 Mountain biking is one of the most popular activities around the world. It provides a great day out with the family. It offers exercise, challenge, adventure, thrills, and solitude. Today, advances in bike technology and rider experience are fueling new styles of riding. Cross-country riders are looking for long rides to increase their endurance. Downhill riders are seeking speed and technical challenge. Free riders want the thrills and excitement of conquering challenges. Not only are more people riding bikes, more people are volunteering to design, build, and maintain mountain bike trails. In this program, we will show you how to build sustainable single track. These trails wind around trees and large rocks. They require focus and tend to reduce speed. They provide a close connection with nature and can be an exciting outdoor experience. It takes concentration, it takes skills, it takes a bit of physical aptitude to be able to ride single track. But it's also aesthetically pleasing. Single track looks better than a double track. From the perspective of a bicycle seat, seeing something that's literally 14 to 18 inches wide just keeps you on track and it takes you through the various topographies and through the geologic features and it's easier to keep from eroding. This program is a supplement to the International Mountain Bicycling Association's guide, Trail Solutions, EMBA's guide to building sweet single track. This video will give you an introduction to the basics of building mountain bike trails that can be enjoyed by cyclists, hikers, and horse riders. It has eight chapters. The most important steps. Trail design mistakes. Designing sustainable trails. Let's get dirty. Armoring. Creating challenge. Maintaining trails. Reclaiming trails. Building relationships and gaining permission from the land manager are the most important steps in designing and building trails. The first step in building this working relationship is getting to know your land manager. I think the first thing you do is simply get to know the local district ranger. Get to know the local trail planner and build a relationship with those people and find out what their needs are. So get to know who the other interests are in the area. Who are the other people in your community that have an interest in trails. We're trying to provide a broad range of experiences to people out there. The more you can show that there's a broad base of support for your proposal, the more successful you'll be. The next step is to present your ideas for a trail system to the land manager in a detailed proposal. An effective proposal clearly outlines the goals and benefits of the trail. Where will the trail be located? What kind of experiences are you trying to create? Who will build it? And who will maintain it once it's built? A really important step is to go to the field together with the Forest Service or whatever land management agency you're dealing with. Spend time in the field looking at the trail, looking at the countryside and talking about what the needs are, where the trail might go, what kind of obstacles there might be to putting a new trail in or rerouting a trail. After you have established a relationship with the land manager and presented your ideas, be patient. It takes time to get trail designs approved. Sometimes that's a hard line to walk because it is. It's a slow process. All those hoops you have to jump through. So you wait a year, the first year you want to start building trail and then you plan ahead and you get the next trail idea out there and so that that can go through all its review process and then when you're done with the trail you're working on currently the next one's ready to go and it's all cleared. You just have to be patient. It's worth it. It's worth it to ride these trails. It's worth it to have these trails for our kids to ride. The time frame for this process largely depends on whether an environmental study for the area has been done. Well if the area that you're referring to, the actual piece of ground has already been studied and they've done the environmental assessments and they know what's there, that type of proposal could be done in a matter of weeks. If it hasn't been studied then we're going to have to go through that study process to determine if this is a viable place to put a trail and that can take between 18 months and 2 years. Sometimes the study process can become frustrating. Don't be tempted to go off and build your trail without permission. Problems I see with illegal trails are it. Some of the first things that come to mind are it may seem like a good trail and it's harmless but what you may not know is that it goes through a patch of noxious weeds or that it's going through some critical wildlife habitat that you may not know about. If it's an illegal trail it's out there on the landscape and we're not taking care of it. If you want to have a good trail system it's best to come forward with your ideas about trails and work together on building trails