Today’s winter digging story is from Duane Walker from North Wales. I saw a few pics on another website so I asked Duane for the full story.
“Well, basically, end of summer last year our local ride spot was demolished (new land owners didn’t like it). We were kindly given permission to build by a mate on some of his families land. There were already a few standard downhill tracks, so after doing a bit of touching up to some of the more derelict ones, we started building our own trail. But instead of rocky, rooty and off-camber, we wanted it flowy, smooth, with lots of big berms, gaps, drops and northshore, just a fun track!
Work started end of November 2008, progress has been quite slow (lots of learning to do, and had exams etc), but slowly picking up the pace.
The main building is done by myself (Duane Walker) and Tom Elmore, but we are regularly helped by others, so many thanks to everyone!
Building in winter isn’t easy, firstly due to the weather (frozen ground is rubbish for digging), and secondly the lack of daylight- we’ve started having after-school dig sessions with the genny and site lights!
But I guess it just depends how willing you are to put the effort in, and how much you want a sweet trail to ride come summer!
Send your winter digging photo’s/stories to BIlly
Duane Walker winter digging
