Black Canon Collective

Category: Building

  • Many hands…

    Bath BMX track is a local gem; great track, great people and a great way to spend a Friday evening.

    Steve, the man behind it all, has organised a day of much needed track pampering this Saturday 1st August, starting at 09:00.

    The council are providing materials and plant along with a few able bodies, so why not pop along for a few hours and lend a hand. Bring a rake, shovel or brush but leave the full face at home: the track will be closed all day for maintenance.

    Remember: you reap what you sow.

    www.bathbmx.com

  • Time flies…

    After all that effort it was pretty special to ride the new lower section of Spoons this evening.

    As with any new trail, the first run is one filled with mixed emotions; high expectation and anxiety being pretty standard, and releif and exhileration being the desirable outcome.

    Spoons delivered.

    It’s flowy, fast and keeps you on your toes. Plenty of off camber, some cheeky roots and a healthy dose of virgin top soil keep you drifting sideways with a massive grin on your face.

    Adding a further 15-20 seconds onto the track length and creating at least two more ‘field splitting’ corners the new bottom section (name TBC) will make tickertape events even more interesting. What’s more; BBMS will get to benefit too with a tickertape only link up making it almost 1 minute long.

    All this in 7 days, time flies when you’re having fun!

  • Building good trails is simple;

    Step 1. Plan

    Step 2. Work hard

    Step 3. Eat jelly sweets

    It’s been a productive week; thanks to some careful consideration, 21 man hours of hard graft and some pick ‘n’ mix we now have an entirely new bottom section to ‘Spoons’ almost doubling its length.

  • BCC Weekender

    As if you didn’t already know!?!

    This weekend is the BCC Weekender; a glorious mix of digging & riding (oh, and tea and cake).

    We’ve got plenty of building to be getting on with and some great racing to look forward to as well.

    Check out the trail development plans to see what we’re hoping to achieve, and remember; the more people who help out the faster we’ll be able to get it all done!

    Hopefully we’ll see a good turn out this weekend, after all what could be better than cake fueled antics in the woods?

  • 2nd Quarter 2009 – Trail Development Plan

    A little later than planned here is the first of our quarterly Trail Development Plans:

    [issuu layout=http%3A%2F%2Fskin.issuu.com%2Fv%2Fwood2%2Flayout.xml showflipbtn=true documentid=090708225326-1b79083495894083a7b7414089c332f7 docname=bcc_trail_development_plan_2009_q2 username=ndrwdnhm loadinginfotext=BCC%20Trail%20Development%20Plan%20-%202nd%20Quarter%202009 showhtmllink=true width=620 height=439 unit=px]

  • April BCC Weekender – Dig Day

    April saw our usual “second full weekend of the month” format challenged by the Easter break, so in the interest of camping trips, family visits and general brownie point winning we postponed our monthly event to the following week.

    Saturday’s Dig Day had the following list of things to do…

    1. Basic trail maintenance (all tracks). – We worked on every trail, but is always ongoing
    2. Continue work on the bottom of 143 (as per last dig days agreed plans) – Tabletop done, massive tree moved, but quite a bit still to do
    3. Begin work on the existing and alternative top section of 143 (as per last dig days agreed plans) – Still to do
    4. Prepare BBMS for this months TickerTape mix-up.– Special Thanks to Juliet, queen of the leaf rake!
    5. Collect rocks, stack wood and undo unused trail features to clean up the hill. – Always ongoing
    6. Erect noticeboard at seating area. – Still to do

    It was a great day; Juliet Amor deserves a very special mention for making BBMS prettier than ever before! And Mark and Gordon also, all three have put a great deal of effort into building stuff they don’t even ride at the mo, we’re really lucky to have such generous members! Cheers guys! 

    (The next project will be a blue grade XC style downhill section so I’m sure we can all return the favour!)

    13 people made it out at various stages, all chipping in and working hard to make sure that BBMS was ready for the TickerTape and the rest of the trails got the love needed to keep them in great shape for the summer.

    The mini double on Spoons has been tweaked and is now a lot safer but should ride even nicer too, winner!

    The new table top on 143 is lush, it’s got a two stage landing, and is real floaty. It flows straight into a great naturally banked corner which fires you off towards a step up (yet to be built).

