What a crazy two weeks! Insane weather once again didn’t deter our volunteers. A solid turn out to barrow 120 tonnes of stone has meant we’ve finished up with what will be, once opened, another super fun, flowy section of singletrack! Well done everyone involved.

Planning these trail refurbishments takes a lot of time and energy and this will most likely be the last one we do between now and the end of the Summer. We hope you really enjoy the trail and the other work that’s been achieved over the last year.

The tape will come down on Thursday 21st March. Please DO NOT ride it before then. If you see that some numpty has taken down the tape before then, please help but putting it back up. Riding the trail too soon will cause unnecessary damage which is incredibly frustrating. We will remove the tape completely once open on 21st so that you’ll know it’s good to go.

Read on for some pics from the build, including photos of real life trail faries! Yep, they are real…..

Architrail were first on site to take stone deliveries and scratch the trail through before any volunteers showed up. This took five days due to the deteriorated condition of the trail.

We got together a pretty decent collection of barrows, 23 in total (plus the big one with the engine) to maximise the efficiency of the workforce.

The shot above is taken from sign-on on Friday. We ran a morning and afternoon session with full safety briefing and toolbox talk before we got stuck in. It served as a great way for people to meet each other too and helped set the tone for the day.

Thank you to all our volunteers. We’re really sorry if gave your time and you’re not in one of these photos! We struggled to be consistent in getting team photos each day. Photo or not, your contribution has added so much for so many. You’re awesome.

Massive thanks to Tarmac too who donated 100 tonnes (of the 120 used) for free and to Architrail who led the job and worked tirelessly at cost price to see it through.

I’m not going to show many trail pics here but this is a fun little feature we built. The pic was taken before the dust had been fully spread and compacted but you get the idea. You’ll have to ride the trail if you want to see more!

We also got Architrail to have a look at the bottom section of the trail behind the miniature railway which was still suffering premature erosion. They have re shaped and slightly realigned a couple of the turns and a roller towards the end, including the penultimate turn that was getting repeatedly skidded out. We’re hoping this will help lessen the need to skid, which damages the trail.

Peace, love and happy trails!

Matt, Sam & Ollie @ Pedal Progression