open
Platte River: Too soft/muddy

Tread lightly. There may be soft spots in the trails. Rain is forecast for this evening - get your dirt fix in today!

Tranquility Update

No good news yet. Trails remain too muddy to ride. With the race season rapidly approaching, many are itching to ride some dirt. Please be patient and let the trails full dry out before riding. We will keep checking the trails and give the all clear when they are ready to ride.
Thanks!

tranquility north fort st trail is beta

Thanks to Aaron, Chris, Dale, Greg, and Paul, the out and back trail corridor along the Big Papio is cleared. Little tread work - though rideable, it's not necessarily enjoyable - consider it a beta release. Sod cutting the tread will wait for another workday, probably next Spring.

 
The trail circled in pink is what we worked on yesterday and today - about 20 hrs. About 20 hrs were spent on the ground walking, envisioning, and flagging prior to this weekend.
 
The trail circled in blue at the top is a double track going around a built wetlands in order to mitigate wetlands lost from the soccer fields south of Fort St and the new cement trail around Standing Bear Lake.
 
The trail on the west boundary will be worked on over the winter, weather permitting. This entails clearing deadfall and dead undercanopy in the trail corridor.
 
Greg brought out his stihl saw with color coordinated stihl chaps -- very professional, should have snapped a pic!
 
Chris putted around with his walk behind weedeater to clear parts of the tread along the trees down to the dirt.
 
I ended up putting about 8 hrs on Tigger. She worked hard making a preliminary pass through at 5" and a follow up cut at 3.5". The air cooling screen was plugged several times from all the cut grass thrown upwind. Though she has some minor groundings with the blades, the worst was running up over an unseen railroad tie when finishing up in the dark about 6 pm. Stopped the blades and stalled the engine - ouch! In 1 hour, Tigger does what use to take us about 4 hrs to push. Thus those 8 hrs this weekend saved us at least another 24 hours of mowing by hand.
 
Besides weedeating, clearing branches, and some hoe work, Aaron and Paul set bridges in place over the Fort St bridge erosion ruts.
 
I found out Friday at 1830 that Melinda, director of Omaha Parks, and Dennis, Park Planner had given us the "Notice to Proceed" with construction of the proposed trail. This time of year, there are few weekends amicable for trailwork.
 
I thank God for moving Melinda and Dennis to ok the proposal, for providing Chris, Paul, Greg, and Aaron to interact with the design and construction, and I'm grateful to God for giving me the desire, eyes, and hands to help paint a mtb trail on his canvas.

mowed north tp return route

Talked with Chris who was out doing some lopping. Decided not to rent sod cutter for tomorrow's trailday, we will just work on clearing and mowing the trail corridor on the Big Papio. Mowing the grass will allow the frost to melt more quickly next Spring when the sod cutter can be put to work.

This is looking south on the return route towards the Fort St bridge.

This is looking back up the return route towards the north baseball parking lot.

Though difficult to see, this is one of those half inch diameter scrub brush that has a 10' root starting back at the head of the rogue hoe.