Building a “pecker log" jump and a new berm!

Well, at least it should remove the dirt. And that's why we need it because today our Rhodorooter work continues. Last week, we built a wooden

berm

after the Kevin

jump

, and despite my misgivings, you can set this thing on fire, to the point that the next turn needs a

berm

too. Now, this new berm won't have to be perfect. It just has to be better than a flat spin. So we will build it with earth and follow the natural slope of the land. But we won't have much time to do it, as usual. The first step is to use our newly sharpened hoe to cut off the top layer.

The loam at the peak of the berm has the consistency of a shaggy carpet and is composed primarily of tiny roots. That's why we leave it in place whenever possible, as it withstands virtually all weather conditions. But when we build a berm, what we're looking for is the clay underneath. Just as its name implies, clay can be shaped into almost anything. But once you get there, you'll find a mix of rocks, roots, rotten stumps, and other things that you'll want to rake before shaping them. But before you rake anything, you need to break and beat all this clay.

And we don't have time for all that. The rudder is our only machine: a really small machine. As we learned on the airbag trail, the tiller doesn't work as well in loam soil as all the roots get tangled in the tines. That's why we only light it now, after all the clay has been cut. Once the clay is worked, it is consistent enough to rake into a berm. As we shape it, the clay needs to be compacted and in my experience that takes a few days as the soil needs time to dry and harden. We still have a little more to build before the rain hits, so I brought some help to speed things up.

Almost 200 pounds of help. We used the plate tamper on the gravel drive project and I was able to use it to compact a landing in a matter of minutes. Despite its weight, the rammer plate is not that difficult to move as it is propelled forward by vibration. With this on deck we should have a passable berm in a few minutes. Alright, I just discovered something... this sucks. The Wacker packer does not work as well in wet clay and is in fact counterproductive. But Kevin and I discovered a little trick to compact this wet stuff. I don't know what this crushed rock mixture is called, but whoever built this house dumped tons of it in the back.

If I can get enough of this off the logging road, I'll get a nice top layer that won't stick to the shovels or tamper. We call it gray dust. And since our mine is quite close to the berm, this task should not delay us much. Now let's give the Wacker Packer another chance. It worked that time...far from perfect, but it was enough to get this semi running today. But it's time to conclude because we don't have much time left. And I'm thinking about

building

something else. After this berm is the

jump

to the steep section, and I want to use the speed of the berm for a small feature before.

This will be a great opportunity to use some of this wood and some scrap board that isn't long enough for other projects. We're

building

a miniature version of a much larger feature you'll see at bike parks and slopestyle courses everywhere. I call it the bird trunk, and we roughly don't have time to build it if we want to ride this line before the rain. As you can see, the

pecker

log is simply a planked log standing proudly out of the Earth. And it didn't take us long to get going. And we have just enough time to test this line.

The berm was very slow, but I expected that. It will take some work, but now we have a good starting point. As for penis logging... Of course, my GoPro wasn't on when we finally realized something was seriously wrong with this feature. It's actually been a long time since I crashed, but for this to happen due to poor workmanship is just a kick to... well, we have to fix it. It turned out that I would have had time to build this properly in the first place. It only took 15 minutes to get stronger, and it was not worth rushing into the forest.

This pattern of trying to beat the rain has gotten me into trouble before and I never seem to learn. But now we have a pretty fun and fast line. Really fast. Did I mention I love my hardtail bike? Rhodorooter is progressing very well. We have the roll, the berm, the Kevin jump, the wooden berm, the unfinished soft berm, and the small bird log. But we need to have all this ready before we move on to the icing on the cake, the big feature we have planned for the beginning. The goal? have that finished just before the official start of spring.

Thanks for traveling with me today and we'll see you next time.