trail work

drain-ing day

Kent Ridge MTB Trail / /

A sweat draining day and indeed on drainage work the whole day.

With the granite chips available, and a full workforce supplying them, tons of granites are being delivered into the trail via wheelbarrow.

Max, Nik, KeeMeng, Alvin arrived early to get the remaining Bakau lining ready for the wheelbarrow.

With the first ponding in sight of the rock garden, Nik and KeeMeng got to work immediately with a log, granite chips drainage structure.

A big hole is dug up. After removing much mud and have around 5 fallen logs/branches sitted in nicely, the hole is then fill with granite chips, and the lined with recycled bakau wood, pounding in the side to sit the logs and granite nicely.

  • BEFORE
  • AFTER
  • BEFORE
  • AFTER

water management is the order of the day.

  • BEFORE
  • AFTER

we moved on as the afternoon goes, digging up and securing a few more water catchment. Justin came by and help with the digging and draining.

We finish the day at the bottom of the snake slope.

With barely enough daylight and granite chips to go on, it’s easy to call stop then.

We are standing on top of 6in of mud, the worst section that badly need draining.

15 manhours – granite and material transport

12 manhours – 4 drains

6 manhours – bakau removal

drain-ing day Read More »

trail armoring starts now

Kent Ridge MTB Trail, recce / /

The granite chips are finally here.

With the granites chips being poured on the trailhead in big cubic metres,
Max, Nik, Alvin, Chew take the chance to route the trail from ‘yellow space‘ to ‘triple junction‘.

I pop by just in time to see the section and ride through the proposed route first hand. Indeed a total different kind of ride compared to the rhythm section of the earlier sections.

Love the underlining ‘bog’, the soft yet ridable surface simply give the trail a new flavour.

15 manhour – yellow space to triple junction routing

trail armoring starts now Read More »

bridge completion

Kent Ridge MTB Trail, recce / /

With the roadies’s bridge incomplete, Chew, KeeMeng, Justin and Nik pop by for a full days work to get it completed.

Timberman KeeMeng and Knotting Justin get the work done with Chew putting in his bit on sitting and securing the bridge.

the completed Roadie’s bridge is one nice piece of work, totally blending into the surrounding.

Nik took the chance to recce the exit of the trail, finding the line that eventually link the ‘yellow space‘ to ‘triple junction‘.

12 manhours – roadies’s bridge

4 manhour – recce and routing

bridge completion Read More »

the first bridge

Kent Ridge MTB Trail / /

the day started late

We are toying with GPS to map the area, ran into technical, ran into battery problem, not your usual double A battery stuff.

Justin pop by to help out. We work our way to the first crossing, objective is to build a bridge from existing material around the trail, fallen logs, small branches etc

armed with a 200m long Manila rope. and Nik’s parang. We cut out blocks of fallen trunks and branches, tie them up with Manila ropes cut into 4metres length, secure the footing of the bridge and form the bridge out of the material around us.

The bridge is left half done when the daylight gone out on us.

At the same time, while Justin taking up the width of the bridge to tie down pieces of crossbraces, I buried one of the log so to make the soon to be called ‘log slope 1‘ a ridable and manageable slope.

The whole work is done without much equipment, rocks to pound down branches to secure it, leg power to brake the broken branches further. Total make do.

6 manhour on bridge 1 (soon to be called roadie’s bridge)

1 manhour on log slope 1

the first bridge Read More »