Spookywood Descent Fettling

With the frost (albeit temporarily no doubt) out of the ground, Mark (fellow MTB Ranger) and I got upto the top of Spookywood Descent on Tuesday to do some resurfacing work on the 2 rock tabletop jumps.


Rock tabletop jump 1 runout before:

New surfacing raked and shaped, about to be compacted:

Surface compacted:

Wackerplates are a super effective way to compact a trail surface hard enough that it can be ridden on straight away, no bedding in period required. Unfortunately if there is too much/too little moisture in the material the effectiveness of the compaction is reduced. In our case it rained all day meaning the surfaces are still a little squishy (and it's been raining again all day today, sods law!). They'll firm up, but just need a little time to dry and harden. So we've had to close off the resurfaced sections to allow this to happen. Hopefully we should have them open for the weekend but with frost and possibly snow forecast for the end of the week, it might take a little longer. In the meantime you can get by the features no problem using the easier options on the right hand side. Look out for the signs and barriers, especially if your up nightriding!

18/12/2009 - UPDATED: We've had snow on Thursday and Friday, which looks likely to be around into next week - so we're going to keep the barriers up until the snow is away. Sorry about this.

The resurfacing work is part of our regular maintenance work we do on the trails. We've got a lot more maintenance work planned on Spookywood Descent over the next year and further ahead including:

• Regular deberming (puddle removal)
• Tweaking of some dips from outsloping to insloping (with pipe under trail for water to drain) to improve flow and reduce trail wear. With the Trailfairies
• Digger work: replacing the 'mini rollers' near the top with a tabletop jump; resurfacing the worn braking bump section 2/3 down
• Resurfacing spots where puddles are getting too deep to deberm

With the work we are planning, the aim is to ensure Spookywood stays in good shape and remains super fun to ride.

Your thoughts on this and anything trail related are always most welcome - just leave a note here or contact me at: andy.wardman@forestry.gsi.gov.uk

cheers,

andy