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How often to you do trail work?

  • Never (I'm a freeloader)

    Votes: 14 20.0%
  • Sometimes yearly (I know last year was a mess)

    Votes: 8 11.4%
  • 3-4 times a year (I fulfill my obligation)

    Votes: 8 11.4%
  • 6-10 times a year (Friend of the trails)

    Votes: 6 8.6%
  • Monthly (Hero)

    Votes: 11 15.7%
  • Weekly (Rockstar)

    Votes: 9 12.9%
  • Moar (Do you even have a day job)

    Votes: 4 5.7%
  • Irregularly (I put in my time, Just not like cyclical)

    Votes: 10 14.3%

Do you Dig it?

5K views 61 replies 35 participants last post by  form49b 
#1 ·
Just curious how many MTBRs participate in trail work.

If you do or don't, why not? What would make you more likely to dig?
 
#7 ·
I used to love trail building/maintenance and do a lot of it. I ultimately found that too many head trail builders are ego maniacs who make it no fun because they're pricks who take it way too serious.

The last work day I did, the head trail builders told me and my buddy that we were talking to much and not benching enough. I just never went back.
 
#28 ·
Depending on the time of year and projects available, I’ll do trail work from between once or twice a month during the summer to once or twice a week during the rest of the year. You learn a lot about the trails when you build or maintain them. It’s impressive the amount of science, planning, and design that goes into creating a well built trail system.
 
#49 ·
Humble Brag Alert:

The most recent edition of our local trail guide mentions, "someone raked A LOT of rocks during the summer of 2019 so this trail is much better now". That "someone" was me and I spent about a week raking stones off of my wife's favorite trail as my anniversary present to her.

I continue to do trail work on my own a few days per year as the organized trail days tend to be junk shows without as much actually getting done by the time you organize stuff, socialize, apres' beers, etc. I prefer to take a hike with a shovel, rake, and pruning saw.

My wife offered to buy me one of these setups but I think it's a high price to pay for altruism - but super cool nonetheless. Trail Building Tools | 3 Piece Handle w/ McLeod, Rogue, Saw Tools | Trail Boss Trail Building Tool

FWIW, I was on USFS and NPS trail crews in my younger years so I kinda know what I'm doing.
 
#51 ·
I continue to do trail work on my own a few days per year as the organized trail days tend to be junk shows without as much actually getting done by the time you organize stuff, socialize, apres' beers, etc. I prefer to take a hike with a shovel, rake, and pruning saw.
No doubt, a few skilled workers can outperform 10 times more random volunteers. That said I think the big volunteer days are important and serve a similar purpose as beginner MTB club rides. It introduces people to trail building and makes people a little more aware of what kind of things trail builders deal with. Also, it's a big recruiting tool. If you have a small crew and are looking to bump your numbers a little bit, you can draft the 1-2 kick ass workers out of the 30 that show up for the junk show.

Also, thanks for helping out! I'm super curious about the portable trail tools myself.
 
#4 ·
So far I am in the free loader sections besides clearing downed branches off trails when I encounter them.

Trail work is in the back of my mind and now that covid seems to be on its way out 🤞🏽I will do so.

Bonus besides helping and meeting new people would be that what I would learn there I could use building trails on my property.
 
#9 ·
I voted for monthly, even though I don't dig that often. I try to volunteer 4-6 sanctioned dig days/evenings per season, but I also go to the bi-monthly land manager board meetings and participate at that level.
I love the dig days, but I hate the meetings. Without going to the meetings, however, the goodwill generated with a shovel doesn't transfer to policy.

I'm also the poop fairy. Once a week, or so, I'll ride the first mile of one of my 5 local trail systems (rotate) with some trash bags and pick up all the poop/bags of poop, then circle back to the trailhead and dump them in the trash can. What's really frustrating to me is the amount of bagged poop left within 100 yards of the trailhead - and no, it isn't left for the "return trip..."

I retired May 28th, so my schedule has opened up a lot more!!! I am going to take some time off, but then I am going to volunteer as part of our park system's "Volunteer Trail Steward" program.

The greatest threat we are facing, in my neck of the woods, is population growth and the corresponding development.
 
#20 ·
My local Mtb trail workers are very proud of how smooth they make the trails. Anything that might make you think as you are riding up to it is removed. Luckily they have little interest in the trails I maintain, so the trails stay more natural. Just finished cutting a 1 mile loop trail in the neighborhood for biking and hiking.
Seems entirely too common and frustrating for those of us who like trails with a bit of texture. Some trails I want to tell our local trail work crew to stay off entirely and let other manage them.
 
#19 ·
My cycling team mandates at least 4 hours of volunteer service per year--it can be trail work, or working as a course marshal (for a cycling or running 5k event), or cleaning up after Saturday's farmer's market downtown near the LBS. Its pretty impressive once you learn there are over 250+ members on the team.

Additionally, we are paid members of the local mtb associations in the areas we ride regularly.

