Ride & Imbibe!

[Scorpionwoman]

It seems the "Walnut Creek" thread has plenty of people reporting on conditions, even providing specific info on *which* loops should be avoided. There were several loops that were too wet to ride last Thursday, and the info was there for the taking.

[Shinerider]

20 hours ago, Dawn said:

Providing no new wet stuff before tomorrow afternoon, Lucie and I are going to meet at Oscar Blues at 4:30 and ride over to Walnut, ride the trail, then back to Oscar Blues for burgers and beer. 

Innage.

[June Bug]

Although I haven't done much trail work in the last few years, I have done a lot of solo and group trail work at WC over the years, including a very rainy winter quite a few years ago where there were some major mud holes that developed over time. 

Let me clarify the damage cycle. When you ride a damp trail, even when the knobs on your tire make an indentation of, say,  a sixteenth of an inch, that indentation holds water, because that's how it works.   Six more riders come by, and now there's a slight low spot that's kinda soft.  With the next rain, you've got a soft patch holding water that does not drain, people ride through, and now there's a major sloppy mess that can only get worse because it's a low spot that holds water.  

In the past, to fix that low spot, I'd  go out with a flat blade shovel and start shaving the tread down to drain the low spot to the downslope side of the trail.  If there is no down slope, then the side of the trail was downsloped to a drainage pit dug out to capture the water.  You'd be amazed at how many hours of manual labor it takes to do this simple repair over 6 or 8 feet of trail.  Some of these repairs are still holding up, some need to be redone or touched up.  

Chardog's brilliant berming solution for curves (capturing the water to the inside of the berm) has addressed a lot of the problem areas where there's a curve in the trail, but either way, it's still a LOT of hard work to create and maintain. 

1. If possible, don't ride, let things dry out
2. Do your damn trail work

 

 

Edited January 15, 2019 by June Bug

[AntonioGG]

9 hours ago, Chardog said:

Church Hill (Hill of despair) is likely still a muddy mess as the water is seeping out of the ground and making most of the hill a soup.

 

There was only one spot on church hill that had moisture, and that was on the upper limestone section.  The lower clay section was dry and firm.  The descent was all very nice.

[AustinBike]

Any R&I this evening should assume:

1. There will be some dismounting if we get to non-rideable parts

2. We'll be riding slower than usual so that we have more control over the lines taken. 

 

90% of what I rode last week was totally rideable with no mud. There was 10% where we had to be careful. Church Hill, Windy and BMX are all off limits. Within the rest of the trail there were non-muddy lines anywhere that there was mud. I think I had to get off and walk twice in the normal "core" race route.

[Teamsloan]

I know this is crazy sounding...but has anyone ever considered making an R&I a "TW&I". We have quite the crew that is regularly able to clear their Tuesday nights to be out at WC. If we have a crew that size, I bet a lot of work could be done to address all those poorly draining areas. On nights too damp to ride, why not still show up to throw a shovel around for a bit and then imbibe as usual?

 

 

*I am not suggesting tonight to do this as it is quasi-ridable for y'all and I've thrown my back out again 😞 But I have done this before and it worked well.

[Ridenfool]

T.I.R.E.

Trailwork

Imbibe

Ride

Eat

(not necessarily performed in that order)

[AustinBike]

37 minutes ago, Teamsloan said:

I know this is crazy sounding...but has anyone ever considered making an R&I a "TW&I". We have quite the crew that is regularly able to clear their Tuesday nights to be out at WC. If we have a crew that size, I bet a lot of work could be done to address all those poorly draining areas. On nights too damp to ride, why not still show up to throw a shovel around for a bit and then imbibe as usual?

 

 

*I am not suggesting tonight to do this as it is quasi-ridable for y'all and I've thrown my back out again 😞 But I have done this before and it worked well.

I would be up for this one night instead of riding.

[Anita Handle]

1 hour ago, AustinBike said:

Any R&I this evening should assume:

1. There will be some dismounting if we get to non-rideable parts

2. We'll be riding slower than usual so that we have more control over the lines taken. 

 

90% of what I rode last week was totally rideable with no mud. There was 10% where we had to be careful. Church Hill, Windy and BMX are all off limits. Within the rest of the trail there were non-muddy lines anywhere that there was mud. I think I had to get off and walk twice in the normal "core" race route.

What will you do when you get to a non-rideable part? Levitate over it??? Walking around it or riding gingerly around it ain't much better than splashing right through.

[Anita Handle]

2 hours ago, Scorpionwoman said:

It seems the "Walnut Creek" thread has plenty of people reporting on conditions, even providing specific info on *which* loops should be avoided. There were several loops that were too wet to ride last Thursday, and the info was there for the taking.

