Retreading trodden trails

Like the trail networks it helps to maintain, the Charlottesville Area Mountain Bike Club is in growth mode.

The local group began with just five people in 2003 and has since grown to 50 members. Club leaders involved in a current membership drive expect that number to double in coming months as well.

The mountain bike club has made a name for itself through volunteer efforts to help establish and maintain popular trails, such as those at Albemarle County’s Walnut Creek Park, one of the area’s most popular destinations for mountain bikers.

More recently, club members joined volunteers from the county parks department, hikers and students from Blue Ridge School and from the University of Virginia’s Madison House to build a trail network at Albemarle County’s new Preddy Creek, which likely will not open to the public until early next year.

Carey Hill, a member of the club’s board of directors, recently discussed the club’s growth and its projects via e-mail with The Daily Progress. An edited transcript:

Q. The club’s volunteer trail efforts seem to be on the increase. How often do club members do trail work?

A. The club typically organizes trail-work events about once per month. More recently, this has increased to approximately two days per month, due to the new trail construction in Preddy.

Some of the Preddy Creek workdays have had over 70 volunteers due to the help of other volunteer groups such as UVa’s Madison House and students at the Blue Ridge School.

Some club members do little trail work; others do over 50 hours a year. We encourage all our members to try to do three workdays a year.

Some of our members who are light on the trail-work hours have other specialties such as managing our Web site.

Q. What does the work involve?

A. The different types of work, from least to most intensive:

1. Brushing/trimming/sawing to keep the trails passable.

2. Erosion control/mitigation. Water is the largest factor in trail-tread erosion. The goal of this category of trail work is to make water exit the trail more frequently so the it doesn’t remove soil by building up speed and volume.

We build “grade dips” (next-generation “waterbar”) on existing trails with unsustainable alignments.

Once a year or so, some of those dips need to have sediment cleaned out. These trail sections are good candidates for a reroute in the future.

3. New trail construction. This is what we’re currently doing in Preddy Creek Park. Working with a land manager, such as Albemarle County Parks and Recreation, we figure out where to put a trail across a piece of land so that it sheds water frequently, will be low maintenance, and very resistant to erosion.

These are all characteristics of a “sustainable alignment.” The International Mountain Bike Association (CAMBC is an affiliated club) spent a fair amount of time researching different types of trails.

Some old trails, such as those built by Civilian Conservation Corps, have stood the test of time and look as good today as 50 or 100 years ago.

Conversely, some trails only a few years old need to be closed due to poor condition.

The difference in these examples is the sustainable techniques used by these old trail builders, which can be dated back to ancient European road construction.

4. Reroutes. This is the most complicated because it involves new trail construction plus making the old trail corridor go away.

When done correctly, you can’t even tell where the old trail was. That’s a lot of work.

Q. What kind of work is being done in Albemarle’s new Preddy Creek Park?

A. Since January we have been building a new trail around the perimeter of the land on the south side of Preddy Creek.

This difficult work has been made easier by a grant from the BAMA Works Fund of the Dave Matthews Band and Charlottesville Area Community Foundation, which allows us to rent and purchase much needed tools and equipment.

On the south side of the park, there are some existing trails.

Making good connections to the existing trails with this loop is the quickest way to get a preliminary trail network on the ground.

Then we’ll build some trail on the north side of the creek, using sustainable existing trail where it exists. Some of the existing trails have unsustainable alignments.

Eventually we’ll be closing/rerouting some of the unsustainable existing trails.

Volunteer effort willing, the final result will morph from sort of a weblike layout to a layout having easier trails near the parking area for beginner trail users, and the trails will progress in difficulty and length the farther one gets from the parking lot.

There will be fewer intersections to confuse trail users.

The loops and progression of difficulty are elements of a textbook “stacked loop”plan.

Q. How does that new trail network compare to the network at Walnut Creek Park?

A. Walnut Creek has a bit more elevation gain, so it may remain a somewhat more challenging venue from an aerobic standpoint.

The trail layout and design at Preddy represents an evolution from Walnut. Walnut does not have a specific “beginner” or “intermediate” loop. A “stacked loop” plan would provide those opportunities.

Q. Where else does the club work?

A. CAMBC also works in the City of Charlottesville, the George Washington National Forest, and we are discussing ways we can help UVa better maintain the Observatory Hill trails.

We also frequently work with Rivanna Trails Foundation. CAMBC has “adopted” the Whetstone/ Adams Mountain Trail in the GW National Forest.

Being a 501(c)3 non-profit, you may also find CAMBC working the beverage booth at the Charlottesville Pavilion, as a fundraiser.

Q. Who can help out?

A. Anyone can help out. The best way to stay on top of local trail work is to join the CAMBC e-mail list.

We encourage frequent participants to also join CAMBC, whether they ride a bike or not.

There is no experience needed for trail work. We have plenty of skilled volunteers who can keep new volunteers pointed in the right direction.

Q. Any new trails on the horizon?

A. We anticipate involvement in the Patricia Byrom Memorial Park, as well as the Biscuit Run park in Albemarle County.

The timing on these is probably a year or more away.

Volunteer workers will continue to be very important to getting large projects done in local parks because land managers do not have the funds to simply contract a professional trail builder to come in and build a whole new trail system.

However, the potential exists for winning a sizable grant that would pay for some professional trail work.

Edited by McGregor McCance