Earth Carving

We are now in full decent towards the mud churning, root slipping rides of the Surrey Hills in Fall... hailed in by the screech of our contaminated brakes, as we dab them at every turn desperately trying to scrub off speed, as our well ridden trails go from dry grippey rail riders to slippy side ways riding bogs =(

For sure the seasonal transition is a difficult process. I looked out of the window the other day at the sight of heavy mist slowly drifting to the ground and I’m thinking.... “F**k it! I can’t be arsed”

But don’t despair because I have a plan. A plan to pay back my debt to others. A plan to make this winter and next summer better. A plan to carve the earth...Oooooo!.... Anyway enough pouncey writing – The f’ing plan involved me and Richard doing some trail maintenance.

A corner that I have always failed to ride with style, and I felt needed some work. The ground soft and spade, axe, builders gloves in the car, I got Richard who brought some rose clippers... hummmmm... oh and a wealth of experience at berm whacking. And we headed to a trail we all know – I took a before and after picture for moral boosting reasons, as after 2 hours of hard graft we barely scratched the surface of what we set out to achieve. We returned the next day to continue what we started and get the corner to a rideable state. Here are the pictures for you to laugh at and wonder what exactly we did for two hours. Enjoy.

Before

After

Enthused by our corner shaping skills we headed to the other side of the valley at a well known playground to build a small drop in, followed by a step up jump. Stopped by the failing light it’ll be a week now before we can test out our trail building skills.


Anybody who has the urge to to get stuck into back spazaming earth shifting, let me know and maybe we can organise a day where we can all get stuck in.