Outta sight, outta mind. I frequently forget that there are other forums dedicated to certain topics. I don't typically surf to every forum that has stuff that I might be interested in. Pretty much just go to this one. It would be cool if one main forum had a little box with "hot topics" in other forums.

[AustinBike]

11 minutes ago, Anita Handle said:

What will you do when you get to a non-rideable part? Levitate over it??? Walking around it or riding gingerly around it ain't much better than splashing right through.

Honestly, if you skip Windy, BMX and Church, the other areas are all rideable.

Point 6 had patches of mud, but those were typically down at the bottom of the berm, so if you are riding on the top of the berm (where you should be) you are fine. If you are riding a berm at the bottom I have better questions to be asking.

One of the few points where I got off to walk s here:

If I were riding slower I would have seen the puddle and taken the line on the left. Instead I was not paying attention and ended up stopping, getting off the bike and walking over to the other line. If you look you can see the a dry solid trail on the left.  This was the only standing water that I saw on the primary trails (other than the 3 mentioned above).

If people are not hammering they should be fine. The biggest problem will be people riding too fast that don't see mud until it is too late. All of it is avoidable if people are being smart.

 

 

[Anita Handle]

the official IMBA approach used to be to go through the middle to avoid widening the trail. I don't know what they suggest now. 

[AustinBike]

If there was an 18-24" secondary path alongside the puddle they'd probably tell you to ride on that.

[AntonioGG]

I rode church hill 6-7 times on Thursday from around 3 to 4:30pm.  Now reading y'alls comments, I'm afraid I've been doing it wrong all these years as far as the rules on when it's OK to ride.   When you guys say church hill, you mean just the climb part right?  I'm racking my brain trying to recall what part of that climb was a mess.  Is riding the wet limestone itself the problem?  Or was there actual mud (like on the Windy loop first climb) when you guys rode?

Here is what I go by when riding, please correct any of these things I'm doing wrong:  

1) ride through the puddle if the bottom is firm (most of the time this is true when there's actual water.)

2) if it looks like deep mud (as opposed to a puddle of water), avoid it. If walking off the trail would damage that part of the trail, then don't do that.  I've turned around at this point.  At places like Brushy where it's very rocky, it's easy to just walk on the rocks and not widen the trail.  I look back often to see what my trail looks like.  I look at my tires to make sure they are coming up clean.  

3) If the mud has ruts, but it is hardening (i.e. improving) I make it a point to ride on the ridges to flatten them out.  I do this at point 6 once it starts drying out.  I figured it's much easier to flatten things out with tires when the dirt is soft than it is to wait for them to harden and have to do with a shovel.  If it's very soft but not sticking, I get off the bike, and I use my tire like a rolling pin to flatten things out.  I've done this at peddler's pass recently. I will not ride if I leave more than a knob depth imprint.

4) If the mud is caused by an easy to clear blockage (detritus), I often stop and clear the blockage.  I don't ride with a shovel or any sizable tools, but I'll use whatever is handy (sticks, rocks) to "cut through" the ridges on the ruts to let the water drain (I do this frequently at Brushy Creek's Mulligan).

[Tree Magnet]

25 minutes ago, AntonioGG said:

I make it a point to ride on the ridges to flatten them out.  I do this at point 6 once it starts drying out.  I figured it's much easier to flatten things out with tires when the dirt is soft than it is to wait for them to harden and have to do with a shovel.  If it's very soft but not sticking, I get off the bike, and I use my tire like a rolling pin to flatten things out.  I've done this at peddler's pass recently. I will not ride if I leave more than a knob depth imprint.

I'm interested to hear the trail builder perspective but here are my thoughts.  If you can move and mold the dirt, it's mud.  Flattening it out will get rid of the ridges (good) but it will contribute to creating a depression in that spot (bad).  If you're already at the puddle, go for it.  Better yet, flatten it, turn around, and ride somewhere with a trail surface that can handle it (concrete, RPR, Ladybird lake, etc). 

If we lived in Seattle or England where riding on wet trails was a fact of life and expected by the community that is supporting those trails, I'd understand.  However, in reality, we don't get that much rain around here.  I would say that our trails are good to go 90% of the year.  If you can't find another place to ride that remaining 10%, you should feel obligated to grab a shovel and fix all the damage being done.   Seriously...my stance is that we either HTFU and accept responsibility for trail damage or don't ride it.

[AustinBike]

That is a pretty good set of rules. Typically I don't have to deal with this because I'd rather ride urban than pack everything up, drive over there and find out it is too wet. I am lazy that way.

When I said to stay away from Church Climb it is the way up that is the problem. The areas right before the last ledge were muddy. I was able to get off, pick up my bike and get around it without widening the trail or causing any damage. Windy and BMX were different, in both cases I hit a wide mud patch and just turned around. I was going backwards on Windy; the limestone climb at the beginning was a mess when I passed by as well, but there is a trail section that lets you avoid it.

