The Philadelphia Mountain Biking Association - Whos building the trails...show the love....

Josh,

Let me start with saying that these are valid points and good discussion topic, and thank you for a "healthy discussion attitude and tone" of your post.

1. At both sites, Kitchens and Livezey Lane, we left the "rock features" intact intentionally. The parts of the trail which were re-routed, were technically challenging, not by design, but due to erosion, and would not be sustainable. They were deteriorating rapidly and were more of a hassle, than a real challenge. The single track that was cut, is fairly smooth now. It would be possible and advisable to "texture" it by planting many rocks all the way bellow the surface. This way, as the trail wears in and compacts, the rocks will start poking out wihtout being loose. Unfortunately, due to the scale of the projects, despite tremendous show of volunteers, we simply ran out of time and man power to do those final touches.
I can see several solutions. One to go back for mini-work days to add texturing. The other, for everyone to step up and show up to the TMDs to lend a hand, and start talking to all our friends encouraging them to come out as well, so that we have the bandwidth to do the final touches.

2. Like I said earlier, unfortunately many technical hills got that way due to erosion, not design. And therefore are not stable, would change after each heavy rain and eventually crumble into oblivion. We can stablize many of them by controling the water flow early and gradually (examples are the Kitchens Lane and Livezey Lane - top portions of the trail were re-designed to control the water drainage, to allow leaving the bottom sections intact). However, a lot of the trails are eroded beyond repair and can only be closed. We do keep an eye for trying to design new trails without "sanitizing" them. However, that is a huge challenge, given several variables that go into the equazion:
- trails have to be multi-user friendly. and what is funa nd challenging for the bikers can be down right impassible for horses and cross country runners or hickers. we are a little ways off from being able to build and maintain dedicated trails for each user group
- building really sustainable yet challenging trails is extremely labor intensive. we are a small group of volunteers working hand full of hours per month. bhuilding rock armored or rocky challenging sections would take months to complete just few feet of trail. so we are trying to strike a balance.

But I will say it again, you brought up valid points and concerns. Please, consider that we are an open minded small band of volunteers. We have XC SSers, FR junkies, DH hacks, non-bikers, hickers, etc among us. Every one who comes out to the TMDs has a say and has their voice, suggestions and concerns heard and inputed into the new trail designs. Also, pick up IMBA Trail Solutions Guide to Building Sweet Singletrack. It's a great book. I promise you, you will look at the trails differently after reading it.

I believe you have come out to the TMDs already. Please, come out to more of them, speak up, make your vopice heard. There is more than one right way of designing and building the trails, it is in your and everyone else's power to influence how the Wiss trials will look like in 5 years.

That the beauty of FOW & PMBA TMDs. We all work together, and we are equal. We need as many as we can get dedicated passionate about trails people! Sounds like you're one of them... err... us! Wink

BTW, Nov 23rd will be a small work day to fine tune the Livezey lane site. If we get few extra people, we might address the "texturing" aspect on the new section.

Dmitri