that are sustainable. We can do that best all together rather than separately. Does this look like a trail you ride? There are two trail design mistakes that cause water to erode trails. One, when trails are built on the prevailing slope or the fall line, water gets on the trail, gains velocity as it moves downhill, starts moving soil and rocks, and creates ruts that get deeper over time. When users avoid the ruts, the trail becomes wider and wider, spoiling the single track experience. The other design mistake is building on flat ground, causing water to puddle and stay on the trail and in low lying areas mud bogs develop. Again, the trail widens over time. To define sustainability from a mountain bike perspective really means creating and maintaining trails that are going to be here for a long time. Trails that don't erode and affect water quality or affect really any other parts of the natural ecosystem. The one key is to keep water off the trail. If you can do that, most other things will take care of themselves. Water basically is the enemy. To start your trail layout, use a topographic map. The contour lines show elevation differences. The closer the lines, the steeper the terrain. On the map, locate positive control points, destinations like scenic overlooks, waterfalls, lakes, rockout croppings, and other features that people enjoy. Draw your trail, connecting these places, following contour lines. A lot of it's just the contour, it's the flow. It has to feel right. You have to imagine you're on a bicycle or you're hiking, picture a contour, a map. You can see those little lines and you can just see those lines and they're just so fun to ride. They're just so fun to be out there on. In your design, try to use loop configurations. Loops are appealing in ad adventure. A good design for stacking loops puts easier, wider, and more accessible trails closer to the trailhead. The core loop we want to be easy, has a lot of mellow grades, wide open, good sight lines, but as we get further out, the people who are fit have the energy. They're looking for an adventure. We can get out and add the tight twists and turns and the steeper grades out there because they have the time and they want that kind of experience. Here is a sustainable trail design and it's really fun to ride. Let's take a look at its design features. When water runs off the hillside, it moves into spur sheets called sheet flow. The key to sustainability is to keep water sheeting across your trail, not down it. Each element in this section, the 10% average guideline, the half rule, the maximum sustainable grade, grade reversals, and outslope tread helps move water across the trail. For your trail to be sustainable, the average grade of each up and downhill section needs to be 10% or less. To calculate this 10% average, divide the elevation rise over the run. In this example, this uphill section gains 475 feet in elevation and is one mile long or 5,280 feet. This gives us an average trail grade of about 9%. For your design, calculate the grade for each up and downhill section, in each grade at 10% or less. Imba has been designing and building and maintaining trails now for 16 years, and we've learned a lot. And one thing we've learned is that the average percentage grade doesn't need to be high for the trail to be challenging. Most of the trails that we design and build will have no more than an average of a 10% sustained grade. Using this 10% average guideline in your design now will give you flexibility when laying your trail out in the field. Now that your trail is drawn on the map, it gives you a general idea of where the trail will go, but doesn't tell you the exact placement of the trail. To lay your trail out on the ground, you will use two rules, the half rule and the maximum sustainable grade. These will limit how steep each section of trail can be. Before we look at these rules, we need to learn how to use a clinometer, an instrument used to measure trail grades and hill slopes. To use a clinometer, you will need to zero it out with your partner. Have your partner stand a short distance from you on flat ground. Look through the clino, lining up the horizontal line on zero. With your other eye, find where the horizontal line intersects a spot on your partner. Here, zero intersects my partner's eyes. The scale on the right is in percent. This is the one you want to use. Now let's learn how to use the half rule and the maximum sustainable grade. The half rule is very important for laying out a sustainable trail. Let's look at one section of trail as an example. To calculate the half rule for this section of trail, you'll first need to measure the hill slope. Have your partner move up the hillside while you stand below the proposed trail. Look through the clino and line up the line with your partner's target. This hill slope is 16%. A sustainable trail should be no more than half the hill slope. This trail section needs to be half of 16%, 8% or less. This is the half rule. To lay out this section of