Maintenance Dig Day report, 9th February 2013

[Rich]

After January's dig was cancelled due to adverse weather conditions (no-one likes trying to break ground through several inches of snow and hard-frozen soil), February 9th was the first chance for the MTBG Trailbuilding Team to get out and about on the Guisborough Red Route to maintain the trails that so so many ride and take for granted. It was also the first dig under the banner of the MTBG/Orange Mountain Bikes partnership which will see some great prizes being given out across the year courtesy of our friends from Halifax.

In the absence of any signs of movement with plans for Les' 1, our merry bunch o' diggers headed up to the section of trail leading away from Highcliff to help consolidate the armouring carried out a couple of digs ago and to help extend this armouring to avoid the sloppy motorway that was fast becoming the prevalent trail feature on this stretch of trail:

The muddy line was obviously proving too gnarly for the majority of riders so they were creating their own lines and turning a stretch of singletrack into a dual track quagmire that was going to become unrideable before too much longer. As ever, remove all the slop to reveal the track bed and put down a touch of the magic fairy dust to help consolidate the trail and clearly demarcate the original singletrack line ....

It was also necessary to consolidate the line further up towards Highcliff where the bad weather and riders unaware of the consequences of trail erosion had created another multitude of sloppy lines down towards the farm fireroad.

Ask any of the poor sods who were on the barrows yesterday ..... getting the hardcore up here from the fireroad was no mean feat .....

Plenty of riders got the chance to try out the reinforced trail as they were plodding through the filth; look, we've made this guy one happy rider:

Lunchtime saw the chance for the first MTBG/Orange Mountain Bikes prize draw, seeing Ram walk away with a Headtube, water bottle and a snazzy Hope keyring (courtesy of our friends at SingletrAction) for his efforts. Everyone who attended today also will be entered into the prize draw later in the year for one of the Orange hoodies and the 2013 Crush frameset donated by Orange Mountain Bikes.

(photo by Martin Coleby)

After lunch, it was further work on the stretch of singletrack that leads away from Highcliff Farm past the entrance to Le Gouttes Trois: more raking, clearing, barrowing, consolidating and other exciting verbs .....

Trailmaster And (plus his two padawan apprentices Yaka and Dan) set to work creating a small berm to help those faster riders maintain speed around a slight kink in the trail.

It was starting to get on a bit in terms of time, the sun was starting to drop beyond Hanging Stone once more and we'd reached the point where we could realistically get nothing more done this day:

Just enough time for a visit from Stan the Dancing Dog before heading off home.

A great day's work to reinforce, armour and add a couple of little trail features into approximately 200-300m of trail. Yes, it's not got the glamour factor of a complete rebuild of Les' 1 but it's helped to make a section of seriously eroded trail much more weather-resistant and continues the good work that our Trailbuilding Team have done over the last couple of years.

Massive thanks to all those who turned out today - a huge physical effort involved in getting everything to where it needed to be! Thanks to our partners, Orange Mountain Bikes, for providing prizes for our Dig Day prize draw and also for the hoodies for the Trailbuilding Leaders:

One quick group shot later, it's hometime. Thanks everyone - see you in March!

Cheers,

Rich

[Martin Coleby]

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[MTBG Team: Mark]

Great day and great report Rich. Some excellent progress made thanks to all those who gave up their Saturday to come along and put something back into their local trails. Cant wait for the next one. : ) 

[Martin Coleby]

This'll be a lot nicer when its consolidated.....and extended of course the nice grippy ride suddenly turns to gloop!

but what we did on Saturday  rode nice on Sunday! (you'd think I know what I talking about, would you? lol)

May need more than 1 a month to complete this.... boo hoo ;-(

Thanks all, we always get a laugh on these, don't we? Come on, join us, have a laugh, but do a bit as well. You never know, you may get a hoodie like And, Mark and Rich, AFTER YOUR 1,000,000 dig.

[Adam Jobes]

Had a cracking day @ the Dig! Rode well on the Sunday, nice to give a little back to the trails

[MTBG Team: Rory]

Sorry I missed this dig day, at work first thing, then had kids to look after while wife was at work.

But headed out Sunday to sample the hard work you guys and girls put in.  Very impressed with the amount of trail laid down, well done everyone.  My ride was a pretty muddy naff one until I hit the section you worked on.  Rode really well, loved the little berm to keep the speed up on the bend. 

[Hippo]

Great write up Rich ,I'm still impressed on how much work you and the merry trail builders got accomplished, hats off to you all.

[Ram]

It was nice to come first for a change, forgot about the raffle so was a nice surprise! 

Yeah it was a grand winters day for the dig, looking forward to the next one.

[Gary Williams]

Aye good write up Rich and some good snaps too. Good days graft rewarded with ride along this section today.

[Lindsey Williams]

We rode this section today... all i can say is wow!!!
Good fun day..loved it. im aching now though lol. :-)

[Dan Pattinson]

Great write up once again Rich. Some good pics too.

Im loving the dig days, very rewarding helping to improve our trails. A good workout too lol.