Building the Backyard "Maim Frame"

As it stands now, we have a great starting point for downhill trails on Berm Peak. We have a route to the summit, an official trailhead, and a big roll in called the flight deck. We even have a map of the property and a rough layout of what our future trail system could look like. Today, we continue our work on Woodpecker, the first of our downhill trails. I'm trying to make the most of the land up here in Stumpthorne, and that means I can't just choose the path of least resistance. There are quite a few dead trees in the way, and although they work great for lining the trail, I need to move them all myself. A lot of you have asked why I don't just buy or rent a machine, like a mini excavator or a skid steer. It would make building go a lot quicker, and allow us to build bike park features like jumps, but I want to become proficient at hand cutting before we get into any of that. Hand cut trails have great character. They can be built surgically, keeping the underlying route system intact. This keeps them narrow, loamy, and beautiful. Not that there's anything wrong with machine cut trails. No, machine cut trails can be awesome. But hand cut singletrack is quickly becoming an endangered species. I want to give it a chance to flourish here on Berm Peak, and that means this is going to take time and sweat. But out here in Stumpthorne, there's not much to do besides route the trail, clear corridor, and rake. We won't need to cut bench or anything like that until we get to the steeper parts of the property, and that means we can finish our trail rather quickly. So Woodpecker can now be ridden as a loop, climbing back to the trailhead by middle and upper Berm Express. The climb only takes a minute or so, and the downhill part lasts just under 30 seconds. Given the remaining elevation we have, that means a 1-2 minute downhill run is absolutely in our future. Better yet, we've completed this loop just in time for some special visitors. Phil and Haley are in town, and this is the first time they're seeing any of this stuff. Phil is a connoisseur of sketch. Last year he visited me at Berm Creek after I broke my collarbone, and dug some pretty insane stuff in the snow. I guess we'll just pick up where we left off. We started thinking of a feature we could build in one day, and strongly considered an A-frame, like this one. Instead, we opted for a slightly modified A-frame with a turn at the top. Go straight, and nosedive off the end. This would be less of an A-frame, and more of a mame frame. With a little planning and some preparation, we'd be ready to jump into this project full force in the morning, and that would require some digging. Aside from some post holes, we haven't dug much on Berm Peak. One thing I've noticed is the total lack of rocks. This has destroyed my dreams of uncovering amazing rock rolls, but you never know what's lurking on the other side of the property. Still, this clay packs really well, and will make for great dirt features down the line. This clay is also great for securing posts. We're not using concrete mix out on the trail, so dirt needs to be tamped down really aggressively after each shovel full. If any settling occurs, and the feature ends up being slightly off level, life will go on. And indeed, these kinds of projects involve a lot more guesswork than even I'm used to. To make this stuff fit the terrain and get all the angles right, a tape measure and level can't do all the legwork. We won't really know how this thing rides until it's done. Some of you may notice that we're also using different lumber. Most of the stuff I've built outside has been made of treated pine, which is soaked in this slimy preservative. That helps the wood resist decay, but it also makes it risky to handle without gloves, and dangerously slippery when wet. So I've been experimenting with rot resistant hardwoods from my local sawmill. These locust planks are from the low grade pile, so they're the planks with all the knots, bows, and twists that people don't want for building decks. The roughness and inconsistency makes them cheaper than the appearance grade stuff, and grippier on bike tires. This stuff is hard to work with. It pushes my Ryobi saw to its limits and dulls drill bits, but it's very strong and as I said, makes for great traction. Given the safety and environmental benefits, it's worth using out here. Between the holes, moving supplies around, and actually putting this all together, constructing the mainframe took the better part of a day. But with a little bit of light to spare, we were ready to actually ride the mainframe. In the future, I'll alter the trail to improve the approach, but as is, the mainframe is really challenging just to get over. Of course, that didn't stop Phil from trying to air it, and attempting to ride it from the other side. In typical skills with Phil fashion, he cleared it after just a few tries, but for me, this would be a slightly bigger challenge. When we last left off with Kevin, he was sending these huge jumps at windrock on a cheap used downhill bike, but the mainframe is unlike anything he's ever ridden before. We can improve the approach to the mainframe with fairly little work, but in the future, I'm going to spend more time focusing and planning on the approach to features like this. There's no way I could have pulled this off in one day without Phil, Haley, and Kevin, so definitely check out their very different YouTube channels below. As excited as I am about the mainframe, I'm even more excited about having an actual loop on Berm Peak. With each home improvement project, we'll add to Woodpecker until it lives up to its name, and then move on to building more trail. Until we break ground again, thanks for riding with me today and I'll see you next time.