Kent Ridge MTB Trail

We got back to kent ridge to complete one of the fix that we left it half done 2 months ago.

giving the snake bend an easier longer path.

I got my 3rd finger incident in a month, hate those rock crush.

Glove no gloves doesn’t matter, it still shread.

to be completed .. yet again.. (blame it on the rainy monsoon)

The Valley, one of the first section of Kent Ridge Trail that we dug up around a year ago, get into our fix priority list. The 3metres of slope is now rutted, easily ridable for the experience riders but a dangerous challenge for the rest.

The solution is to create an easy line to the left and re-open one of our first cut to the right with a 2 ft dropoff at the end. With this modification, the Valley should be safer for newbies yet offer a new challenge for the skilled.

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the Valley – 12 man hours

A full day at Kent Ridge.

Monero and his helper got things going in the morning by getting our improvise old drainage slabs into the Precious descent. While they get barrow loads of slabs across, Wan Joo, the new park manager for Kent Ridge, and me got together for an overall plan discussion, and I made known the new plans on the map.

In hope that with a rolling contour trail the armor can be minimal, we choose to leave the DirT on the surface for compaction and selectively armor the critical braking zone and landings.

A bakau wood reinforced wall is erected for the partial bench cut mid section, and 3 barrow loads of armoring is placed onto this section so to stabilized the turn and grade changing, a place we expect novice to brake and scrape some dirt off.

We’ve a change in trail building doctrine for this bunch of crew. Monero and me share the same idea of not lining up future trails with wood as before. Firstly there’s no need to do so for a proper bench cut, secondly is ain’t that neat after seeing too much of this wood lining and thirdly it does trap dirt, sediment and water taking part of trail sustainability away.

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William got himself to help with another small 5 metre fix at the top of the My Precious descent. we dug out 5 metres of new trails, took away 2 illegal path and a rutted drop in the process.

Is a fresh cut at the moment, and we are waiting for the next rain so to get it soak with water before we start doing compaction work.

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14 manhour today.

The ever troubling ‘My Precious tree’ descent is definitely one of the eye sore and we are definitely not eaving this ‘mistake’ of ours marked with further user and water induced erosion.

Trail building is a measure three times build once affair.

We remap and reroute a new course down so to cut a crazy 30% grade slope to an easy 10% average grade, increasing trail length by 20metres in the process.

‘SECTION CLOSE’

Monero and one of his buddy started the top soil excavation today. In the process transplant some of the smaller plants off the route and to create new foilage so mark the boundary for the walking path.

With experience hand working for 2 hours, building rolling contour trails is made quick and we’ve now an unarmored path readily cut.

What we lack is some compaction and a small off camber fix.

So dudes out there, do really stay out of this place for now and allow some work to settle before riding this new detour.

5 effective manhours

Changes occurs, and we are happy to have our new Park managers from Nparks joining us for a few sessions learning what a mountain biking trails should looks like.

We explain our plans for Kent Ridge, corrections and todo and finally a good work session came about today.

Monero and 3 of his gang managed to move some nice recycled broken drains to cache around the exit near Vigilante drive. We are talking about 10 -15 wheelbarrow loads today.

4th bridge step up
We manage a patch up at the 4th bridge, which rutted out over the rainy season to form a good 1.5ft tall stepup. Not really rollable, some bike trial skills will be involve if we don’t fix it.

With improved trail building technique, after so much hands on over at the other sites. We managed to pitch the broken cements and get a good 10% gradient for the bridge exit.

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Double Log
The double log low land mud pile never been fun to ride, we broke the first rule in trail building, never build trails on steep slopes and on flat ground. sounds trivial but that’s what we’ve done 1 year ago, and the mud patch never get fix.

We got to apply a permanent solution to this patch, this time with loads of rocks and broken drains.

We elevated the trail and settle to have both sides of the trails being muddy and wet. allowing a ‘2 ft wide causeway’ as our ride corridor.

Mother Bridge exit
Always rutted. and instead of small granite chips patching, we settle for large 200mm big cement wedge, easily broken down so to give a rough texture for a grippy descent.

Let’s hope the trail side wall doesn’t give way further. It seems to have settle down nicely.

The Hole

30 man hours of work today

completion of bottom of the snake bend new leg, and added a new turn.

Dig up new better leg at the bottom of snake bend, and dump one of the obstucting rocks into an existing hole so to make a smoother error free ride.

the few words in the busy trail work.

we’ve

1. Straighten the bad flow lines before snake bend,

2. marking and prep the slopes after Motherbridge.

3. new leg to remove the bad turn at bottom of the Snake bend