Just took a look at the new trail. Its gonna be awesome when its done! That new double is so sweet, just a bit of a tricky landing, but thats where the skills come in. Are there gonna be big clay berms all the way down? And when can I come help build them?
Thats the problem being 15. All the time to ride. No transport . But there is a lot of dh in tokai. You just have to be creative. The switchbacks at speed are good. Level 5 of the snake trails is one long rock garden. Not very steep but a very good test of keeping momentum and quick line choice. Good dh practice. Or just for fun try set a land speed record down the jeep track. Thats what the early tracks were like. Wide open but SUPER fast.
If you want more people to get into dh then the fast smooth flowing track is perfect. The kind of track that leaves you laughing all the way down. Thats the best fun ever. Fast flowing corners , jumps that you can whip or lay flat, maybe a few pump /manual bumps etc. Rock gardens are good on a race track. Separate the men from the kids. But i also know that only two events a year can happen in tokai and at the moment thats the cape epic and the mast race
Tomorrow is work family and stormers. But maybe. . . Otherwise sunday. Every sunday at 7.15 without fail. Rain or shine or snow or flu. It makes the week bearable just knowing that sunday is coming again.
But a meeting ON THE TRAIL is a brilliant idea! Meet up and bounce ideas around. Build up real enthusiasm and get commitments to do the digging. Awesome
Until you can absolutely pin it from top to bottom flat out with zero mistakes then the track should still offer you something. And the secret tracks in tokai are way tame compared to the actual dh track.
If you build it, they will come. And ride without saying thank you . Build days on a saturday afternoon? I have a hectic work schedule the week. And glorykid , while i see your point about gnar tracks, the more people that can ride what is built, the more support there will be. And less forum bitching.
The people who build the trails will build what they want to ride. If all the xc riders are too busy worrying about their maximum heart rates and what type of razor to use on their legs instead of building trails then so be it. You cant have your cake and eat it.
Just say when and i will be there to dig away. Sounds awesome. That section was getting a bit tricky on the old hardtail. Or am i just getting old. . .
The big advantage of 10 speed is a wider spread of ratios without big jumps between gears. It is great on a freeride bike where you need a granny gear to go up but still want to run one chain ring up front. On a dh bike it is pointless I reckon. I never use more than 3 gears in a dh race and thats mostly to get off the line. Then again the tracks we have dont have many 60 kmh pedally sections. . .
And as for being a Dh rider, I recently did a dh race on my single speed hard tail with 170 mm forks. Does that count? And I won my class. ( Cos I was the only one. Ha ha good times)
In the bmx , dirt jump community there is a strong " no dig no ride" policy. Imagine what we could do in tokai if every rider donated one day of their time a year to maintenance. That would be about 15000 man hours! No JCB needed. You would be amazed what can be done with a spade and some motivation
How about we fix up the old dh track that runs from about the 2nd jump all the way down to the quarry. Then it could all be one way and at least that route would be usable for dh on a weekend morning. Which is when it sometimes seems that the tour de france is riding up the trails.