trail, mark your spot with flagging tape. Make sure the knot faces the intended trail, showing the construction crew where the trail is supposed to go. Next, have your partner move along the intended trail, keeping each other in sight. Align the clino with your partner's target. When the clino reads 8% or less, have your partner mark his spot with flagging. Don't use spray paint for flagging your trail. We don't need to use anything permanent. That's why we have stuff like this, which is flagging tape. But there's no reason you need to use spray paint when you're out in the woods. It's just ugly, and it's unnatural, and it doesn't really add to the user experience when they're out here on the trail. Continue to flag the rest of the trail. Recalculate the half rule whenever the terrain changes. Always follow the half rule, even when working on gentle slopes. You may be tempted to exceed the half rule when grades are low, but if you exceed the half rule, you'll be designing a fall line trail that will erode, and this is where the hill slope is very steep, say 50%. Applying the half rule would let you design a trail grade of up to 25%. But chances are, this grade is too steep and won't be sustainable. This is where the maximum sustainable grade comes into play. This is a site-specific evaluation of your soil, amount of rock, annual rainfall, and users. These factors will help determine a sustainable grade for your area. For example, trail grades can be steeper on solid rock, but dry soils require more gentle grades. Determining the maximum sustainable grade requires careful evaluation of these factors and years of trail-building experience, when in doubt, designed with conservative grades. As you lay out your trail, add slight ups and downs called grade reversals. Their purpose is to help water exit off the trail, so place them every 20 to 50 feet. To help include grade reversals in your design, look for natural depressions to provide that up and down motion. Also, look for obstacles that will force elevation changes, like curving up and around large trees or winding around boulders. Be creative, grade reversals can really accentuate the thrill of the ride. Finally, a trail will last longer when it's built with a 5% outslope tread. This is where the outer edge of the tread tilts slightly downslope. Outsloping encourages water to sheet across and off your trail. In this section, you learned about five sustainable design elements for rolling contour trails. The 10% average guideline. The half rule. The maximum sustainable grade. Grade reversals. An outslope tread. Each one helps water move across your trail, not down it. You've learned how to design a rolling contour trail, the most durable trail that can be built. But you may be saying, how am I ever going to get to the top of a steep and narrow hill using that 10% overall guideline? You're right. You can't if your trail goes in a straight line. Most contour trails require direction changes or turns to help them gain elevation at a sustainable grade. One way to gain elevation is the traditional switchback. Switchback zigzag up steep and narrow slopes, but can be difficult to build and maintain. Some riders find that the sharp turn interrupts the flow of their ride. While other riders come into the turn with too much speed, skidding around the corner, causing erosion. By scouting out less aggressive slopes, like 7%, you can use climbing turns instead of switchbacks. Climbing turns are wider curves on gentle hillsides. They are easier to build, more sustainable, and give bikes a wider radius to negotiate a smooth, controlled turn. The radius of the climbing turn needs to be about 20 feet, about 4 bike links. Place grade reversals at both the beginning and the end of the turn. Because the climbing section lies directly in the fall line, the grade reversal above the turn is very critical to keep water off the trail. To prevent short-cutting, wrap the turn around large trees or boulders. These features of climbing turns will give you a free-flowing and sustainable trail that's fun to ride. In this chapter, we will learn how to build a rolling contour trail with a full bench cut. First, we'll outline the trail tread with pin flakes and then clear the corridor. Then we'll cut in a full bench, shape the back slope, and outslope the tread. Finally, we will demonstrate how to naturalize the construction zone. Before we begin, let's talk about safety. Sure, the bottom line is to get that trail built so you can go ride, but the last thing you want is someone getting hurt. Get everyone prepared for a safe, fun, and productive work day. Call a safety meeting. Talk about job hazards, communications, and the emergency plan. When working out in the field, everything is a long ways away. Talk about using the right tool for the job, how to use them, and how to work safely around others. One of the safety tips we talk about is what we call our circle of death. So if I'm standing here working on the trail, if I can hold my tool up and hit