Burchfield - new trail open

[reidabel]

Please get out and ride this new trail - it's been open since Thursday night, but Jeff (TC) and I walked it today and did a bit of final trimming.

The entrance is about 30 yards North (towards the Riverbend parking lot) from the new wooden bridge over the creek. You'll see it on the left (West towards the river), carved into thick vegetation. We expanded the entrance this morning to make it more obvious and flow better.

The exit is a slow choke point between tight trees behind the sign at the intersection near the river where the Dragonball Run trail starts. Please don't exit any other way than the marked trail, the intent is to slow riders down before they enter the intersection and oncoming traffic.

Enjoy!

Reid

[TenSpeed]

I wish I understood better where this was. Would love to ride it.

[reidabel]

Well, don't get your hopes up too high - it only takes a few minutes to get through it!

From the MacNamara parking lot, head North towards the Riverbend parking lot, following the trail to the right around the pond near the lot. Follow that trail for ten minutes, staying on the main path and not getting off. Eventually you will go through a field, climbing up in it, then going downhill in it. At the bottom you will cross a nice new wooden bridge about 8 feet wide and 20 feet long, going over a 5-foot wide creek. Keep going another 30 yards and on the left of the main path you will see the new trail entrance. Note that it is not the first left, which is only 5 or 10 yards after the bridge (I think it has a sign saying Yellow cut-off among other things).

From the Riverbend lot, it's a bit more difficult to explain. But I will try anyway! Head in to the trails and turn left (South) at the river. Don't take the first two rights (second one is Swamp Thing and I think it is still closed). Keep going and don't turn off and you will get to the river. Head left (South) and you will reach the intersection where this new trail exits. It is an intersection near the river with a couple of crossing trails and a sign, and the entrance to Dragonball Run is beside the river there. Don't ride the new trail backwards - to get to the entrance of the new trail, either take Dragonball Run South or take the beginner trail South alongside Dragonball. Eventually you will reach an intersection where you can go right down a dip and over a bridge BUT keep going straight at that point and follow it as it curves left and goes alongside the creek (this might be the Yellow cut-off, I'm not certain). When you get to a T intersection, the bridge I mentioned above will be a few yards to your right. Turn left back towards the Riverbend lot and the new trail entrance will be on your left about 20 yards along the main trail.

Hope this helps ...

Reid

[TenSpeed]

I know exactly where that is. I was wondering what that was when we rode today. I saw it, but didn't venture off. Your first description nailed it on the head for me. I love that loop out from Riverbend to McNamara and back. The downhill after that bridge before you get back to Riverbend is so much fun for me.

[TenSpeed]

Found it. Wow. Kind of bumpy, but since it is brand new, I guess that is to be expected. Pretty cool that in that it gives you another place to ride.

[reidabel]

I did a lot of smoothing on it today, so it's not quite as rough as it was before. I still have more smoothing to do, but give it another shot sometime. You won't notice any difference for the first few hundred yards, though, since I worked backwards from the end and didn't make it all the way today. I'm aiming to finish it off next weekend. It's riding quite a bit faster than it was, so please enter only from the bridge side - we don't have any signs up yet.

[jonw9]

When you say "ear the river where the Dragonball Run trail starts" does that mean where Dragon currently starts (river on your right) or the start as in riding backwards (river on left)?

[reidabel]

The trail ends at the intersection where Dragonball Run currently starts, river on the right. Is there a specific time when it is supposed to be reversed? Jeff originally wanted a branch off the trail I built to the end of the current Dragonball Run trail, but I haven't done any work on that at all. I think the reversal of DR may be tied to that, so ...

[jonw9]

The trail ends at the intersection where Dragonball Run currently starts, river on the right. Is there a specific time when it is supposed to be reversed? Jeff originally wanted a branch off the trail I built to the end of the current Dragonball Run trail, but I haven't done any work on that at all. I think the reversal of DR may be tied to that, so ...

I don't know, that is Jeff's call as to when and where. I just rode your "new" section a couple weeks ago, and was a bit confused as to where it ended because of the relation to Dragonball.

All I am trying to do is minimize confusion due to lack of communication.

[reidabel]

After the small group ride today I did some more work on this trail, smoothing the rest that I didn't get to two weekends ago. It's not as smooth as I'd like it to be, but it's better than it was. This isn't as easy to do as I would have thought. What seems pretty smooth after shovelling has every tiny lump magnified when I ride over it. Speed and wheelbase, I guess. Highways must be extremely smooth ...

I asked Steve, who hadn't been on it before, to go ahead of me when we rode it today, to see how he handled the exit to the intersection. I told him to just "follow the trail" and he went exactly where he was supposed to. But, I added a few more long sticks along the sides to "herd" people out the right way just to be sure.