{"id":3863,"date":"2016-07-01T16:19:55","date_gmt":"2016-07-01T23:19:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/?p=3863"},"modified":"2023-01-26T22:18:38","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T06:18:38","slug":"upgrading-the-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/?p=3863","title":{"rendered":"Upgrading the trail"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I began working on a connecting trail<\/a> from our property to the linear park below almost three years ago. I hacked in a goat-path of sorts: narrow and full of switchbacks. It changed my life, in that it made one of my favourite running trails a mere 3-minute scrabble from my door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Yeller<\/a>
Yeller McLeod, my birthday present to myself. He’s a combination of a tamper, rake and hoe.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But it wasn’t a great trail, technically speaking. Parts had a grade of more than 15%, it was narrow, there were a couple of places that were subject to erosion and the tight switchbacks meant that you couldn’t ride a mountain bike on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last summer I did an IMBA trail-building workshop and learned more about how to lay out ride-able, sustainable trails. Armed with this knowledge and my new McLeod rake, I set out to improve my trail. I laid out a new route at the top, eliminating three of the most problematic tight turns. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks working on that portion, about 75 metres in length.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I’m dealing with one of the three remaining switchbacks that can’t be edited out. Ideally it should be a loopy turn with a loop diameter of about 25 feet. The problem, of course, is how one creates a relatively level 7-metre-wide platter of earth on the side of a mountain with a grade of 30-40 degrees, made of clay, roots and rock, with nothing more than a mattock and my trusty fire rake. I’m figuring high-speed flowy bike turns will have to be compromised in the name of preserving my sanity. I’m shooting for a 4-metre radius, something that will require  and even that is going to require a herculean effort. I think I’ll be able to snake my way through that at lower speed without falling over. I’m about a quarter of the way through my first such turn, and have spent probably 10 hours at it. So … yeah … this trail may end up being a lifetime’s work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, I am having fun riding my bike up and down the piddly first 150 metres.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I began working on a connecting trail from our property to the linear park below almost three years ago. I hacked in a goat-path of sorts: narrow and full of switchbacks. It changed my life, in that it made one of my favourite running trails a mere 3-minute scrabble from my door. But it wasn’t a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,69,34,29,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-being-active","category-home-improvements","category-out-on-the-property","category-projects","category-rural-life"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3863"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4873,"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3863\/revisions\/4873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}