[AntonioGG]

10 minutes ago, Tree Magnet said:

I'm interested to hear the trail builder perspective but here are my thoughts. 

+1

10 minutes ago, Tree Magnet said:

Flattening it out will get rid of the ridges (good) but it will contribute to creating a depression in that spot (bad). 

To clarify, my goal is to flatten to the level of the undisturbed trail.  I'm talking about a limited size spot in a trail that has had the mud vertically displaced into a ridge by several sets of tires.  It's about the consistency of play dough or modeling clay.  Once it hardens, it will take a shovel or other tools and much more work.  I'll take pictures the next time I do this.

[AntonioGG]

To clarify, I've been riding the trainer a lot the last few months (3 off-road rides in 5 weeks:  One in 4C, one at Brushy (got rained on halfway through), and WC on 2 trails this past Thursday).  I've also been doing less road riding than ever, and now I'll be doing even less after loosing a fellow endurance MTBer in College Station (RIP Ken Spence).  Otherwise, I just ride the hills in my neighborhood.  I'm fairly lazy too (lights plus winter gear plus driving in traffic=no thanks) and so I'm not going to the R&I tonight and instead did 1hr at a good effort on my trainer for lunch while I listened/watched a company monthly update.  I'll do the "I "part on my couch.  🙂

[fontarin]

Damn, I hadn't heard about Ken.  That sucks.

[cxagent]

It does my heart good to see posts like Tree Magnet and AntonioGG just above.

If you can, just don't ride muddy trails. Go somewhere else. Do an urban ride. Ride the trainer. Etc.

But there are times when you thought the trails were GTG and find they aren't. If there is a dry line - use it.  If there is no dry line, stay in the puddle so we don't widen the trail. That is not always possible. Or walk your bike thru there. Better still is you walk on rocks and carry your bike. The point is to NOT make a linear rut that holds water or worse makes a channel the directs the water into one groove that starts washing away dirt.

There are times when you get caught in the rain. 2012 EB is a good example. Clear sky and no forecast for rain. We were in St Eds when the downpour started. And it POURED. At about 50 miles in the only thing we could do was press on. In the rain. In the mud. With no brakes. We stayed on the trail and tried to stay on the rocks as much as possible. Not too hard in St Eds. Not possible in Thumper. In Thumper we stayed on the trail and walked a lot. We used the rocks where we could. Where it was clay mud that stuck to everything, the best we could do was pick up the bike and walk. Its not like we could ride Thumper when the black clay on the trails was so slick you had trouble walking. And about a week later I went back to correct the damage. I spent most of that week resting and recovering.

As far as using your tires to smooth out the ruts - go for it. Unless the tire is picking up mud that then gets carried away with you - it will help.

[AntonioGG]

2 hours ago, cxagent said:

 

There are times when you get caught in the rain. 2012 EB is a good example. Clear sky and no forecast for rain. We were in St Eds when the downpour started. And it POURED. At about 50 miles in the only thing we could do was press on. In the rain. In the mud. With no brakes. We stayed on the trail and tried to stay on the rocks as much as possible. Not too hard in St Eds. Not possible in Thumper. In Thumper we stayed on the trail and walked a lot. We used the rocks where we could. Where it was clay mud that stuck to everything, the best we could do was pick up the bike and walk. Its not like we could ride Thumper when the black clay on the trails was so slick you had trouble walking. And about a week later I went back to correct the damage. I spent most of that week resting and recovering.

 

 

I remember bombing down St. Ed's with the rushing water.  For me the rain started coming down on the downhill.  It was strange going as fast as the water.  It was interesting.  By the time I got to Thumper it had stopped raining but it was extremely slick.  I think it took me 2+ hours because it was mostly walking.

[62clyde]

Just joined... Looks like I'm in the right place... I always don't want to be the guy that damages the trails.  I have built some of my own and mine may not the "The right way:" I'm sure ...but I know how much work it is.  Beginner and been riding mainly since June on a 26 and just moved to a 29er.  I have not rode most of the trails discussed....   but plan to.

 

Clyde

[Teamsloan]

Welcome! Hopefully it will be a normal R&I next week!

[Albert]

Did anyone end up riding Walnut last night?  If so, how were the trails? 

[fontarin]

6 minutes ago, Albert said:

Did anyone end up riding Walnut last night?  If so, how were the trails? 

Log Loops, Tangle, Chardog/Powerline Flow/Endo were all fine.

I would avoid:

Point 6 - Some mud still in the middle of the trail.  People widening trail to go around it.  Walked a bit of it due to this.

Windy/BMX - did not see first hand but heard others say they're very messy.

Marks Art - Looked messy so I skipped it.

Fence Line after Tangle was squishy but didn't collect on my tires.

Main Creek Crossing was a mess.  I used the bridge.