Tonight I joined the trail work crew in south Tryon. We added material to some wet spots, armored a few places where water runoff crosses the trail, and de-bermed some. There was a lot of poison ivy in the area and I wasn't very careful to avoid it. I was told multiple times that I was standing in it. Whoops!
On the advice of a co-trailworker I stopped at CVS and bought some Technu cleaner to remove poison ivy oils from my skin, clothes, shoes, and tools. Hopefully it works!
There are Beginner (3 laps), Sport (5 laps), and Expert (7 laps) classes, for mountain bikes. Of course there is no muni class.
Before I asked the organizers if I could join in with my muni, I wanted to investigate the trails. You are supposed to be a YMCA member to ride there, but I asked around and learned that the program director there, Mike, would probably be ok with it, especially if I explained.
So I went there this morning and rode a few laps around. I spent a fair amount of time just figuring out which trails were which and how to get on them, just like with any new trail system. The land is adjacent to Powder Mills Park, which is a county park and does not allow biking, and the trails run together. So it was kind of tricky to stay in the right area. The trail markers aren't always clear. I did have a map, which helped. But even with the map, I didn't hit all the trails the right way. I think I strayed out of the property a few times. Of rourse for a race the trails will be marked way better.
The trails aren't bad, though not all that exciting: some rooty areas, some trail along cliffs, a few significant hill climbs, and a few significant downhills. I don't know what the race course will be, but 3 laps is likely going to be plenty for me. So I'll see if I can join the Beginner class. I'll have to contact Park Ave Bike.
I met a few of the YMCA employees near the parking lot. One of them was Mike, the program director who it was recommended I talk to. He was very nice and excited to see the mountain unicycle. We talked a bunch about the sport and he showed me some of the work he's been doing on the trails. It's always good to see some people actively working on trails. He's in need of some workers to do some trail benching, so I may be back for some trail work soon. As it is now, you'd have to buy a full YMCA membership even if you only wanted to use the trails once in a while. That's way too expensive. We talked about the possibility of having much cheaper trail-use passes.
I only rode 4 miles. And probably 10% of that was walking, either uphill or trying to figure out where to ride.
I've been working more and more on the local trails. I've learned a lot from different crew members, but I wanted a good book on the subject.
The most popular book seems to be IMBA's Trail Solutions. IMBA is the International Mountain Bicycling Association. They seem to be all about sustainable trails. I just received my copy of this book today and I'm looking forward to studying up!
It is commonly known amongst Schlumpf hub owners that their crank arms will loosen fairly quickly over time. It's been a few months since I last checked mine, and sure enough they needed tightening. It's recommended to torque them to 25-35 ft-lbs. I aimed for 30, but worked my way up from about 15. I'm always nervous about over-torquing. I was surprised to find I was actively tightening at about 20 ft-lbs. I had even used blue loctite in the past. It clearly did not hold.
For any Schlumpf owners who may stumble upon this post, I recommend you push the back of your wrench with one hand to keep the hex socket seated well while you tighten. I've rounded one of the Schlumpf bolts in the past.
I also added another 2.5 ml of grease to my Schlumpf. It naturally leaks some out over time, and it felt like it was time.
Last night we had a big thunderstorm, adding more water to the already muddy Whiting Road Nature Preserve. I decided to hike the trail again this morning and document the water issues. This time I took a picture of every single issue and landmark. Later I added annotated the pictures and added them to my GPS trip on EveryTrail.com. Although my camera does not have a GPS feature, EveryTrail is able to place them on its map based on the time stamp. After using the time offset feature on EveryTrail.com, the images fell into place fairly well.
Seeing the map and slideshow together works better at the EveryTrail site. Click the link to see that:
This morning I joined the trail crew at Bay Park West. We spent over three hours at the trails. A few of the crew members worked on some armoring before a bridge, and the rest of worked on benching a hill.
It's amazing how a hillside that you can hardly walk on becomes a manageable trail. There were about 12 of us working and the amount of work done was impressive. I gotta bring a camera next time. Update: I got some images capture by a fellow worker. See below.
Riding muni at BPW is difficult due to the never-ending hills, but I'm still looking forward to heading there when things are dry enough. It's very close. I'm crossing my fingers for no rain for the next 24 hours. Maybe I'll try to ride there tomorrow.
For the first time I rode with the entire family with me on my uni.
We rode in the area neighborhoods, about 4.4 miles. But the fun part about it is that I'm not slowing us down, thanks to my geared hub.
My average speed was 8.8 mph, and my top speed was 12.6 mph. I even had to slow down several times for the slow poke... who will remain nameless. Good thing she wasn't on her unicycle. Wait, have I said too much? ;-)