I do have an awesome McLeod and set of Gerber brand axes, machetes, hatchets, etc...and sadly I really haven't been able to use these tools too often in the last couple years due to life.
 
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#29 ·
We have a fantastic trail in Oakridge which has a crappy 3 mile road section in the middle. For the past ~8 years they've been planning to build a trail around it, but its been slow going. Recently they green lighted the final connecting piece so I've been going balls out trying to get it cut out.

So I hear you. Typically I just do 6-10 days a year, but this year it's been weekly or more. I compromised and voted Monthly myself even though recently it's been MOAR!
 
#35 ·
Past few months I've been going out and doing a lot of trail maintenance on my own. Because the whole covid thing, or maybe lost love, my usual crew has stopped riding so i've been riding solo, which lends itself to doing trail work. Anything from grabing a rake when coming across a really heavy needle/leaf covered area, pushing off and cutting small branches that have come down, hedge trimming back the evil Cali/elephant grass, and digging drainage during spate of wet spells that pointed out ponding spots. AFAIK the local MTB organization is not very organized anymore so its small groups on their own now.
 
#36 ·
I think this doesn't occur to a lot of people. If there is something which is clearly a problem, a lot of times you can take care of it without working with a trail group. Downed branches, sections with poor drainage, brushing, lots of stuff you can do without really getting a trail group out there. Around here anyhow, there is plenty to do with just carrying a hand saw and being willing to stop for a couple minutes to fix something instead of just climbing over it.

Breaking out the chainsaw, sanitizing the trail, or rerouting trails is definitely more controversial, but nobody ever complains about someone trimming the bush.
 
#5 ·
I signed up twice this year, but for some reason the organizers could not accommodate more than 10 people so I got waved off both times. ???
Now my schedule is different so I probably won't go out again until Sept.

In the mean time, there's lots of stickers and grape vines to cut.

-F
 
#39 ·
I come and go. I got pretty burnt out for awhile on trail work because the group I was working with had too many engineers leading work crews, and those guys would shoot down anybody else. You did exactly the work they said, or you were gone. Even though by then I'd put in enough time and had enough knowledge and experience to provide educated suggestions, it all got shot down. And often as not, their work sucked, too.

Nowadays, with a different club in a different place, I'm an approved crew leader. I'm not the guy who shows up and runs work days (though I could if I wanted). But I'll come out and lead a smaller crew on a specific project within the broader trail day. The USFS here is managing things (because covid) such that they're putting a max number of volunteer participants per crew leader in attendance. So they cap attendance based on the number of crew leaders who attend. This lets work parties get spread out more over the project site and still have someone keeping an eye on the work being done. I'm not a consistent, regular attendee, but I put my time in usually in clusters.
 
#44 ·
We don't need everyone doing trail work. Especially unsupervised! Our local race community requires 10 hours of trail work hours per person. That generates probably 5000 hours of work. Many of our trails cannot be modified or improved. We have a few hundred miles here in Austin.

You end up with limbs like these cut at torso height. Or worse yet broken off into spears.

All this one did is ruin a glove, bloody a knuckle and send me into semi safe a runout where I hugged the next tree.

Other people have not been so lucky. A man was extracted with the limb in his body. After many hours or trying to get to him and get him detached.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#62 ·
I said 3-4 times a year since that is what I've actually done this year. Trailwork days were mostly shut down for COVID and started again seriously in the past few months, but still under fairly strict controls and limits. I've done three events with Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Stewardship at Pogonip and DeLaveaga and a couple on a private trail in a friend's yard. I'm trying to gear up on this. I have chronic lower back issues and hesitated to do trailwork for years. I had ramped up my donations to compensate but this year I decided I just needed to start doing the work. In the end I found the work didn't rile up my back any more than if I took a longish hike.

SCMTS is really good about teaching how to do things, for example upthread there's a post about people cutting off trees and branches and leaving spears beside the trail. In the intro to trailwork class I took, that was one of the things they spent some time on, showing us the proper way to deal with any potentially dangerous branches. They reinforced this when we did trail brushing at another event. The people are really cool too. I have seen none of the attitudes mentioned in some of the posts above.
 
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#18 ·
Mountain biking is like a potluck. We all show up with a few skills and a little time and build something for all of us to enjoy. Would you show up at a potluck and say "I donated to the American Way last week"?

I don't disrespect any of that, but if you have time to ride, you have time to dig.
 
#32 ·
I don't get it, I dig 3 to 5 times a week and get harassed for it here.
Skidding the corners to form berms is hard on me and my tires, yet nobody seems to appreciate the sacrifice I make to fix our crappy trails.
 
#37 ·
I'm not opposed to do doing trail work. However, of the two local places I usually ride one gets almost no trail work whatsoever, and the work is mostly hiking oriented and rarely improves things for bikes. The other always seems to announce work days the day before and they're always at weird times. I'm not taking time off work to do trail work.
 
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