[cookieMonster]

Howdy —

As I’m sure is the case with a lot of your trails, our popular ones have gotten HAMMERED in the last two years.

The trail closest to my house is one of the most popular, featuring a directional loop with a fast, flowy downhill with berms at every corner, yadda yadda. I’ve done about 1000 laps around the thing in my day and have kinda gotten sick of it, but it is one of the few trails we have that holds up to extremely wet weather due to soil type (about 70% sand/30% loam or clay).

The braking bumps have gotten absurd. Since it is not a technical trail at all, just fast, I prefer to ride my hardtail, but the braking bumps practically make my hands and feet numb by the end of a run. My enduro bike, of course, smooths them out but is way too much bike otherwise.

I was thinking of servicing some of the worst spots, but wanted to get some ideas first.

I am hesitant to shave off the high spots and use the material to fill in the low spots, because I fear that that may eventually lead to more tread wearing away and the trail becoming “troughed.” Maybe if it’s wet enough and I pack the material hard, it wouldn’t be an issue.

The other thought I had was to dig new dirt from nearby and pack it into the low spots.

Any of y’all have experience with this?

 

[Jayem]

Cinder blocks if you really want to be rid of them...for a while.

IME, at least with my dirt, I can't pack in loose dirt anywhere, it will just blow off/scrape off/etc. The regular dirt is too hard and I'd basically have to dig up the entire section (which I have before).

The number one problem we have with erosion repairs IME is that we can't do much more than shave away the trail in most situations without bringing in heavy equipment to harvest new good dirt. Braking bumps are the same here. We have so much organic crap on top of the soil that is not trail that any area that is dug up will quickly become this and it's a real pain to get to good dirt. So we end up digging out a lot more. It's not as bad as you'd think, with trails generally in bench-areas, etc. Also digging trenches to effectively elevate the trail, so you can take down certain spots to make them drain.

We've attempted to fix several braking bump areas. Method one that the other trail-crews tried is just fill in with some dirt, even good dirt. Doesn't work, just washes away pretty fast. The problem with digging it all up is getting it set back nice and smooth, so that sometimes requires a tamper, significant moisture, and time for the dirt to set. The easiest way we've done it is scrape everything and make it as low as the low point in the braking bump. We can often do this pretty creatively to maximize the tread and dirt left and can usually do it many times before any additional action, like a major rebuild, is necessary.

But some of the areas just remain pretty nasty. IME, it's just a fact of riding. Any time you have a change in acceleration, which means a turn, or feature that people will slow down for, braking bumps are possible and where they form, they get to just be a fact of life. It's physically not possible to go into the turn without slowing down and even in places where people don't actually "hit brakes", braking bumps form from the acceleration/gs that the bike carries. Washboards form on roads where people aren't really braking...they just form, like waves on the ocean. The most effective thing personally for me is suspension that can suck up braking bumps well. Then I tend to not care or in other cases, actually look forward to the bumps. As in "please throw me some more!".

 

[2021Mach6]

Don't use any dirt from the high parts or any other part of the berm. Pick your day/time to avoid heavy traffic. If there's clay in the area that's perfect.

I'm in the same situation. Have a Mach 6 but ride my hardtail locally. Outside Philly and my favorite trails are a bit beat up. Amazing how time consuming and tiring it is, but once it's done it's well worth it.

I did mine late Sunday afternoon. Learned my lesson after doing it on a Saturday morning at first.

 

[cookieMonster]

I will likely do the work in the dark, with a headlamp. Or during a rainstorm. The dirt is really wet right now because we had a foot of snow two weeks ago, and after that melted it rained some more. So it’s a great time to get something done because the dirt will pack well.

These bumps are definitely caused by braking, because they are all located just leading into the berms. The berms themselves are fine, except for a couple spots on one or two of them.

Why people need to do all that braking right before a nice berm is a mystery to me…but I digress. The trail was pretty sweet when it was first built about 12 years ago.

 

[Schril]

There are many factors that cause braking bumps, but in general they are the result of poor trail design. This happens when the trail is too fast going into a turn and riders having to hit the brakes too hard at the entry in order to make it through. A common misunderstanding is that turns are meant to slow one down vs. their intended purpose of changing the users direction. Other factors may include soil type, rider technique and bike-set up. Without seeing the trail at question, can the local ahj or trail group add a couple small direction changes or reverse grade prior to the entry into the turn(s)? Maybe do a trial with 1 or 2 turns to test. If so, I would think it would eliminate a majority of the problem, improve the trail and the users experience.

 

[Jayem]

I get burnt out on the trails with a million grade reversals to ensure you never get going too fast where you have to pedal for your life (as an expert racer even) just to make a little jump and not come up short. There's a balance. You aren't going to have steeper faster trails without some of these negatives, occasional re-routes, trail work, etc. You also aren't going to have control of trail users and how they ride. There are some things that can help...but in the end it's often more damage-control than really being able to design-out everything. It's just what you have to work with.

 

[cookieMonster]

I get burnt out on the trails with a million grade reversals to ensure you never get going too fast where you have to pedal for your life (as an expert racer even) just to make a little jump and not come up short. There's a balance. You aren't going to have steeper faster trails without some of these negatives, occasional re-routes, trail work, etc. You also aren't going to have control of trail users and how they ride. There are some things that can help...but in the end it's often more damage-control than really being able to design-out everything. It's just what you have to work with.

Agreed 100%. If there were any more grade reversals and elements designed “to slow riders down” I likely wouldn’t ever ride the trail again. It already has too many sections that are overly flat and you have to pedal your @ss off to go fast.