somebody, you're in my circle of death. Which means if someone's standing next to me with their tool, my circle of death is going to be even wider. So we want to make sure that we space each other out. Everyone on your crew needs to wear gloves, a hard hat, and sturdy boots. Did everybody get a chance to grab a drink before we actually began out on the trail? Remind everyone to bring plenty of water and something to eat. Now, let's get to work. Earlier, you laid out your trail and fled the corridor using the half rule and the maximum sustainable grade. Now, you need to outline the tread with pin flakes. They'll give you a precise feel for the trail features and flow. Pin flakes can be placed on either the uphill side, the downhill side, or in the center. Remember to tell the construction crew which you did. When outlining your tread with pin flakes, use natural features to help create the experience. For less challenging trails, plan on removing obstacles, such as rocks and down logs, creating a smoother ride. For challenging trails, you'll want to route your trail to include larger rocks and down logs. Now, check the flow by running or walking the trail in both directions. You may need to make several adjustments before getting the flow just right. When the flow feels right, ask the local land manager for their stamp of approval before moving any dirt or cutting vegetation. Open up the corridor where the trail will go. Prune back limbs and bushes, but don't overdo it. Place the cut vegetation on the uphill side of the trail. Later on, we'll use them to disguise construction. Use a little creativity to add interest and variety. Leave small bushes or trees to constrict the corridor, slowing riders down. Leave arching vegetation to give your riders a closer connection with nature. A carefully trimmed corridor can accentuate turns, prevent trail widening, control speed, and give the trail its unique character. The trail has been laid out. The tread lined with pin flakes and the corridor opened up. It's time to dig the tread. There are two ways to cut in a trail. Full bench and partial bench. A partial bench only cuts away part of the hillside. The removed soil is placed on the downhill side to complete the tread. A partial bench requires less digging, but doesn't hold up as well as a full bench because the fill material is soft and rarely compacts evenly. A full bench is constructed by cutting the full width of the tread into the hillside. This design is recommended because it creates a stable tread and requires less maintenance. Here's how to construct a full bench trail. First, remove the leaves. Cut branches than duff. Set them aside. You'll use these later to naturalize the construction zone. Next, dig down to mineral soil and keep digging until you've cut a full bench. Scatter the dirt downhill as far as possible to help preserve the natural look of the slope. In desert environments, however, plants will die if they're smothered with dirt. In these fragile places, dig the soil into the middle of the trail and haul it somewhere else. The fill dirt that we're pulling out, we don't want to have on our outslope. We'll cut from our backslope down to the center and then from our outslope to the center, we'll end up with a pile of dirt in the center and then bucket that away. If we try and capture the dirt on the outslope, we're going to do a bunch of damage to the delicate vegetation. Now that the tread has been cut into the side slope, let's shape the backslope so it transitions from the hillside onto the trail tread. The angle of the backslope depends on the steepness of the hill and soil cohesion. There are three critical places where you need to pay attention. One, on top of the backslope. Two, where the backslope meets the trail tread. And three, leaving the edge of the trail. Each of these must be smooth and rounded so that any water coming off the hillside will sheet across the trail. To finish the backslope, compact the soil with the back of a McLeod. Let's finish the trail by outsloping the tread. It is one key to sustainability and helps water continue to flow across your trail. Use a McLeod to cut in a 5% outslope. How do you know when you have 5%? The simplest way is to use a McLeod. On a flat trail, it will stand up straight. With an outslope tread, the McLeod will lean slightly downhill. This is what you want. If you prefer high-tech instruments, you can use a precise digital level. Now, compact the entire trail tread. When working in dry, dusty soils, adding water will help compact the surface. Don't leave compaction up to trail users. They will only compact the middle, allowing water to funnel down the trail, eroding away all your hard work. The trail has been cut in. It's compacted, and it looks ready to ride. But you're not done yet. You still need to disguise your construction. Probably the most difficult part is just maintaining the natural look to the trail. I want, and we want trails out here that look like they've always been here. I want someone to come