Topic: Working Bee Grass cutting
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Posts
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For those of us not heading to Humpy Bong, Damien Savis is going to marshall the troops to get Frog, Whiptail and the rest of Beefwood and Easy St cut.
All equipment will be provided for Cutting Sunday Morning and will be picked up at the end of the day. Please post up availability and time slot wanted in discussion below and we will edit list and book times in on first come basis.
Rules:
You must be an MTBA member to be covered for insurance purposes.
All these will be provided:
Bags with harness, spare line trimmer, small tools for on the go, plus fuel containers.
Stihl cutters are 2 stroke. Fuel / oil mix 50:1 (unleaded : Stihl oil)
Ear protection and eye protection (helmet with face shield) or glasses andEarplugs are there and must be worn.
Also please wear full length clothing to cover legs as the cutters and rocks will cut your skin.Click the link on how to reload the speed heads On the large brushcutters.https://www.youtube.com/<wbr />watch?v=kqO3kKZttWc
The 2 new smaller ones are traditional heads, easy to do though.
You must have a clear space of 5 metres around you, no one in the danger zone.
Look for the person in time slot before you, they will post up below on FB where they have finished and left the cutter for you to continue. You will do so for the next in line!!! Please last shift bring them back to Windarra Tank.
2 people per trail, allow a safe distance, 10 metres. One cuts left side while other does right side.
Bring Sunscreen and a hat and bring plenty of water!!!!! Please don’t bring the kids, these machines are dangerous. cheers.
Meet in carpark, Damien will direct you.Order of Trails:
Each time slot requires 2 people.
Easy st from Boulderdash – Whiptail – finish Windarra.
Head over to Facebook to book a time, if your not on it post here and i will see whats spots are left. webcal://www.facebook.com/ical/u.php?uid=1196859209&key=AQBc0x96Bvil0yzg
"I never said it was going to be easy, I said it was going to be worth it!" "Cake or Death?"
I didn’t make this working bee but plan on doing some cutting around/over Easter. Just depends how the family go as to what times I will be available.
If anyone wants to join let me know and we can coordinate times.
MAR
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Douglas Working Bee
Public · Hosted by Rockwheelers TownsvilleSunday at 6:30–9:30
5 days from now · 23–32° Rain Showers
Douglas Mountain Bike Reserve
Angus Smith Dr, Townsville, Queensland 4811
5 going · 15 interestedNathan is holding a working bee at Douglas this weekend to take advantage of the soft soil.
The main plan is to rake and clear out drains and nicks on trails.
He can show people how to work, or you can work on something big if enough people and someone wants something done on a specific trail.
Please post up on this event if you can come, and if you have any big ideas, so we can have an idea of numbers and tools required.
"I never said it was going to be easy, I said it was going to be worth it!" "Cake or Death?"
What a turn out!!! Today’s working bee at Douglas was a smashing success, I am so happy with the numbers Rockwheelers turned out. Silly me didn’t get a before photo of everyone, I guess i was kind of over whelmed at the response. There is a nice photo of half of us at the finish. I would estimate maybe 50 people came, luckily many brought tools and barrows or else we would have been short, even though I brought almost everything!!!
So many names to many to list, a massive thank you to all on behalf of the rest of us.
The day started with the usual safety briefing and all went well in that regard. Travis took a team and started on The Backside and cleared 2 land slips, one of which was said to be BIG! It was suggested the clay over there was so sloppy and calf deep that it may need a week or 2 to dry!!!!!
Coops was doing his normal thing on Taipan and as seen in his posts on adopt a trail page on FB, he has out done himself again! Then he thought it wasn’t enough so headed over the back and finished off on sputnik and down the backside to meet where Travis’ team finished up. The XC Elite were out today also, Dan R going it over on Tower Link and Tim F hitting up Red Tail and some others.
Gazza & Tony were on their adopted trail at Boulderdash for the umpteenth time and making progress as one of the wetter trails around. 2 new lads went at it on Lower Taipan and showed me a video of their work, holy dooly, hasn’t looked so clean since it’s build. They started at the top and finished just above the berms before the wood, apparently the berms are a mess and drains need to be rebuilt, probably done with machine and made permanent for mine. (they do this drainage stuff for a living, waiting on the email for some promising work to come from them)
Dags snuck in the back and smashed out Sticks N Stones on his own and has fixed it up but sends a warning that the top of the chute may be a bit steeper due to dirt loss.
OneGee got lost some where and decided to do some works at the top of scrubs and the access trail up to flow, creating some drains to move water off trails!
