trail + bridge building--post yer picts!

Rebuilt Pile Driver feature at the base of Boogieman. Didn't want to get to this until the rest of the trail was taken care of first. Started this project in October, finished it last Friday. Had a lot of friends come out on the weekends to help move wood and throw dirt. I have a lot more step by step pictures, but I figured you guys can get the gist of each stage. The new entry is a steep rock face off of a tight turn from another rock face onto a dirt bridge and onto a wood ladder drop. Same height as the old feature, but pulled about 2 metres back and without the uphill section. Anyway, hope you guys like it.

Platform at base of rock face leading into pile driver tree stump. Pink ribbon shows the location of new ladder to tree stump.

Side view of ride around option, curved bridge, and stringers built on sleeper stacks. Lower two levels of sleepers are filled with rock and dirt to keep the foundation stable.

Because there is such a steep entry into the new Pile Driver and there is slight right hand turn, I thought it would be good to give it a dirt-topped entry before getting onto the slats.

The landing. A lot of rock, wood, and dirt moved to shape a new landing.

Final product.

wow fairly different since the last time I rode boogieman 12 years ago!

sweet!

Nice work DLK! TAP that shit good.

here are some older photos from last year and previous year.

jump at the bottom of a bank turn into a step down.

entrance to skinny bridge

exit of skinny bridge

this is the long bridge over the swamp on boogieman. in 2013 a large tree fell onto the bridge shattering part of the log off and making the bridge softer and bouncy. we had to establish a drainage below the bridge that would allow for solid dry ground to firm up. then pressed the stilts under the bridge. the rest of the log end to end was skinned and resurfaced by chainsaw. the end of the bridge, at the highest and skinniest part was decked with cedar because the centre of the log was starting to show wear.

this is the bridge with slats on it. i tried to keep the width of the bridge the same to keep with the spirit of the feature. but it makes for a much better all weather riding surface, so makes the trail more accessible in the wet weather.

That looks absolutely incredible.

Awesome. Nice to see some stunts been reborn for a change!

So good! ^^^

Awesome work, dkl.

Great work on the drop and the approach too. Not quite as big as the original, but still some decent hang time even going slow.

Nice to see a classic feature revitalized.

This whole page is win city!!! What a great job.

Great work on the drop and the approach too. Not quite as big as the original, but still some decent hang time even going slow.

Nice to see a classic feature revitalized.

Yeah, it's a little bit lower, but not by a lot. I won't get too much into the details about nerding out on the calculations of the trajectory, but I tried to make it so that you would have the same hang time, but with a better take-off angle, and better transition to landing. i tried to focus the drop on sending you "out" more and less focussed on "dropping." hence moving the take-off back about 3.5 feet and bringing the lip of the landing up more.

Not to get all concerned about how big it was and stuff, but here's a side profile photo of it today. pink ribbon shows the calculated landing, watching most people go off of it, it's pretty close.

versus a photo of it previously, taken from another angle.

as you can see the old pile driver was built off of a higher platform, the edge of the twisty root limb which you can see in the first photo above showing the drop today. so yes, it definitely is smaller of a drop today than before, but not by much and technically should be the same "hang time." a buddy of mine said that he thought it felt less high than it actually is because of where the transition is placed relative to the take off. it just feels a shit tonne smoother so you don't feel slammed when you land. plus you don't ride up a ramp and down the short plank, so you're not perched as high to begin with.

anyway, I'm not all sensitive about it or anything. I'd encourage any criticism good or bad, it's just food for thought to continually build better in the future. I'm just glad to see people out riding the trail again. been working on it a lot over the past few years wondering if I was building a hiking trail or a biking trail since I saw more hikers, dogwalkers, and runners than riders coming down. in the past few months things have definitely been leaning towards 50/50 with more riders again which is cool.

How many feet out and down would you say the new drop is?

How many feet out and down would you say the new drop is?

What he means is lets see the calculations!