Last Sunday, a few of us went off to Leith Hill to fix up Summer Lightning ahead of the, well, summer.
Lots of riders out yesterday, and a fine day for riding. I was quite surprised at the number of riders without lids – one on a £3,500 Specialized! It was great to see a large number of casual riders enjoying the trail, too.
We debermed the first two sections. This involves taking off the crust of mulch that builds up on the downhill side of the trail, keeping water on the trail bed itself, which then ends up as a wheel-sized pothole.
A couple of bigger changes you may notice are on the first section – big patches of new repair on the trail itself. Back when we built the trail, we put runoffs on the downhill side exclusively. Sometimes this meant putting a runoff or drain before or after a berm. which isn’t great – especially as they fill up with mulch quickly. We’ve put in two repairs that fill up the gap where the drain would be using mineral soil dug from the other side of the trail, which leaves a big old hollow to hold water that runs off the trail. We’ll keep an eye on these over the summer to see how they work out.
Redlands Trails 