I think this is just an issue of a trail being subjected to A LOT of traffic and it just goes with the territory. There are spots where I think additional berms should be added because there are some corners without them. If it’s going to be a flow trail, it might as well be flowy everywhere, right?

There is a group that works on the trail once a year, but that’s not enough. Last year all they did is take existing berms and made them bigger, which IMO didn’t change the way the trail could be ridden. They didn’t do anything to the braking bumps, and since it was a very dry year it required more braking than normal and everything got very blown out.

In my experience, trails receive more damage when people ride them in the extreme dry than when they’re wet. This trail is bulletproof when wet, for example.

 

[neeko b]

Forgive me if this is ignorant as I am no expert:

But here in Vermont we have the same problem with brake bumps on machine built trails. Some of the trail systems seem to resolve them by packing in gravel and small rocks so that the trail is more armored. Seems to help.

 

[DMFT]

I will likely do the work in the dark, with a headlamp. Or during a rainstorm. The dirt is really wet right now because we had a foot of snow two weeks ago, and after that melted it rained some more. So it’s a great time to get something done because the dirt will pack well.

These bumps are definitely caused by braking, because they are all located just leading into the berms. The berms themselves are fine, except for a couple spots on one or two of them.

Why people need to do all that braking right before a nice berm is a mystery to me…but I digress. The trail was pretty sweet when it was first built about 12 years ago.

If I'm reading this correctly, it's a relatively flat/straight section(s) before the Berms?
Seems like the simple fix is to chunk everything up, take 6 inches of new dirt from each side of the tread (yes, widening) and rebuild/repack/compact. You shouldn't lose too much overall tread height.

 

[.WestCoastHucker.]

i'm always amazed at how many people love to spout off how much they love chunky technical trails, but get all bent out of shape over braking bumps...

 

[cookieMonster]

i'm always amazed at how many people love to spout off how much they love chunky technical trails, but get all bent out of shape over braking bumps...

When the chunky, technical trails are clear of snow, I’ll be back on a strict regimen of those, believe me.

The bumps are just annoying— nothing more. As I stated before, there are no technical features at all aside from some root gardens up top, and those are a lot less rough than the braking bumps. I ride a lot of tech trails and most of them don’t have the jackhammer effect of these braking bumps.

 

[cookieMonster]

If I'm reading this correctly, it's a relatively flat/straight section(s) before the Berms?
Seems like the simple fix is to chunk everything up, take 6 inches of new dirt from each side of the tread (yes, widening) and rebuild/repack/compact. You shouldn't lose too much overall tread height.

Yeah, the descent does drop roughly 1200 vertical feet in two miles, but it sort of cascades on the way down. There are only short steep sections and then it levels out and meanders its way down with mostly moderate pitches leading into each berm.

Interestingly, the original line had more fall-line sections and fewer corners, and the braking bumps were not as present back then. But then somebody decided that we can’t have anything that steep, so a lot more corners and more level pitches were introduced. I feel as though the constant hard corners are what has led to the braking bumps. I mean, there are berms around most of them, but not everyone knows that berms allow you to maintain your speed…

 

[aero901]

To fix the root of the problem, add a couple features before the turns to slow riders down gradually. A few large boulders to weave around, rock garden, bushes, etc. It needs to be something that gives a visual cue to riders to start slowing from a distance. Or armor the crap out of the braking zone and let people skid. Also helpful is putting out a PSA through the local trails org about braking bumps. Drive home the point that skidding into corners (or in general) damages the trails, makes them hard to maintain, and less enjoyable for everyone to use. Lot's of new riders out there this past year who don't have a clue about trail etiquette. Education can be a powerful thing.

It will be hard to fill the brake bumps and keep that soil in place without compacting it thoroughly which can be difficult depending on the moisture content and soil type.

 

[Curveball]

i'm always amazed at how many people love to spout off how much they love chunky technical trails, but get all bent out of shape over braking bumps...

They can suck pretty bad if you don't have good, sorted suspension. Once you've got great suspension, then braking bumps are just fine.

 

[cookieMonster]

They can suck pretty bad if you don't have good, sorted suspension. Once you've got great suspension, then braking bumps are just fine.

Yep. If I ride the trail on my enduro bike, I have nothing to complain about -- that bike eats every bump for dinner. The thing is, it's just not steep or technical enough for a bike with180mm of travel at both ends and big, sticky mud/loam tires -- so I always ride my hardtail on this one. The first couple years after the trail was built it would have been amazing on a modern hardtail like my ESD. Hell, it's still fun, braking bumps or not. The other day I rode it and just manualed over all the braking bump sections. The Marzocchi Z2 I have on the front is a decent fork, but its one weakness is high-frequency, medium sized hits -- like braking bumps. I may upgrade to a Z1 Coil for next season and that would sort that out.

 

[.WestCoastHucker.]

They can suck pretty bad if you don't have good, sorted suspension. Once you've got great suspension, then braking bumps are just fine.

I understand, I’ve also been playing this game before suspension existed. Sure the jackhammering can be pretty harsh at times, but I love riding my DJ bike on the trails just to switch it up.
I was just commenting on how nobody complains that the trail is too rocky or rooty, but all of a sudden braking bumps are an issue..

 

[Curveball]

I understand, I’ve also been playing this game before suspension existed. Sure the jackhammering can be pretty harsh at times, but I love riding my DJ bike on the trails just to switch it up.
I was just commenting on how nobody complains that the trail is too rocky or rooty, but all of a sudden braking bumps are an issue..

Oh yeah, I very much agree with your post. I remember seeing some of the very first RS-1 forks way back in the day and was amazed that the riders could go so fast over the chewed up trails. Fast being a relative term of course.