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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%
21 - 40 of 62 Posts
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.
One of the challenges we face. We have plenty of volunteer labor, but many who want to smooth out the trails. Equestrians, hikers, birders, runners, even some within the mtb/emtb community...
 
'Get to work son! We're not paying you to sit around and talk! Oh, wait a minute...'
Exact opposite of how I run trail work.

"Let's not kill ourselves, ain't nobody out here getting paid."

...sound of a beer cracking...

I tend to put in a couple hundred hours a year (or more) between trail and track building/maintenance. Easily did over 40 in just the past 3 weeks.
I've put in my time in meetings and hearings, etc, but those days are done for me.
I'm reaping the rewards now and able to just stick to the fun stuff. :)

And yes, I have a job, a family and a home too.
 
That's half the fun of doing trail work. Talking ****, etc. It's also about community buy-in and stoke for maintenance rather than linear feet of trail built.
Exactly. I want to see and ride new trail just as much as anyone else, but trail building in the off season is how I get the social interaction I would normally get riding with friends.

I can talk and work at the same time. I don't need someone micromanaging my volunteer time.
 
That's half the fun of doing trail work. Talking ****, etc. It's also about community buy-in and stoke for maintenance rather than linear feet of trail built.
For real.

I never pressure my 'elves'.
Help and company is always appreciated, but if I've set some goal set in my mind for progress, I'm perfectly capable and happy to be out there working by myself. Not like it's anything new.
 
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.
 
Discussion starter · #29 ·
MOAR! And my back is currently telling me to chill out lol! I'm obsessive by nature so trail building has been a perfect outlet :)
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!
 
Exactly. I want to see and ride new trail just as much as anyone else, but trail building in the off season is how I get the social interaction I would normally get riding with friends.

I can talk and work at the same time. I don't need someone micromanaging my volunteer time.
Micro-managing folks is no way to run a volunteer event. That said, crew leads do need to pay attention to what folks are doing. Otherwise, you end up going back and un-f**ng substandard work. But it's about having fun and that also includes leaning on tools.

And the more gnar-bros you can get out the better so they better understand it's more about getting water of the tread than dumbing things down. On the flip side we do a have a couple of repeat customers who are groomers that you have to keep an eye on.
 
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!
Hey Ogre, how's the Cloverpatch Connector going, anyway? Any ETA on completion? I want to get down there!
=sParty
 
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?
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.
 
Discussion starter · #33 ·
Hey Ogre, how's the Cloverpatch Connector going, anyway? Any ETA on completion? I want to get down there!
=sParty
We've logged nearly a mile right off the shitty road 130 climb. The FS is logging the other end and I suspect have gone a similar distance. There is (maybe) a big trail work day there next Sunday where tread work starts.

When? Maybe?? 2023 spring? It's possible by next year if we got some enthusiasm and more hands on deck. Not a dig at you, I know you are plenty busy in your new home trail system.
 
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.
 
Discussion starter · #36 ·
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.
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.
 
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.
 
We have Ogre + Dig It, and this isn't a Skinny Puppy topic? I'm bummed.

I've only maintained a trail once. Wasn't even a bike trail, just a gated road that's welcome to all users. Needed a little clearing after winter storms, so I brought a saw.
 
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.
 
21 - 40 of 62 Posts
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