daily wanderings

The last several weeks have been filled with to much trail work, to much rain, and not enough trail riding. After getting pissed off at the Pa One Call Guys and fed up with the BS of the contracting world I decided to get some pictures of what had been completed in the short span of several weeks.

One of the several culverts along the new, yet to be named connector trail. This is at the powerline cut, which despite having to call the PA One Call number and have 9 different companies approve the scrapping of topsoil, turned out to be a pull-line: meaning it is empty and designed for future use. Pa One Call is the service you have to call if excavating, in at any depth.
This is a portion of roughed in trail approximately 1/4 mile from the visitors center. As you can see the flow of the Allegrippis has been preserved in this new trail.

As I stated earlier the rain and work never seemed to end. This is a section of "traditionally" well draining soil along this new trail. (This was for research purposes only and the new trail is not open to the public.) In an effort to minimize our impact on the new bit of trail Jake and I took to the water.

The Salsa Mukluk as I have said before, consistently amazes me in terms of both its capability and personality. In this particular case it really shined when a small stream had formed a steep rock walled gorge that had some awesome water from the recent storm event.

Jake in crusing a slide at the top of the stream. Photos never do justice so let me just say it's super slick.

This is just after I came through the gorge and happened upon a ragin' hole. Just out of the photo is the next picture.

The large pool of water that was way cold but def. rideable. Just out of view is the water fall that created this large pool. Seen in the picture below.

Getting ready to drop the falls pretty wild the first time through. Any way we wrapped up about two miles down stream at the lake. My battery died and well that was it for pictures that day.

Pedal America TV came to visit the trails this past week bringing with them a seven person crew and cast. Many cameras, laughs, and horrible lines. Be sure to catch the episode when it airs on PBS and several other stations in the spring.

Camera, sound, white balance, and lines all in tact up at the Dam overlook.

On the berm headed down Dark Hollow there was a three person crew taking pictures and video with cameras that cost more than my truck.

At the Sleek Dog crossing on Susquehannock Road, RMBA club member Charlie Hoover and Pedal America host Ira Levy ride up the road to the crossing for some good conversation.

Some times you just need to have some fun.

Connector Trail Progress

As most of the folks in the area are completely unaware of the new connector trail I figured I'd add some photos to introduce the new section of trail being completed as I write this. The trail will link the Visitors Center at the Seven Points Recreation Area, to Ridge Campground, and continue over to the Dark Hollow Trail on the Allegrippis Trails System.

Trail construction is currently following the same process as the original trails as not to take away from the quality and personality of the entire system. Long sweeping turns combined with cleaning spaced grade reversals will make this a great addition to the current 32 miles of trail.

This is one of the long open corridors where the trail will be constructed. Shannon Cotrell is off in the distance tying a flag to identify the intended path of the trail. Much of the area was recently timber harvested and was quite thick with tops of trees and logging left overs.
This Wednesday was the annual Day of Caring where we had 40 volunteer students come from the Huntingdon High School to assist in removing all of the slash and leaf matter from the surface of the new trail. This is done to eliminate the debris from the soil mix that will comprise the trail tread. If there is any amount of biomass trapped in the trail bed it begins to rot and cause pock marks, ultimately creating more work down the road.
The students followed the flags with their tools approximately 1/4 mile and really did a great job of what they where asked to complete. Sure there was some whining when it start to rain, but that's to be expected!

First pass with the SWECO mini-dozer cut a really nice bench in the soft clean slope. After a second pass with the dozer and a third with a stand behind rig, the trail will be completely roughed in. After the roughing in with machine, the five foot wide corridor will be ready for hand finishing. - Photos to follow

wading through bicycles

I woke up everyday this week before the 6:00am buzzer sounded and sat there thinking of what bike was I to build, repair, or otherwise nurse back to health, or finish a pre-season (which I absolutely hat the concept of. So, that's my best reason for not keeping folks informed of the happenings on the trails. Below you will find a quick list of things happening at the trails that might actually matter to you.

Catch Up list:

1. Grant money from several sources (one of which is Specialized Bicycles) ] for contracting out a connector trail connecting the visitors center to the south end of the trails (Dark Hollow Tr.) is in the hands of the Alleghenies. The idea of the trail is to increase parking for the system, provide access to restrooms, provide direct campground access, provide direct interaction with the visitors center, and to get trail users off of Seven Points Road when accessing the trailhead.

2. DirtFest 2011 came and is gone. There was a awesome turn-out with 1500-2000 people estimated to have attended. This years festival had visitors from over 28 states and 3 countries. All profits from the event went directly back to the trail system. 20+ kegs were found empty. 8 houseboats where moored on Susquehannock Campground. Dates for next year have been announced May 18-20th of 2012.

