tools stolen

This stinks. New spot was started, it was good, all of our tools were stolen. We haven't been able to ride for about 3 weeks so that also is terrible. I wish I was having as much fun as this dude.

hunting

These trails and I are done. I received a "Criminal Trespass Warning" a while back for riding there. I've tried to stay there but can't seem to find a way to get in touch with the land owner. Apparently there have been some people riding and working out there since I am not allowed and telling people in Austin that "THEY" have some really fun trails in San Marcos that are next to the river. My buddy asks them if they built them, they say no, he says that I built them but he wouldn't recommend building or riding there and tells them what happened to me.

I've been on the hunt for a new spot. I thought I had a good place across the street from these but there are a few homeless people that live back there.

There is another spot that I scoped out last week but not really sure where would be a good place. Spots have a lot of rock or no rocks, downhill grade but I don't know if there is a water source anywhere close. My buddy said he'd show me a couple places where he rides his mountain bike, so hopefully that works out.

Other than that I've just been riding 9th in Austin. It seems like I do maintenance for over an hour and only get to ride for 30-45 minutes. Oh well, it is a good place where you will not get in trouble for riding or building jumps.

wall

Put up the first of two wallrides. I still need to work out the kinks when you come off of the wall, but that is just minor stuff. I did redo the angle so it's steeper and not so much of a bank. You will come off of this wall, go into a pit and then up onto the other wall (kind of like a mini ramp) and then exit the berm.



It's kind of short but it works well for the berm since it's kind of a tight radius.





Here I am jumping the "BIG" jumps. hahaha, just kidding, they're not big but they are fun.

concrete fun

I haven't been working on finishing anything at the trails lately. This past week I have been riding some ditches and bombing some hills. Sessoms was my favorite hill until a couple of days ago.

I would say it was about 5 months ago we were driving around town looking at houses and neighborhoods when we stumbled upon a good hill. Since that day I have wanted to ride down it and see what kind of speed you could get up to just by coasting. My name for the hill is Hill-45. It's not a very long drop, but maybe about 800 yards at the most but it's really hard to tell because it drops sooooo fast. I would say that for every 2 or 3ft you go out you drop almost 1ft, it is a very steep grade.

I went down the hill by myself on my way to ride a ditch. I started decending and got nervous after about 8 seconds so I started lightly grabbing my brake. It felt like I was close to high speed wobbles but it was probably my imagination since I have never gone that fast on my bike. I walked back up the hill and hated every step. I went to the ditch and rode with Glen and told him that we were going back to the hill and he was going to follow beside me in the truck and tell me how fast I was going once I stopped.

I didn't touch my brakes until the very bottom because there is pretty sharp turn that you have to make. I drifted way to the left side of the road and planned on hugging the inside of the turn and then go wide on the exit and then cut back in on the next turn and exit it wide. The bottom of the hill is the shape of a U but the bottom is somewhat flat. My plan wasn't going to work so I put my foot down like I was on motocross bike and began squeezing my brake when my back wheel started fish tailing on me. I decided to go to plan B and jump into somebody's front yard to slow down. I didn't have time to put my foot back on the pedal so I had to bunny hop up the curb going fast with one foot on the bike.

I get back to Glen and ask him how fast I went and he said that he got up to 45mph before he hit started slowing down while I was still accelerating. I guess that I may have hit 47 or 48mph and was doing about 30mph when I jumped into the peoples front yard.

Looking down the hill




Looking up the hill


The ditch outside of Glen's apartment



Glen concreted this dirt lip


I haven't gotten this 'wallride' down yet. I have rode up it successfully once. Glen has also install a concrete lip on the corner so you have a good little hip.


The entrance and fly out exit out of the ditch

Carpet + New Line pics

This is what the carpet helps prevent.


Now for the new stuff. This will be the first real double in the line. I expect to have a lot of rollers/doubles before this jump.


Side view. The trees make it hard to see the outline and distance. From lip to landing is about 11+ feet, but I'm not really sure. It looks longish when standing in front of it.


After the first double there you'll pump down into a pit and then back out of it.



After coming out of the pit, you'll hit this step-up.



Here is looking at the landing of the step-up.


Looking over and down the step-up landing. The landing goes into a berm that is also a lip.





Just to give you an idea, here is the first berm with carpet. Basically I had carpet left over so I figured this was as good of a place as any.


Just looking down the line at all of the carpet.


6 pack Straight line has carpet, even the roller.


PUMP TRACK PIC'S
I basically used a wheel barrow to move a bunch of dirt that I just had piled up. I'm not going to try and describe the layout but I will put the picks in order of how it will go once you're on it.
These are the first 2 rollers after the main line.



Same berm as the pic above, just coming out of it and not going into it. The berm will be much bigger, this is just a small layout.


2 rollers out of berm




Original 10 pack is also covered with carpet






Other original jumps that were here when I moved down here.







This is the setting of of the woods before jumps were built. I plan on doing a little more clearing out and building more lines in these areas. I try not to cut any trees out, but it ocassionally happens, but they are either dead or really small.

carpet + rain + D.N.K.

It has been raining about once a week here for the last couple of weeks. Normally I'd say that is good, and I'm not saying that it's bad, just bad timing.

Thankfully I now have every jump covered with carpet. I went out to see what kind of damage had been done by the rain and luckily not much. Carpet is a blessing! The pits were holding a little water so I had to dig drains for a couple of them. I knew eventually I'd have to do it and now is the time.

I started digging a completely new line a couple weeks ago. Right now I have a decent sized double, a little down roller into a pit with a roller up and out to a lip. I'm not really sure how it's going to work but I bet it will be just fine. The landing I'm working on now is over 6ft wide at the base and should be no shorter than 6ft tall. That is really tall for me since I'm really the only one putting in some shovel hours (hint hint to anybody that rides here).

Glen has decided that he wants to build a wall ride in the 270 berm and paint it camo! Why? I don't know. It would be fun, but I'd rather dig and finish this new line and start on my downhill line instead of work for a couple days on a wall. Shoveling is hard work so I'd rather get it done. I don't have much motivation right now to dig. I have finals this week and next week plus it rained. What is so weird, I'd rather dig when it's moist or dry than dig when it's wet. The digging gets done much faster that way, but the packing of everything new takes a good bit longer.

From the rain last week I dug some pits out and made lips about 1ft thicker and a little steeper.

No pics yet. As soo as it dries up and I'm able to ride I'll get some photos of the beautifully shaded, green, no wind and 90% humidity trails that I've been working on for over a year now.

Peace Playa,
D.N.K .

finally did it

Since we finally received rain I was able to build everything wider, steeper or have deeper pits and make everything taller.





I made the first landing wider by adding about 2ft to the right. You can now go to the right after the first set to get into the new line.



1st set in the new line. Apx. 11ft from lip to landing.


Looking back at the 1st landing in the new line. There is a roller after it with a tree stump sticking out of the top.



2nd set in the new line. It is apx 13ft from lip to landing.


Looking back at the 2nd sets landing


This is the 3rd set in the new line. It is packed now and is about 15ft from lip to landing.



Made the 3rd sets landing in the original line about 2ft wider to the left.



Made the 4th sets landing taller on the left and cleaned up all of the loose dirt.


I cleaned up the 5th sets lip and landing. I also shaved out the pits before and after the 5th set to make the 5th and 6th sets taller and you carry more speed and not have to work so hard to get over each set.



the 6th sets landing grew in height about 2ft and shorter by a foot or so.

Hopefully TNT can come down this weekend and we can ride. (there's your mention buddy)