I Built A MASSIVE Wooden Berm & Crashed Riding It!

Yes, that's me... You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation. It all started a couple of months ago when I decided to build an absolute MONSTER on the mountain bike trail in my backyard. The reason. I needed to make

riding

this Corkscrew safer. The problem with the corkscrew is the trees surrounding the landing. Every time I touch the corkscrew, I skid out of control straight towards them. It was only a matter of time before he suffered a major accident. The plan was simple... Build a huge

wooden

bench, or

berm

, as we mountain bikers like to call it, that will trap the rider and send them in the opposite direction into the trees.

But it also has to be ridiculously fun to drive. And that's where this story begins. Let's get to work. It will only be necessary to cut down a small tree to make way for this monstrous

berm

and the wood will be put to good use. I have this pile of sticks that I have cut down to about two meters long. I'm going to build these tripod tipis which should help me visualize where to build the berm. To build the tripod, I connected these two back pieces with some wire and this front log represents the driving surface of the berm.

For a smooth ride it is important to get the curve and berm position in the right place. To do this I am connecting the tripods using a rope that helps me visualize the corner. It also allows me to make small adjustments to achieve a perfect recording. After kicking around for a couple of hours, I finally got a curve I'm happy with. This thing is absolutely huge, measuring over 20 meters long. Which means I'm going to need a lot of wood. Let's go find some. This is the log I found. Actually, it's not a bad size. You should be able to get a lot of building materials out of it.

But look at this. As I watched it, I noticed that underneath there was an Echidna eating ants. The cheeky little bastard is hiding now. You can see it? Now that it's gone, I can chainsaw this log again. I'm splitting it into two sections and just hoping the tractor has enough grunt to get it out of this valley. At this point you may be wondering "where the hell is he dragging these logs?" Well, it's time for me to show you my new toy! Late last year I bought a hardwood sawmill. Now I can produce my own wood for faster construction.

Let me show you how it works. After securing the log in place, I adjust the height of the saw and begin making the first cut. When the blade is properly sharpened, it simply glides through hardwood. This tool is called a cant hook and makes rotating logs much easier. By rotating them and cutting off the raw edges, I am ultimately left with a square piece of wood also known as a cant. Then I display it on slabs and when I place these slabs vertically I make a final cut. And the result is these perfect lengths of wood.

It's still a lot of hard work, and since I'm still learning, I'm making a lot of mistakes. I loaded the next log and started making the first cut, but something went wrong. He started cutting downward instead of cutting straight. So I did a quick Google search and found several potential reasons that could cause this. First, there was a significant accumulation of sap on the leaf. Which I cleaned with oven cleaner. That didn't solve the problem. Then I decided to replace the blade with a new one. But even that didn't help me achieve a straight cut. After checking that the machine and tracks were all level, I started to get extremely frustrated.

I'm pretty frustrated right now. I'm going to take a break, clear my head and go for a walk. I know a trail that has some big

wooden

berms. So I'll go see them and see if I can learn something. So I'll come back to this. My happy place. This first one is quite short but the width is similar to mine and it feels great to ride. Even dad tried. Cooma has some other fun features that I would like to develop down the road. But let's focus on the berms for now. The second wooden berm is much larger than the first.

And in my opinion, the angle is too steep for the flat trail. You have to pedal hard to have enough speed to stay in the function for the entire ride. I'll make sure I don't make the same mistake with my berm. Speaking of mistakes, I should probably pay more attention to what's in front of me! Now that my brain is shaken, I'll go back and factory reset the mill. We'll see if that solves it. Alright, moment of truth! Wow, I hope this works. Success! We are back in business. Now let's get this wood to the site.

I managed to travel most of the way with the tractor, but the last 50 meters I had to travel by hand. Actually, that's pretty heavy. I wouldn't do that again. I have a help on hand here today. I have my friend Kip. I'm going to dig a hole or two. I'll put it to work well. Oh, he's going to be sick. I can not wait! After digging a few holes, the two of us got to work building supports. Looks good mate...the support isn't that bad either. lol    It looks great, but to make it perfect I'm going to use the thread lines again.