3. The Friends of Raystown Lake (FRL,) our partnership is with this non-profit organization, will be taking over the operations of all the Seven Points Recreation Area campgrounds and Susquehannock Campground. This is part of an agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers in an effort to not only improve the campgrounds but also improve the end user experience at the facility. This will not directly affect the partnership that the Raystown Mountain Bicycling Association has with the organization nor will it directly impact the trail system.

4. Barrel Bay is set to be logged by a timbering company shortly (yes I know precise and I'm sure I'll get a few emails asking exacts...I don't know.) The logging will close a portion of the Barrel Bay trail looking like December. In a cooperative effort to mitigate the impacts of the logging on trail users, the ACoE allowed the use of a connector trail between the lower portion of Barrel Bay and up to Shade. This allows users more miles than if the entire trail had been closed.

5. Brock Lowery of Ironwood Outdoors will be coming up to cut the new connector trail to the visitors center (see #1) during the week of September 26-30th. In the following weeks volunteer labor will be used to do the finish work on the trail with the intentions of potentially opening the trail for use next spring (2012.)

And because I haven't tossed and good pictures of my most recent trips and tribulations....here you go. Enjoy.

Shannon Is right in the middle sorta to the left.

Connector Trail getting flagged...Shannon is somewhere down there.

Juniata College Inbound Group helping out with a small climbing berm. That also happens to be a member of the Raystown Mountain Bicycling Association Nicky Deak.

Juniata College BikeShare Program...one of the many reasons I haven't posted on this blog in over a month now. I think most of you will appreciate this one.

oh cool.....another picture of a bike in sunlight....yeah its cool because its the Karate Monkey.

The Bob Ibex Trail loaded with the mini STIHL brush chainsaw on the Salsa Fargo...perfect except the occasional downpours this morning.

Mukluked.

Mushrooms Everywhere

Crazy Mushrooms forming all around the trails... Guessing its the hot damp weather that we've seen recently.

I was out late the other night scouting out some upcoming service projects for several larger groups that we have coming to the trail system for trail work days. As I was cruising through the woods from trail to trail with the Dinah dog, I started noticing a plethora of crazy colored mushrooms. As I am no mycologist, I simply snapped some shots and hope to get some information one the different fungi.

inbound outbound.

Trail work is great.... and sometimes better with help. Today Juniata College "inbound" freshman visited the trails to work and ride. We met up early and did some cleaning and clearing on the the Buck and Fawn Trails. The 12 volunteers that made up the group put out a tremendous effort to remove debris and dirt from the drains in many of the grade reversals.

Interested in trailwork opportunities for your organization or upcoming community service needs. Contact Me- whysinglespeed@gmail.com

oh no

well the mukluk was fun...but the Raystown Facility is about to become that much more accessible.

http://www.surlybikes.com/blog/2523/

And yes.

boulder fields and big moth

Been a good week for riding with cooler evening and night time temps hitting as low as 60.

As the Allegrippis tends to get pretty busy on the weekends I've been trekking around the area in search of fresh trail. As it should happen found some great snowmobile trails and singletrack on my last ride, which yielded some pretty wild terrain with massive boulders and spires in excess of 40 ft sticking through the woods.

The Salsa Fargo has been my bike of choice for getting lost afterwork and even on some great camping trips. Now with just under 1000 miles on the bike, its time to nitpick. The fit of the bike and rake on the fork has been improved over last years model, however many of the parts on the complete have seem to taken a quick beating.

-The Cane Creek Thudbuster seatpost, is a great piece of equipment on this beast softening the blow of harsh ruts and water-bars on gravel roads. However, it lacks durability as it seems to be always rattling. The bushings are indeed replaceable but with the intended use of post and bike seems like they are lacking.

-The lack of barrel adjusters or inline adjusters on the shifters seems a bit odd as 10-spd has a tendency to be slightly more finicky with reduced spacing in the cassette; it'd be nice is all I'm saying.

-The WTB saddle has already begun to hammock quite severly an issue that I've had before with WTB's Lazer V and Speed. Despite the hammock it is still rather comfortable, although I'll be switching to the tried and true WTB Devo, as it does not seem to hammock nearly as quickly.

-The rims on the stock bike de-tensioned very quickly, prior to loaded camping or heavy use. After re-tensioning the wheels they have held relatively true. For the money they are decent.

-Last is more of a recc'd upgrade which would be the hubs.....engagement is severely lacking and when pickin' through the rocky stuff they just could be a little more precise.

As a whole the bike is a great value for the $1625 asking price and if you haven't jumped on one yet be sure to throw a leg over next time you stop by the shop.

I'm no photographer but the moths have been out and I finally found one hanging out.