    Tom X-Up

    We also built a stepped push up to the seating area from the main fire road (bottom of all the trails) that avoids pushing up the back of that berm on 143.

    And finally we routed a new line on BBMS into that real flat rooty corner which although easier root wise will still be hard to do real fast, makes the whole section flow better on a Sunday afternoon.

    Cheers to all those who got stuck in, it was a great day!

  • March dig day

    March’s dig day was one of the best yet, we did absolutely everything we’d hoped to and were utterly exhausted as a result.

    1. Basic trail maintenance (all tracks)
    2. Undo the work carried out by the derelict building to protect the Scarlet Elf cups.
    3. Undo “work” carried out on the top spoons stepdown.
    4. Redevelop the bottom of 143 (as per last dig days agreed plans) upto tabletop.
    5. Prepare spoons for this months tickertape mix-up.

    red nose cookie

    Loads of people made it out  and were treated to hot tea, biscuits, home made cakes and cookies, slapstick comedy (haven’t forgotten your trip Neil), and even a barber shop master class from Marjory (yes, Ben decided to shave his head for comic relief – at the seating area).

    what hair?

    143 is gonna be pretty impressive so  I’m pretty sure that I and everybody else who worked on it likely fell asleep dreaming of riding it…..

    Based upon recent progress I’ve estimated it’ll take at least 3 more dig days to complete 143 to the final step-up feature (it will continue down to the middle fire road eventually but this will need another planning phase). That means it’ll be ready mid June.

    Fancy completing it sooner? Then lets see if we can get even half the current members to a dig day, we had 15 and did so so much, but with 29, with 29 we could maybe even get it all finished in 1 dig day!

    Weekends are precious and often heavily restricted but its amazing to see what can be achieved after just one day of well planned and organised trail building.

    Aprils dig day will be held on the 18th/o4/09 so that it doesn’t clash with Easter weekend….

    hopefully see you there!


    Black Canon Collective – March ’09 Dig and Ride from simon truelove

  • Lets work together…

    It seems that despite our efforts to clearly communicate what we (the BCC) do and why some people have taken it upon themselves to build stuff at our allotment without any consultation or approval. This simply won’t be tolerated.

    We, the collective mountain biking community, are best served by working together to create trails we can all ride and enjoy on land that is set aside and managed accordingly to this end.

    The progress made by woodland riders is testemount to that fact and we, in only our first year, are getting there too.

    There’s nothing wrong with going it alone except when doing so has such a negative effect on others. Ruining the work of others isn’t acceptable. Worse still this has happened on land clearly signed as being club run, and on existing features built by the club.

    The area in question will be returned to it’s former state and additional signs errected.

    We’re not against building new stuff and do admire people putting the effort in to do so. BUT where the allotment is concerned; the Black Canon Collective is responsible for all trail development.

    Interested in making the area better? Come along to one of our monthly dig days and help out rather than working against us, after all we now have over 55 members and represent the vast majority of local riders.

    Please see our events calendar for future dig day details, and look back through the news articles to see what we’ve acheived at previous dig days.

    Thank you

  • Dig Day

    simon

    Today’s Dig Day was a raving success!

    We gave every course some Valentine’s day loving, cut and stacked loads of wood, created many many course markings and even found time to fillet the old table top nr the old seating area (seperating all the rocks, wood and soil).

    The new 5Ltr pump action thermos flasks performed admirably providing piping hot tea and biscuits (the biscuits were cold) all day long.

    We sorted out the new 143 bottom section and even an alternative drop line at the top (all to be built at the March weekender – see the events calendar) .

    A special mention should be given to Ryan for his oh so amusing rock gathering throwing (the new signs have been taking a beating!) and Ben for running full pelt down 143 clutching a rock, jumping off ‘mini step’ and pulling an imaginary table top then face planting into ‘flip flop’, all because he was excited that he’d found a fossil in the rock!

    We got loads done but as with most things – many hands make light work, or in this case many hands can get far more done in the same time!

  • Dig Day Reminder

    (imaginative titles are not my thing – you maybe able to tell!)

    The Dig Day tomorrow (14/02/09) will start at 10am and finish at 4pm.

    Hot drinks will be provided, but please bring food, water and if possible tools.

    Please come along, all are welcome!