This one has to appear like here. When we were happy with the angles, I fixed them in place with some screws. Kips just came home for the day and was a big help. We managed to make this look pretty good. I'm happy with the curve. Now I need a lot more wood, but that's tomorrow's problem. Like I said, I needed a lot more wood, probably about a ton and a half. But don't worry, I'm not going to share all the boring details, just the interesting stuff. Like these two slippery suckers on my tape measure. Got him.

Or Aggie trying to navigate the log and then realizing it would probably be better if he just walked. And that's when I got stuck on the steep slope and had to cut the log into two sections. Or while I was grinding and this happened... I think Goanna is chasing bird eggs. I heard these birds squawking and going crazy over here and then this one is going to go up the tree. Anyway, not much is happening now, so I better get back to work. After a few weeks, I finally had a huge pile of wood and was ready to finish the berm.

These boards are called stringers and span the distance between the vertical supports. When locked in place, they will hold the driving surface boards. I placed them roughly just to get an idea of ​​their placement and as I do so I realize I have a bit of a problem. Take a look at this. See how this stand has a steeper angle than this one? This is because the berm gets steeper as we go, but that means the stringer won't be flat at one end. You can see I have this space here. Dad thinks if I just screw it in we should be able to rotate the spar.

It is now a fairly thick and strong piece of wood. I'm not sure if we'll have the strength to do it. We'll have to find out. Dad had the great idea of ​​using one of the boards as a lever. When he is attached to the spar, we hope it will allow us to apply enough force to turn him. That clicking sound you just heard was the screw on the other side. Which is nothing a couple of extras won't fix. With a successful turn, I can now attach the rest of the stringers myself. Which means I'm one step closer to trying this monster!

To make the support even stronger, I am adding a cross piece to make them an A-frame. It is very sturdy. It is actually very resistant. It looks tremendous! I can't wait to try this monster of a berm. I just called this berm a monster because of its sheer size. But now that I have the structure in place, memories of my first roller coaster experience come flooding back. The legendary Bush Beast in Sydney Wonderland. Sadly, the coaster was demolished in 2005. But as I watch my berm take shape, I can't help but see the resemblance to the once-iconic attraction.

So I've decided to pay tribute to him and call this feature Bush Beast. Now we can place the platform. These planks are thick slabs of Australian hardwood and are incredibly strong and rot resistant. But my word is that they are heavy! The total weight exceeds a ton and a half. It looks great with everything screwed together, but I think it will look even better if I trim the edges. The Bush Beast is now finished and looks very good. I hope it runs as smooth as it looks, but we'll see. It's time to test drive the vehicle and I have a couple of companions here.

We have Dave and Carl. They'll help me with that, so we'll hopefully see how it goes. What makes me nervous about this feature is how close it is to the corkscrew. Which is now also known as Dunny Drop. To be honest, I'm pretty nervous about this. I last visited Dunny Drop since I

built

it so it could get a little interesting. But I've

built

the berm nice and wide, which means there's a lot of room for error. Before we fall, let's do a draw. This episode's t-shirt winner comes from India. someone's MTB! Congratulations and if you want to win a t-shirt in the next episode, make sure you like it, subscribe and leave a comment below.

Alright, let's do it. DRIPPING! Here comes Luke for the first try at him... Yeah, wow! That's so soft! You just move forward like a rocket. It's your turn! If this goes well maybe we can even try a train. Yes boy, yes! Yeah guys, that's sick! Are you ready for some trains? That was close! Sick! So good. Hell yeah, this berm is an absolute monster. I think it has been a great success. And that's where I should have ended the day, but I wanted to do one more POV shot. And that's when I lost traction with the front wheel just before I fell. oh oh awww aww Butt slap and ankle shake!

Are you OK? Yes all ok. It was a huge amount of hard work and time and I would be delighted if we could make this video go viral. So, help me and share it with your friends on social media. If you want to see the entire tour from top to bottom, check out Dave and Carl's YouTube channels to see their videos from the weekend. If you liked this video, check out this one where I turn a fallen tree into my biggest gap and it scares the hell out of me.