through and not realize it was just constructed today. That's quite a challenge. That's where trucking the dirt around and really trying to be careful how you scatter it and taking your time replanting, even though some of that rehab stuff doesn't grow again. At the very least, you've naturalized it to the point where it looks like it's always been there. Start by removing all your flagging. Cover up the broadcasted dirt with branches, leaves, and other material. Face the cut ends of branches and trees away from the trail so they aren't visible. Even sprinkle leaves and needles onto the trail for that aged look. Now that we've constructed a rolling contour trail, let's go ride. Armoring is a method used to harden sections of trail. Embedding rocks in the trail tread prevents soft, wet, or steep terrain from eroding. To start an armoring project, you'll need to stockpile rocks. Hopefully they aren't too far away. A rocksling or wheelbarrow can be helpful. And remember to lift with your legs when picking up rocks. Begin by setting anchor stones deep into the ground. These are large, angular rocks placed every six feet or so to help hold the paving stones together. Once the anchors are set, lay paving stones, forming the trail tread. Move the rocks around until you get the best fit, locking them into place like a jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes the rocks need to be shaped to get that perfect fit. Remember to wear eye protection. Fill the gaps between the paving stones with sand or crushed rocks, packing them tightly to create a solid surface. Finally, define the sides of the armoring with large rocks or logs to keep riders on the trail. Crossing drainages or streams is inevitable on contour trails. Stream disturbances, however, can harm aquatic life. You need to work with the land manager to find out what you can and cannot do. Bridges and culverts are an option, but require money. And at times, engineers and heavy equipment. Sometimes an armored crossing can be a good alternative. Armoring is used when the stream is shallow, less than three feet during high water. Look for stream banks with gradual slopes, less than 8%. You'll need to armor both the entry and exit sides of the crossing, at least a bike length above the high water mark. You'll need to do grade reversals above the armoring to keep water from collecting on the trail and flowing into the stream. Rider skills and bike technology have grown immensely since the birth of mountain biking. Today's riders are seeking out more challenging trails. Technical trails don't require mountains. You can work with what you have no matter where you are, and you can create a very technical trail by using a combination of rocks, exposure, adjusting just the trail corridor and the height level and the sight lines. And using natural obstacles, actually I think is a more appealing way of creating a pleasing technical ride than bringing in man-made obstacles. Let's look at some natural features that will add challenge. Rocks, lads and boulders provide steep, yet sustainable riding. Rock gardens are tricky, with slower speeds and balance. Exposure adds a real psychological challenge. Log rides require focus, balance and determination. And rock and log drops are thrilling and build confidence. When designing for drop-offs, create landing zones that are slope downward 5 to 15%. When adding challenge, you'll need to design in safety features. A fair warning of challenges ahead. Provide good sight lines or add signage. Place high-skill level qualifiers such as a narrow opening between rocks or trees before the feature. This demonstrates the difficulty of the challenge ahead and gives riders an opportunity to back out or walk. Provide an easier, alternative route for users who don't want to do the challenge. Finally, provide adequate fall zones for riders who fail to negotiate the technical feature. A well-designed trail with fun challenges will keep riders coming back again and again. Once a trail is built, it needs to be maintained on a regular basis. Routine maintenance includes reopening the corridor, restoring the outslope and improving water drainage. To reopen the corridor, trim back encroaching vegetation and remove downed trees that block the path. To improve sustainability, re-establish the 5% outslope. To do this, remove any built-up berms on the outside of the trail and remember to compact the entire surface. Now let's look at some ways to improve water drainage. A great time to evaluate drainage on your trail is during snow melt or when it's raining. Some signs of poor drainage are puddles on flat areas of the trail and ruts caused by water running down the trail. If you can't get out when it's raining, use a foam ball to evaluate water drainage. If the ball continues to roll down the trail, this indicates where ruts will form. If the ball stops on the trail, this is where water will puddle. Okay, so here's our fall line trail and here's our water. The trail will encourage water to flow straight down