Sunday saw us tackle another one of the T3 big wooden projects, The Swing Bridge of Doom, or as it turned out the Fun Wibbly Wobbly Swing Bridge.

After getting the two poles in the ground on Friday and dropping off all the pre-cut timber come Sunday it was just a matter of putting it all together like a big jigsaw puzzle.

How does it ride?

Well a little easier than we had hoped, but a lot of fun and certainly something you don’t get to do everyday on a mountain bike track.

We also planted 20 Rata trees in that area and another wee project finished, see other post.

Thanks to all those that showed up on the day, Tom, Will, Nigel, Jono, Dave, Jonathan, Rob, Edmond, Mark, and Jeff.

Also thanks to Jonty from Revolution Bikes for giving us a spot prize of a very nice WTB tyre, and for the boys at Mitre Mega, Upper Hutt for cutting all the wood to length.

See you at the next work party!!

The other project we finished on Sunday was putting armour down on a steep 18-19 degree slope.

We used green honeycomb things called grass stabilisers.

This is the first time we have used them in the park so it will be good to see how they ride.

T3 Is Now Open To All Riders!!

Thanks to Maxxis and the weather gods, myself, Jonathan, Carl, Andrew, Hugh, Brenda, Josh, Simon, Don, Rob, Graham, Lyle and Mana were able to finish the track right through to Trickle Falls.

T3 can now be ridden either up or down depending on how you are feeling, it is still a bit rough in places but the more people we get having a go at it the better it will bed down.

The plan from here is to have one more Sunday work party on the 6th of April, this will be a ride\work party where we will be trying different parts of the track then working on them to get them just right, should be lots of fun, then it will be a matter of building the structures in the appropriate places, check map below this post to see what we have in mind. JK will have his drawings for each individual structure there on the 6th so ask to have a look and add your 2cents to the plans.

Thanks to all that helped out on Sunday and a big thanks to our sponsor for the day Maxxis.

T3 Map

Jonathan and I have come up with a new game.
To be played at the end of a work party, the object is to see how many tools you can carry down the hill before,

A: your legs buckle underneath you

B: you put your neck out, or

C: a tool slips and cuts your head off

We are still working on the finer points of this challenging pass time but we think we’re on to a winner.

What the??!!

Horses in Makara Peak?

This cannot be.

But yes it was, 3 rogue horses were spotted last night on the way to the T3 work party, they have been missing and have been on the councils radar for a few days now, they just haven’t been able to find them….easy really…they are HORSES.

So after a brief whisper with the horses it was off to dig on T3, thanks to Don, Kevin, Will, Murray, Jonathan and Jon for their efforts another 50trs of track was cleared.

We have another Sunday work party planned for the 9th of March so put that in your diaries and we will see you there.

Ohh the sunset shot is from my lounge window, yep I get to gaze out at The Mighty Makara Peak all the time, and I didn’t take that many pics last night so needed to pad this post out with something other than horses and JK pulling a face.

Ground Effect Grubber Fest

We're back to it at last! T3 has been neglected for way too long, but now it's all go again. Go, go go! Motivation was supplied by Ground Effect, in the form of a stylie cycling top as a spot prize. For those living in a bubble, Ground Effect support more track building projects around New Zealand than any other organisation. Yep, they are AWESOME! Lucky Carl was the winner of the top (see photo).

But everyone was just stoked to be making such good progress. That's the thing about difficult tracks, they don't take muck digging (not like Lazy Fern, the easy highway that seemed to take an eternity to build). Yep, T3 is ripping along. Another few sessions and it should be rideable all the way to the top of Trickle Falls. If you don't believe us, get up there with your bike and have a go at packing down... oops, I mean pedalling the track. It's a goer right up to the Skink, then you can walk up to the road, which is only 20 metres away. Go with a friend (it's always fun watching people crash, and T3 has lots of 'fun' spots).

The plan is to have a few Wednesday night pizza sessions on the track, so keep an eye on the makarapeak site. Oh, and the fine folk at the last track session were, Rob, Murray, Gareth, Ian, Dave, Carl, Andy, Don, Andrew and Jonathan. Thanks.

