MBSwindon organised a barbecue and social evening at The Croft Trail. There were a few laps of the trail completed and a lot of eating. The weather was very kind to us.
Come and join us for our regular Friday night social rides, but this time as part of bike week we will also have the BBQ out. So bring down some burgers, sausages or whatever takes your fancy and chuck it on the BBQ whilst you have a lap of the trail.
An evening/night ride at The Croft Trail. All welcome of any ability level – no one gets left behind on our group rides.
Novice Friendly group starts a few minutes after the main group.
This is a great chance to be given a guided tour of the trails if you’ve never been before and a chance to see the improvements if you have.
Depending on the season then you might need lights. Contact us if you would like to borrow some lights.
Winter (Nov – March)
Proper off-road lights will be necessary, speak to us if you want some advice on how to get into night riding without spending hundreds!
Spring (March – May)/ Autumn (September – October)
It will be light enough to ride the first lap or two without lights.
After that proper off-road lights will be necessary.
Summer (June – August)
It will be light enough to ride without lights.
We’ll meet for this special bike week event at 19:00 with the BBQ ready to add your items running right through until 21:00.
We go to the Check Inn at Wroughton after the ride too.
This was a social event at the Croft Trail. We had a BBQ on site plus the Swindon Coffee Gang for gourmet coffee.
Conditions on the trail were slightly damp once again. There is a small chance that the summer might dry out some time in the future.
It was great to see so many people.
SwindonWeb photos on Facebook.
This was one our regular Friday night trail rides at the Croft Trail. See our events calendar for similar rides.
The Big Adventure Store were there with some Exposure demo lights. They also had a load of other kit for sale.
The Big Adventure Store offer MBSwindon club members a discount – see our full discount list.
After doing a few laps of the trail we moved on to the Check Inn at Wroughton for a club BBQ.
|
Next build day is Saturday 22nd October! See previous build reports: June – Aug, Sat 3rd Sept, Wed 8th Sept, Sat 10th Sept, Sat 17th Sept.
The aim for the day was to move as much gravel as possible. Phil and myself (Tom) arrived a few hours early and spent the time marking out two big berms. We were soon joined by Tony La Porte and Jason and a while later by Pete Ratcliffe, Lee Wright and Nigel Gregson. Robin Steward was passing on his bike and lent a hand for an hour too. The group moved a lot of material and special mention must go to Nigel and Lee who both put in several hours of toil.
Later in the day Pete Ratcliffe and Gary Lee moved a lot of gravel using the Land Rover. The last berm before the exit bridge had a lot of concrete slabs dumped into the base before being built back up with mud. We were visited by several women who’d just finished their ladies ride.
By the end of the day we had 300 metres of trail with gravel tipped on it, two new berms, some rollers and around 25 tonnes less material on our pile. Our stats from 2010 showed that we were using around 70kg per metre of trail. We’re building wider and deeper now, using more like 100Kg/m which is an increase of around 30-40%. Next build day is Saturday 22nd October!
|
|
We’d spent the last few months digging out the new triangle section (see the build reports: June – Aug, 3rd Sept, 8th Sept, 10th Sept).
Our aim for this weekend was to shift as much gravel as possible. We’d had another 30 tonnes tipped next to the triangle on top of the 20 tonnes that were already there. We also had 10 tonnes of limestone dust tipped in the car park. Phil turned up early to start work on the first berms and rollers. I arrived in time to meet Brandon Hire and found Kristian and Tony there ready to go. Nick joined us, so we had four people in the triangle. Meanwhile a second work party of myself, Nigel Gregson, Pete Ratcliffe and Jason started filling sacks with dust. Gary Lee Chris Hopkinson and Jon Speed arrived a bit later.
It took us most of the day to shift all of the dust. We used about half of it via several loads onto Piper’s hill and down by the pond. The remainder was shifted to the triangle, with half of it next to our gravel pile and the remainder in the bottom corner. Ben, Kate and Gary Yeates joined us in the afternoon. By mid afternoon then the trail building group had filled in from the entrance bridge, built several rollers and a few berms. The limestone dust received universal approval. The idea is that it will bind the material together. The limestone chippings that we use for the surfacing can beome loose without this extra dust in it.
We had an on-site BBQ in the evening and then went home as darkness fell. Thanks to everyone who came along and helped make it happen. On to the Sunday build report. 
|
Friday night ride and BBQ. Our regular Friday night ride is being followed by a BBQ at the trail. See you down there.
Build weekend Things are shaping up for the build activity this weekend. We’ve got 35 tonnes of the Grey chippings being delivered on Saturday morning, plus we’ve hired a 1/4 tonne power barrow. We got loads done on Thursday night. We’re really looking forwards to doing more on the new section. It would be great to see more people on the weekend. Turn up anytime between 10am and dark on either day and you’ll find us down at the new section (the part near the motorway with the rock garden thing).
This was an event organised with Red Planet bikes. They brought along 11 Santa Cruz demo bikes. We had around 20 people who took test rides over the three hours. It was great to be handed a new bike and told to go and ride it. Thanks to Red Planet bikes. They have a demo day this sunday (16th May 2010) Check their website for more info.
They also brought a bbq and food along, so we had a good social too.