it. By using these balls, we can demonstrate where our water is going to flow. You might even find something tucked away in your pack that'll work. The traditional way to correct drainage problems is to use wood or rubber water bars, but they can be problematic. They often clog with debris and need constant cleaning and some users end up going around them, widening the trail. Let's look at other techniques that will divert water off existing trails. Knicks are used on flat trails where puddles form. A nick is a shaved out section of trail, a sloping semi-circle cut into the tread about 10 feet long or two bike lengths. The center of a nick is out-sloped about 15%. This ensures water will run off the trail. Knicks should be smooth, subtle, and unnoticeable to users. On steeper sections of trail, where ruts have formed, a nick alone won't be able to fix your drainage problems. In these cases, construct a rolling grade dip to keep water from bypassing the nick and continuing down the trail. A rolling grade dip is a nick with a mound on the downhill side. This mound is built up with the dirt removed from the nick and transitions onto the existing trail with a gentle ramp about 15 feet long. The mound will force water to exit off the trail at the nick. Don't confuse a rolling grade dip with a grade reversal. They are very similar, but grade reversals are built into new trails. Rolling grade dips are built into existing trails to fix drainage problems. To maintain Knicks and rolling grade dips, regularly remove any leaves, needles, and silk that have built up over the season. If rolling grade dips in Knicks don't solve your water problems, maybe it's time to consider a reroute. When rerouting a section of trail, remember to follow the same design elements you used when building a new trail, the 10% overall grade, the half rule, the maximum sustainable grade, grade reversals, and 5% outslope tread. Reclaiming a damaged section of trail is just as important as designing sustainable reroutes. Trail users tend to remember where their old trail was and will continue to use it if it's not properly disguised. Begin reclaiming the old section of trail by scarifying the trail tread. Dig up and loosen the dirt at least 2 inches deep. When reclaiming a steep section of old trail, place logs, rocks, or straw bales across the path to minimize erosion. Next, naturalize the tread. By transplanting native grasses and plants. To fill in the vertical corridor opening, plant shrubs and trees, even if they may not survive. Sprinkle leaves, pine needles, and even small branches to add a final touch. Mountain biking, what an experience! In this program, you learned how to build a sustainable rolling contour trail using the 10% overall grade, the half rule, the maximum sustainable grade, grade reversals, and 5% outslope tread. We also demonstrated how to build climbing turns, armor water crossings, and increased challenge using natural features. Finally, we talked about how to naturalize your construction zone and reclaim old trails. Great single track comes from designing fun trails that are sustainable. Trails you come back to over and over again. Trails that you can't decide which direction is more fun to ride. Trails that won't erode and will be there for years. Now that you know how to build a sustainable rolling contour trail, go out and create an experience. I like mountain biking because I can take my kids with me. It's a good use, mountain biking. I enjoy mountain biking for the long uphills, the quick downhills, and the thrill of the ride. I like being outside, being out in the weather, getting exercise. I like going mountain biking because you get to be out in the nature and seeing wildlife and stuff like that. I've ridden a lot of miles with many friends and it's just kept me fit over the years. I like being out in nature. I love wildlife and seeing wildlife and bringing my family and my four kids. Why wouldn't you like mountain bike riding in the woods? I like mountain biking because it gets me in nature. I like trails and I kind of wish the trail would go like from here to Idaho. Because of the big adrenaline rush. I love mountain biking. I moved to Colorado 12 years ago for mountain biking. I love mountain biking because it's just such a thrill. It's a good time. It's good exercise and it's extremely fun. It's very exhilarating. It puts my life in perspective. It's really quite a nice thrill to ride without automobiles and exhaust and all that sort of stuff around here. I like to mountain bike because I get myself out in the woods and it's a quiet time I can reflect on my life and just why I'm so lucky I have a great life and a great place to live. You get to go places that the roads don't take you. Because it smells good. I might see some animals. The challenge, I like how intense it can be and then how mellow it can be and I like the speed in it and I like how dirty it is and it's fun. I like to hang out outside and be in the mountains and out in the fresh air and biking with my dog.