There are even pictures of El Presidente smashing it out on Easy st. Kristy said that RNR 2&3 is now almost done as she and a crew came down. Below is a picture they found on the first right hand berm after the road gap at the top of RNR2, crazy big ruts. Apparently the have spent most of their time trying to fix it, but since the dirt was soft, they concentrated on a big drain above it to shed future water away, it will still need work directly on the trail line before it is safe to ride.
That leaves the other 25 of us whom I have no idea yet how, where or what we got up to. i know easy st got a good going over from the car park to Boulder dash turn off at least from photos. Not sure how high we got there, I presume to the hump.
The Wobby boys have been over the back again doing many hours and say at least 7 hours is needed to get their trail right. More importantly they say it needs 4 days of sun to cure it. Good ol Lou is always at it on Upper Hammerhead.
Myself and Finn took 2 newcomers and their kids to do the first parts of Easy st from the carpark to Redtail. We all learnt heaps and had fun. During the morning even more parents and kids rocked up to lend a hand and we could get more work done that just drains, we cut inside drains like coops did on Taipan, debermed, nicked some bigger drains, created some new grade reversals the list goes on. Only time will tell how future proof it is. One section in the photo was very sodden clay at that first corner after the bridge at the car park. Given time to dry it will come up pretty nice.
So by the sounds all the volunteers knocked over an amazing amount of maintenance, fixing, future proofing and rebuilding of Rockwheelers trails. I am blown away by the support and thank the volunteers with all my heart, hopefully the cold drinks and dip in the creek helped, but even better is riding trail you know you have helped maintain or built, brings out a bigger smile!!!
With all that said and done, we still have quite a few trails to get too and have yet to see what needs fixing on, Beefwood, Longway, Whiptail, Keelback, Ridgeline, Whaleback, Hammer Head Lower, Wedgtail, RNR 1, Ring Bark Frog. If we schedule another working Bee while the dirt is still soft we get so much done then ride the rest of the year. They say another big storm is coming so keep tuned and I will schedule another working Bee very soon. Thank you to all!!!!
"I never said it was going to be easy, I said it was going to be worth it!" "Cake or Death?"
Oops, in case you missed it and a bit late, I forgot to post here sorry. Working Bee in the Morning at Douglas. Presume, emails and Fb would have done their job.
The first March Working Bee was a huge success – so we’re going to run another one while the trails need some love and the soil is still fairly soft.
This time we’ll meet at the top of Windarra Ave and focus on some of the upper trails – The Long Way, Ring Bark Frog, Lower Hammerhead, WedgeTail & Upper Easy St. 06:30-09:30Please post up on this event if you can come, and if you have any big ideas, so we can have an idea of numbers and tools required.
"I never said it was going to be easy, I said it was going to be worth it!" "Cake or Death?"
Douglas working bee #2 2018 report!
Well not the same kind of attendance as bee # 1 so it was always going to be hard to cover too much ground. (maybe everyone was doing hair and makeup for timbo’s shuffle?)
We had the usual adoptees over on Whiptail doing there thing, thanks Netti & Onegee!! Coops was at it alone on Tower link clearing some landslides and drains still. (Tower still needs and adopter) Nicole’s husband Jamie has a love affair with whipper snipers and cut Spiderbait.(dead set every time I’m out here lately he is brush cutting, champion!)
Some pleasing things is we had so many new people turn up again!!! I love fresh maintainers!!!! We had 3 members who had done trail maintenance, 7 new people and 2 awesome kids!!!! Total of 12.
Was a great morning and plenty of people would have learnt many things that have flowed on from the godfathers before us. We spent all our time on that mid section of Hammer Head from whale Back up to long way. ( also needs an adopter!) The switch back section took much of our time as some of the ruts and damage was extensive. We had to move significant amounts of soil and we rock armored quite a few sections hidden under all that brown goodness.
We all saw what erosion occurs when people take shortcuts and don’t stick to properly built trails. The line through the middle of all the switch backs had allowed great volumes and speed of water flow and had taken plenty of soil away. We had to build some bigger drains and we tried to fill in all those nasty walking lines with plenty of uninviting debris.
What we need now though is some rain to bed in the work as the soil is so loose and so much went back in. So we need riders to compact it BUT RIDE IT VERY SLOWLY so as not to skid while it’s still loose please!!! When we were done we all had some ice cold beverages and felt chuffed we had helped really fix and big problem. Still some small amounts need doing on that section.
We also need to get to Frog, Wedgtail, Lower Taipan, possibly still some Tower Link, Long Way, Jump St and probably others. Big thanks to those who came and gave time so we can all ride!!! Get in touch if you want to Adopt a trail, we can place you with someone else, take your own on???? Maybe you couldn’t come today so want to meet at another time and be shown the ropes, email [email protected]
"I never said it was going to be easy, I said it was going to be worth it!" "Cake or Death?"
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