Eagle Trail Care

This weekend I was involved in a local trailwork session. Within itself, that’s not

overly unusual. However, this work was on trails that will be used for the National

Championships in Adelaide come February – trails that have rarely seen volunteer

work previously and certainly not in any on-going manner.

Aside for a little tweaking for, and some tidying up after, races, Eagle has been

predominantly maintained by the land manager – the South Australian Government’s

Office of Recreation and Sport (ORS). Being a government run venue, funding is

always a major concern and has made ongoing maintenance a tricky matter –

especially as the other venues on the ORS books are stadia and courts which, when

not in competition use, are under lock and key (Hindmarsh Stadium, home to the ALeague’s

Adelaide United, for example), rather than open to the public and thus

constantly being accessed. As such, land management practises are quite foreign to

ORS, unlike their counterparts over in Parks or Forestry, so the idea of volunteer

maintenance has been a unique and alien proposition since the park was opened.

However, finally, a good 8 years since the park was mooted and a bush for life crew

was allowed to start rehabilitating this former quarry, the first of, hopefully, regular

maintenance crews were allowed in to work on the trails themselves.

Given the conservative approach of ORS, things were done a little differently to the

way many trail days operate. Firstly, a compulsory classroom session had to be

attended and IMBA’s sustainable trail building principles were explained by Mr

IMBA-AU, Nic Bowman. Now, I know I was not alone in having previously read the

various IMBA literature and worked on trail with these principles in mind; however,

others had never attempted trailwork before but were ready to lend at hand at what is

probably Adelaide’s most heavily used, legal MTB venue and ORS were making sure

that if they were letting volunteers in rather than professional trailbuilders, it was still

going to be done “right”.

So, whilst these guys were being explained the theories behind grade reversals and

drainage amongst the many other points of consideration, illustrated with plenty of

photographic examples from around Australia and, indeed, the World, with the

opportunity to ask questions about the principles to one of Australia’s greatest

proponents of them, I found it great to re-visit and brush up on the theory, too. This

really helped remind why we do some of the things we do, think about the variety of

options we have to solve problems on the trail and just generally focus on why it is

important to do it right the first time. I actually quite enjoyed this approach (or maybe

it was the being in the pub with a bunch of like minded MTBers?) and will try to

make sure that I flick through the IMBA literature every so often to re-cap and refresh

the principles prescribed within.

Eagle itself is a varied mix of old quarry faces, powerline access tracks, ridges with

minimal vegetation, patches of natural bush and riparian areas surrounding the

drainages and creeks. The weekend focused on two trails at the top of the park, both

running through areas of predominantly native bush. The soil in this highest section of

the park is quite fine and in places almost sand like, with fast sections of trail meaning

some sections had widened as tyres struggle for grip at speed and overtaking whilst

racing is attempted. These are highly trafficked areas making up part of the Local,

State and Nationals XC course as well as being fast, fun and flowing parts of the

general loop of the park.

So with the groups arranged, one to cut in a short section of new trail and close the

existing line and another group to armour some corners and cover some exposed roots

before the trees suffered unduly, whilst also addressing the trail creep occurring in

that section, work began as the wind blew and showers came and went. The flow of

the new line was discussed and flags were dotted around, moved and put back again

before a tool was even lifted, whilst rolling grade dips were created and trenches were

dug in order to sink rocks for new berms in corners on the other trail. After a BBQ in

the on-off drizzle to refuel, it was back to it with exposed roots covered and armoured

and another corner bermed, keeping the high speed nature of the line intact, but with a

few additional chokes added to keep riders on the trail and not sneaking off of it.

Come the end of the day, the new line had been marked out and roughed in, ready to

be groomed to a finish the following day before closing the existing line, too.

I can’t wait to get back up to Eagle for a ride to check out how the new additions add

to the trail, nor for the chance to do more of the same to other areas in need of some

TLC and rejuvenation after years of hard use. Come Nationals, the newly tweaked

areas will have bedded in nicely and will keep the speeds high and the racing fast,

whilst also adding a few new challenges for all, as with only one race left for the

current season, the locals won’t get a chance to race on the new stuff, although they

will get to ride it. However, the real winner is Eagle itself; with these works starting to

take place it won’t be long until what we have is back to pristine condition

throughout. And once that is achieved, the real fun can begin; the proposition of

cutting in a few entirely new trails.