People having fun on T3

Between all the hard work, Jeff and Hugh had the chance to ride some of the good work they had done. Harvey Blakely and a few mates came through T3 around lunchtime and after some encouragement he gave “old skinky” a crack, good on ya Harvey!

Working Men

While all the noise of the kango was going there was some good old benching and gravelling going on in between so that we can ride to each obstacle, makes sense really. Rob and Will showing how it's done.

"Crash Test Dummy"

We decided to give people a choice at the first rock out-crop of going high or low, as the high line has quite a drop and takes full commitment to clean. As Hugh demonstrates in these photos, a tumble from the low line is not life threatening but still a good challenge.

Ratchet Canyon

This tricky little number required the most amount of Kango time, as you can see from the before shots. The obstacle is a trench in the shape of an S, is around 900mm deep in places and is very very tight. Some of you old school retro riders will remember a technique not often used in modern Mtb parks known as “ratcheting” this trick requires you to back pedal or ratchet your pedals backwards to clear the narrow gap. Not recommended for new pedals or shoes they will get scuffed. Good luck!!

The Twister

We finished the boardwalk part of the twister a couple of weeks ago on a beautiful autumn afternoon, which turned into evening by the time we were done. We knew this corner was going to be tight, but after 1 hour of kango action and a couple of test rides we came to the conclusion that this corner is very very tight, so after another hour on the kango we were just able to sneak around. Up hill needs a steady hand and smooth pedal control and down hill requires a very minor readjust of the rear wheel to get the exit just right.

Before anyone complains about The Twister or Ratchet Canyon been a bit tough remember this is an expert level track, up and down, meant to test your skills and improve them, all the obstacles have been ridden both ways more than once, so they are possible.

The Boardwalk to Nowhere

This is the next piece to the T3 puzzle. We cemented the poles in for this structure at the same time we did the poles for the Skink as it is just down the track from it, but then after several months of the “big lizard” taking all our time and thought we came back to the poles on this corner and scratched our heads, “ what was the plan here again?”

So yesterday Jonathan enlisted the help of the CC’s to carry the necessary timber down to the corner and we spent 3 hours nutting out this design while they did some hard yards digging stumps.

The corner is going to be very tight and riding up to it will hopefully feel like you are riding back onto the track you have just come off. There will be a nice step-up just before you get to the boardwalk then two thirds of the way around, the wood will turn into rock to make for an interesting and challenging ride.

Still have yet to come up with a good name for this obstacle or what we will be covering it with for traction, we wait for more inspiration from the track design Gods.

Big Skink finished today.

The skink is basking in the sun with its new treads fitting well. The legs were attached at the beginning of the week with some of the body covered with tyres. The critter was given feet, eyes and the last of it’s skin today to make it the first of the T3 man-made obstacles to be finished.

We are very proud of our Big Skink and he has got us thinking outside the square for the other obstacles on the track. T3 is coming along well, and with at least 3 more large obstacles and several smaller ones to be built we have plenty of room to get creative.

Thanks again to everyone that helped out at the work parties and to all that donated their old tyres (see if you can find your old favourite on the Skink). We were thinking of using bicycle chains somehow on our next structure, so stop throwing them out and give them to us and we’ll find a new use for them.

It's Alive.......ALIVE!!!!!

At last the weather was perfect for a work party up on T3 and a dozen keen volunteers made plenty of progress on and around the Skinks Back. The day in fact was a scorcher there was plenty of sweat but thankfully no blood and certainly no tears.

We left off from the last bit of work done in October 2006, after 4 months too set the posts we put in were not going anywhere. A few saw cuts here, the odd nail there and before we knew it the lizard like creature was taking shape.

By the end of the day a few people test rode the 10 metre long Skink, but we ran out of time to cut off the excess and staple down the tyres, which will finish it off. It is quite easy to ride down, and slightly challenging to ride up, so the plan is to cut the decking boards down a little so that it is a bit harder. We also built about 20 metres of track down from the Skink and 30 metres of track above the Skink.

Thanks to Murray, Andrew, Dr Matt, Matt Amos, Rowan, Ewan, Owen, Adam, James, Don, Brian, Sasha, Jonathan, Ebony the dog and the one person we have bound to have forgotten.