July 9, 2014 - Respect for the level of trail
Silver Star Bike Park is known for being a progressive Bike Park. We pride ourselves on this fact and strive to make it one of the best Parks in the world in this regard. What does that mean?
It means you can learn and progress with baby steps. Since expanding the bike park we have been dedicated to have trails for all abilities so each level of rider can progress at their own speed and have the best possible day in any Bike Park.
With that goal in mind we try and echo our trails so once you are confident on one trail the next step up has the same feel. This stands true with machine built flow trails and tech hand built trails. If LTG is a little easy and you need more of a challenge, head over to Double Dog. Clearing all the jumps on Super Star? Try Shazam or Jedi Mind Trick, or maybe its time to try out Rock Star or maybe you are already on Rock Star and those jumps are just too small, learn to connect Pipe Dream or Walk the Line. There are lots of options to suite your ability!
Its important to have a level of respect for the way the park has been built and the level of skilled required for certain trails. For example if you are a fast rider, and we have lots in the park, please respect a slower rider when riding Blue and Green trails. These trails are designed for them! They are designed and intended for the intermediate rider to hone their skills and enjoy the park. It is disrespectful for a faster rider to blow by a beginner or try and pass them when theyre trying to learn and gain confidence on a trail that is intended for that level of riding. And it also can scare the bejessus out of a lesser rider. If the Park is busy (which is normally only weekends) and the riders are slowing you down, time to move up to a Black or Double Black trail. Silver Star has never had a problem with this in the past but we are seeing it creep in and we hope to keep this at bay and keep our small mountain feel even as our ridership increases.
In due respect if you are an intermediate rider and the Gate Keepers at the head of the black trails are above your skill set, please do not walk over or around them to continue down the trail. Yes, some of the Gate Keepers are rollable but this is not the intention. If you are not capable of confidently handling the Gate Keepers at the head of the trail, please roll into one of the many easier trails and work on your skills and speed until you feel confident getting over these Gate Keepers. The Vault is another area to practice your skills. They are representative of the skills and speed needed not to hold up other riders up on that trail. Maybe you can get down the trail, but you will hold up other riders. And yes they get bigger and more difficult as the trails get harder. Pipe Dream and Walk the Line are a much more difficult feature than the top of World Cup and Rock Star. Again showing the skill set needed for these trails. The idea is to allow you to see what level of rider you need to be before continuing down this trail with confidence. These are important features to make sure you can safely navigate the trail and also to make sure you dont interfere with someone else enjoying the trail who has the required skill.
Now with what we did this week
The Berms on Lower World Cup where pulled up. They are a little soft but the trail is open top to bottom now.
The second last berm coming into the lift was re-tooled. If you hit the bonus weekend you found yourself blowing the next berm before rolling into the lift. We opened up the line and it now spits you right into the pocket of that last berm. Thanks Mike Hainault!
Lower Shazam received a full buff up. There were numerous trees down, wet spots to deal with and a few holes that were filled. But I have to say I think this is the earliest we have had this section of trail open.
Jedi Mind Trick had a little alteration near the bottom. Crossing one of the ski runs the trail slowed a little too much. We opened up the corner and straightened out the line to carry you across a bit faster. Still a little soft but once the trail hardens up it will be a great improvement
Silver Shack started getting some extension on the bridges. The hope was the ground would dry out; turns out the bridges are going to get a little longer. Watch for this to continue next week.
We made some changes to the Middle of Super Star last year. The section of trail was always rough and the downhill berms blown out. We brought the trail across the slope to control speed and had intentions of increasing the flow of the trail with a couple extra berms. Turns out we got a little overzealous. If you ride Super Star you will know the section. Trail Crew caught some slack for adding an "XC" section into one of our most popular downhill trails. Thanks to Jason Martin this has been rectified and the trail is flowing again! Thanks Jay!
We made the same mistake with Shazam last year. We tried to take out too much of the grade again. Most times it works really well and feels great having your bike unweight. The cheat line that has formed on this section of Shazam will become the new berm and the trail will return to the transfer feel people love, coming very soon.
We pounded in a 200m + of Stage II of Chakra. The XC crowd is going to love this trail. I know Steve Darby is having a lot of fun building it. I can't wait. Should be completed mid-summer.
The sign posts are up on the XC trails. There are 15 6x6 posts out in the park now helping you navigate the growing XC trails
The Slope Style is just around the corner. July 11 [HTML_REMOVED] 12th. The crew got to work on the course this week. Buffing the drop landings, pulling up the landing of the Whale Tail and changing the profile of the jumps. Going to be a great event. Have yo registered yet?
And we added in a "new" Gate Keeper at the top of World Cup. This is the access point for a many of the Black jump trails. We took away the drop style Gate Keeper that has been there for a number of years. It is now a small wood jump with a bike length gap to a dirt landing. The gap is filled in with rough big rock so is not friendly to ride over. It is small, smaller than most the jumps on Rock Star, to help you gauge the skills needed to enjoy those trails.
I think we did more than this over the week as the larger crew is amazing this summer! We have a great bunch of guys work on Trail Crew this year, so if you see them out there thank them. They work really hard so we can all have great trails to ride!
LaterCam