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Squirrel catchers

sittingduck

sittingduck

Turbo Monkey
Jun 22, 2007
1,958
2
Oregon
Motomack86 said:
I told him it wasn't cool to change stuff without talking to me first and i let him know i was angry that he had done that.
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This is the key issue.... this is the trickiest part, and exactly what got our trails vandalized one time. One must be extremely careful how you approach trying to steer people's activities, because offense will be taken very easily. Some people you just CAN'T deal with, and no amount of diplomacy will work, but most can be brought around if you outsmart them, instead of trying to be mr. badass, or coming off like you own the place. (public land)
 
T

t1maglio

Monkey
Oct 29, 2001
855
0
southern wisconsin
Depending on you situation I would have to side with Duck. You piss off some kid and they will come back when your not there and tear stuff up. Kids just don't have the respect. If you find a way to tap into them its such a better approach. The trails I have been working on the last few years catch mostly squirrels, they are in a public park and the city, thou they are happy for me to build, will do nothing to post rules or back me on my efforts. Riding through the mud, running over lips, sitting on them, doing stupid stuff, the kids have no idea. I don't live in the town and since I pretty much was a solo show I had no reinforcements when I wasn't there. I did start educating as many people as possible, as nicely as I could, but after digging for a week straight and not riding my work and then have a drove of 14 and 15 year olds roll up and want to ride with out any work, or doing stuff to trash it, pissed me off as well.

Its a fine line is all I'm saying, but most kids will react better to respect, but some do need to get beat.
 
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C

creeps

Chimp
Apr 21, 2009
2
0
My spot is about 100 meters away from a rather busy bike path that gets quite a lot of young hacks coming past. But unless they know about the spot or go purposely looking they cant see it.

We take a couple of approaches towards them. First of all if kids come down at all we ignore them and give them a couple dirty looks and usually this intimidates them enough to get rid of them and they wont bother coming back.

If they dont get the message and they approach us we are civil with them, but pretty much tell them straight out that we dont want them around and to not tell anyone.

Our current spot we have had for around 2 years now, they are reasonably technical jumps and are also lock up with a heavy chain. By taking the approaches above and having them locked up we have had next to no issues whatsoever. Word gets around that noone is welcome to ride unless they speak to us first and we can go a week without going down and it will still be the same as we left it.

As much as I hate to do it like this we have had far too many freeloaders take advantage of our work in the past and this is the only way that seems to work.

Unfortunately if there is a common understanding amongst riders that they can get away with such stuff at this spot of yours (which wouldn't suprose me if they have been around for ten years) you are probably going to have a pretty hard time of curbing the precedent. Good Luck.
 
cmc

cmc

Turbo Monkey
Nov 17, 2006
2,052
6
austin
flatrls said:
. . . Its called socialist bmx. . . .get this no work! but they are guaranteed dialed trails maintained to their liking for life. Trail drama....aint no fun ....
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'socialists' maybe, but estos hombres fueron los jefes, no hay pregunta sobre esto !

hah hah.
 
sittingduck

sittingduck

Turbo Monkey
Jun 22, 2007
1,958
2
Oregon
aaronrocker said:
get each others phone numbers and argue this out but dont do it here. this thread is for squirrel catchers not how to beat up punk ass kids.
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It's like I've said: some people, you just can't reach.... No amount of reason or logic gets through, they are going to act how they act and you're pretty much pissin' in the wind.
I still try though, hoping someday they will mature and realize the error of their ways.
 
M

Motomack86

Chimp
Jun 26, 2004
11
0
Belmont,California
Im sorry that i derailed the thread.I definately learned not to get on anyone that poaches a line.Im going to change my approach next time and hope for the best.Kids are hard to understand these days though.

Back to squirrel catching
 
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stringcheese

Monkey
Jun 6, 2002
359
0
Golden, CO
Beast said:
Haha, we're probably the least hostile trail bosses you'll ever meet. I'm routinely teaching new riders how to approach various jump types, and often help build new bike parks in the area (Lyons and Lory, for example).

We're building squirrel catchers becuase, quite frankly, if someone can't make it through the entire line, they don't belong in it.

Not only does it cut down on our work, but it's also a safety thing. Riders incapable of jumping the first hit in a set cleanly will likely case really freaking hard down the line (or worse yet, nose case). We've seen it happen time and time again...
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Man.... funny you mention that safety thing. I showed up at sunset a few weeks ago and had a pretty tough time getting that main line down. The first jump that you have to absorb so as to not overclear it and totally **** up the next one or 2 jumps is really annoying. I cased the next jumps so many times because of it and took such a beating that I couldn't ride for weeks and my bike was completely f*cked up. I even had a shovel I borrowed so that I could fix what I messed up, and I did, but I wouldn't have f*cked anything up if the first jump wasn't so damn awkward. I haven't been there since.
 
Axis

Axis

Monkey
Jun 9, 2004
471
0
You know I can see both sides of the argument... I went to a def pro level spot yesterday and they had a really nice squirrel catcher. It is hidden really well too and before you even get close to the big line they also built a nice little eight pack. Keeps the regular riders happy and seems to build a community spirit.

But... the bulldozers are gonna come once the river goes down far enough...
 
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Beast

Beast

Turbo Monkey
May 23, 2002
1,579
0
Where the riding is good
stringcheese said:
Man.... funny you mention that safety thing. I showed up at sunset a few weeks ago and had a pretty tough time getting that main line down. The first jump that you have to absorb so as to not overclear it and totally **** up the next one or 2 jumps is really annoying. I cased the next jumps so many times because of it and took such a beating that I couldn't ride for weeks and my bike was completely f*cked up. I even had a shovel I borrowed so that I could fix what I messed up, and I did, but I wouldn't have f*cked anything up if the first jump wasn't so damn awkward. I haven't been there since.
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Things have changed tremendously since then. Look different now? Thanks for fixing your cases.



 
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don

don

Turbo Monkey
Nov 8, 2001
1,319
0
Rumson, NJ
We've got one line with some berms and rollers before it get's into a table and then into some doubles. It's not a crazy line - the berms and rollers get you warmed-up and the tabletop and doubles are mellow.

The other 2 lines have cables and are locked. Even still, I've seen the wackiest tread lines (haven't seen these kids in person) going every which way on the berms and rollers. Luckily they leave the main runs alone.
 
S

sixgun_sound

Monkey
Sep 24, 2007
215
1
Yakima, WA
stringcheese said:
Man.... funny you mention that safety thing. I showed up at sunset a few weeks ago and had a pretty tough time getting that main line down. The first jump that you have to absorb so as to not overclear it and totally **** up the next one or 2 jumps is really annoying. I cased the next jumps so many times because of it and took such a beating that I couldn't ride for weeks and my bike was completely f*cked up. I even had a shovel I borrowed so that I could fix what I messed up, and I did, but I wouldn't have f*cked anything up if the first jump wasn't so damn awkward. I haven't been there since.
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So... what you're saying is that squirrel catchers work?
 
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