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The last person to post a picture from their last bike ride wins access to the white courtesy phone.

canadmos

Cake Tease
May 29, 2011
20,190
19,155
Canaderp
Short but fun one tonight.

Man people are obsessed with blowing leaves off the trails. I think if anything it hurts the trails in some spots, there are sections that have a 6-10" pile of wet leaves on both sides of the trail, forming a gutter. Guess where the water gets funneled when it rains...
 

Jozz

Joe Dalton
Apr 18, 2002
5,752
7,214
SADL
Short but fun one tonight.

Man people are obsessed with blowing leaves off the trails. I think if anything it hurts the trails in some spots, there are sections that have a 6-10" pile of wet leaves on both sides of the trail, forming a gutter. Guess where the water gets funneled when it rains...
I've been telling this here for years and finally they stopped leaf blowing. But not blowing causes another sets of problems when trails are not well maintained.
 

canadmos

Cake Tease
May 29, 2011
20,190
19,155
Canaderp
I've been telling this here for years and finally they stopped leaf blowing. But not blowing causes another sets of problems when trails are not well maintained.
What are your thoughts on raking?

I used to rake some trails in a super quick manner - it seemed like a good compromise. It wasnt perfect and left leaves on the trail, didnt create banks of leaves like a gutter and not to mention the noise thing with leaf blowers. I don't both anymore because it seems like people enjoying dressing up in full hazard gear and attacking the trails with gas powered blowers.

Plus I could just leave my rake in the forest and ride to it, do some work with a beer and then continue riding.

Over here, leaf blowers are lousy riders. Blown areas get muddy and nasty quickly, unlike packed down leaves.

Yeah that's another thing, in the spring when things are thawing, we could be riding on a nice layer of leaves rather than mud.
 

Jozz

Joe Dalton
Apr 18, 2002
5,752
7,214
SADL
What are your thoughts on raking?

I used to rake some trails in a super quick manner - it seemed like a good compromise. It wasnt perfect and left leaves on the trail, didnt create banks of leaves like a gutter and not to mention the noise thing with leaf blowers. I don't both anymore because it seems like people enjoying dressing up in full hazard gear and attacking the trails with gas powered blowers.

Plus I could just leave my rake in the forest and ride to it, do some work with a beer and then continue riding.

Yeah that's another thing, in the spring when things are thawing, we could be riding on a nice layer of leaves rather than mud.
My approach is more trail dependent. Depending on trail thread surface, buffed to organic layer or natural with root bed and rocks. The latter resist more the frost and thaw cycles of late fall. Wide buffed trail (read flow crap) threads literally explode with each thaw/frost cycles. At that point you either leave the leaves on trails or just close the trail. On the other hand, if you have trails that rely a lot on drainage exits to stay dry, letting the leaves block those drainages you end up with a bloody mess of dark mud mixed in with rotting leaves, which turns into a water sponge.
 

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,850
9,556
AK
This is moar like it. Back in town, we got a pretty decent dump of base snow. I can ride singletrack again, make full pedal circles with my post dropped pretty far. I can almost/kind of pedal out of the saddle, but it's kind of difficult like going down stairs is for me right now, which I can also kind of do. Much better for just everything else though. Laser check: ok.


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canadmos

Cake Tease
May 29, 2011
20,190
19,155
Canaderp


Them leaves were deep today. :brows:


This is moar like it. Back in town, we got a pretty decent dump of base snow. I can ride singletrack again, make full pedal circles with my post dropped pretty far. I can almost/kind of pedal out of the saddle, but it's kind of difficult like going down stairs is for me right now, which I can also kind of do. Much better for just everything else though. Laser check: ok.


View attachment 184250View attachment 184251View attachment 184252
Too soon, too soon :panic:
 

6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
15,827
13,060
One from the summer, woke up the next day with covid, the day after that I was bouncing between ER's via ambulance and into acute pulmonary care.
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