July 2006 – Page 2 – Bird Eye View : MTB Trails in an Island with no mountains and I am proud of

Trail Ride Jamboree

rides / HM / July 9, 2006

As part of the trail building effort, some 60 riders were gathered in a mini-jamboree.

Quote by Nik (extracted) :

“

To all participants of the KR Jamboree today: Thanks! Really great to see such a large turnout! As a result of today’s ride, we were able to achieve a few objectives:

1. Got great feedback from all u guys on areas of improvement

2. With 50 riders going through the trail, we have also identified potential erosion hotspots

3. With the number of endos , we now know wehre the danger zones are and where to station medics for better access during racedays

4. Got a core group of supporters signing up to kick start a trail building & maintenance group (yes you guys are gonna be called trail smurfs)

5. With all of you hiking the trail the first lap, we managed to bed down some of the gravelly parts (you think the hike was just to look see? 😉 )

CREDITS (TRAILWORK):

The following persons were instrumental in the creation of this trail :-

* Alvin Francis Lok, NParks Manager, Kent Ridge Park
* Liyana Zolpakar, NParks
* Max Mager, SACA General Manager
* Lim HuiMin, SACA Coach

with the assistance of :-
* Chew Eng Seng, SACA Mountainbike Cyclist
* Ang Kee Ming, SACA Road Cyclist
* Justin Cheong, SACA Road Cyclist
* Yap Chiwei, Wheelsareturning
* Lee Chuen Ling, SACA MTB Subcommittee
* Renhao, SACA MTB Subcommittee
* All the banglas who toiled daily under the supervision of NParks and SACA

CREDITS (JAMBOREE):

* Pling – registration/CP5 ic
* Ling – bike test/CP 1 ic
* Rebecca – bike test ic
* HuiMin – medic/CP2 ic
* RenHao – CP3 ic
* Chi – CP4 ic
* Jaymes – safety/CP6
* Samuel – Hike/Ride leader
* Chew – Hike/Ride leader
* Mann – Hike/Ride leader
* Max – PR
* Jolie – Crowd control
* Boey – Crowd control

The Kent Ridge Mountain Bike trail is now unofficially open! “

Trail Ride Jamboree Read More »

Pre-jamboree Preparation

It’s 24hrs before the Kent Ridge trail 1st jamboree ride.

the available work force for the morning session is enough to get some of the cengai/bakau ladder build up and transported to problem area. While the rest do some shopping to get some new material in so to make the ride safer.

With a road ride in the morning, I pop by just after lunch. Just in time for trail work/jamboree briefing.

jamboree roles are clarified and discussed, so are the schedule.

With some work still needed to be done, work group is form and various task spread out for completion.

PLeng and Chi to put up trail signages, which Alano being the only one who haven’t venture into the trail, ride just behind them to check on the signage placement, to give us as much first-timer feedback.

Alvin and Liyana from Nparks try to flatten and pound in the granite chips at the main climb, while superwising the labour force to pound and spread the granite chips.

Max, Ling and Ren Hao, ride/walk the trail with patch up tools and danger markers to make sure the trail is safe for the event.

Jaymes, from SportingSpectrum, Nik and me took the task to net up the staircase ride, so to capture any stray cyclist going right into the 2ft drop at the left side of the trail.

upon completion of the task, we took the time to pour some granite chips over troubled area, and to take advantage of 60+ cyclist, who average 2 laps each and 1 lap of walking the trail to stomp down whatever loose pebbles. This long walk took us 2hrs, and we are suprise how dehydrated we are, not mentioning how hungry i grew.

work hours done

approx 40 manhour clocked on various task for the day.

Pre-jamboree Preparation Read More »

Trail Construction Photo

Kent Ridge MTB Trail / HM / July 7, 2006

new photos on trail construction uploaded

Trail Construction Photo Read More »

The bog climb

Kent Ridge MTB Trail / HM / July 7, 2006

the day objective is to address the bog climb after the 2nd bridge to the yellow space.

KeeMeng, Sam, Max and me made up of the 4 person workforce for the day.

We tapped on the racing line that Sam feedback on, corrected 4 sections for the bog climb.

1. off camber ride line fix with pebbles and bakau lining reinforcement

the later part of the afternoon is spend digging up a drainage system for the U-bend dropoff

this drainage is deep and sunken in with 3 big rocks, 3 loads of granite chips, layered with mud on top and a replanting of a small tree as seen on the right!
Further work on the incomplete log jump is made

as the trail runs downward,

much testing is done to ensure the jump is stable, and provide a safe exit.

Granite chips extraction filled the long day, clearing most of the chips from bridge 3 to bridge 4

statistics

6 manhour – bog climb

2 manhour – Log drop drainage

2 manhour – log jump

2 manhour – granite extraction for bridge 3 and 4

4 manhour – armoring various slopes and post rain survey of the whole trail.

The bog climb Read More »

stairway ride

Kent Ridge MTB Trail / HM / July 5, 2006

Today we concentrated on the stairway. The slope of the stairway is to be retained and we will need to make it ridable, somehow.
The day started by cutting down the bushes on right side of the staircase (left on the picture below), expose the 2ft drop, align the drop off exit by taking some of the walkway off.

Bakau lining is then hammered in at the edge to prevent any erosion on the trail, and 2 bags of rock pebbles are pounded on to the ride slope itself as armoring.

the equally tough part of getting 10 bags of pebbles, creating 15bags full of sandbags from the external road in the park and dragging them into the trail fill the earlier half of the afternoon.
Certainly not the post-lunch exercise we are looking for, especially the labour workforce consist of Nik, Max and me, and later with some help from Reb
At around 3pm we finally got this up…

the last part of the afternoon, is filled with more spading and spreading of pebbles. These were accidentally pilled up throughout the last 1/3 of the trail (not including those of the crazy road climb), starting from 50 metres from the 3rd bridge.

Pebbles and rock chips works both way. It harden the muddy soil and bog, yet overdoing it made the trail slippery and unridable at the same time.

the fix seems to work, while the 4 person workforce that we gathered toil through the sandbag dragging and spading, clearing around 50 metres of the trail of pebble piles.

some statistics

4 manhour for the staircase drop

6 manhour for the sandbagging

7 manhour for the 50metres of trail ride surface before the 3rd bridge.

stairway ride Read More »