Closing In

With the wooden bridge now in, our concentration focuses on completing the trail digging proper, the wood bermed corner, and installing the replacement steel truss bridge. All of these items shouldn’t be that hard.

Of the trail that needs to be dug, we’re about eighty percent (80%) complete. The harder, sod removal type of digging is nearly complete. Then we’ll have the easier digging in the woods to connect the loops.

We’ve one (1) smaller radius corner at the bottom of a downhill that requires rollers to change direction by about one-hundred-sixty (160) to one-hundred-seventy (170) degrees. There’s not enough good material to make an adequate dirt berm. We’re opting for a wood berm. We feel a bermed corner is more fun and does not require a roller to lose all the speed achieved on the downhill to the corner. I’ve run some calculations and have recently figured out the connections. We’ll get going on this presently.

The replacement steel trusses are due to deliver next week. We’ve elected to purchase them in two (2) pieces for each truss to make it easier to transport them to the site. The connection is field bolting. The top chord connection requires one inch (1”) diameter, A-490 bolts, tensioned to sixty-four-thousand pounds (64,000 lbs) of tension. This is roughly equivalent to one-thousand-one-hundred foot-pounds (1,100 ft-lbs) of torque. This should be interesting.

I was hoping we’d be done by Labor Day with the entire project. The rain storm we had moved this back. However, we should be done by October 1st and our deadline is October 30th. As much as I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this project, I much prefer riding trail to digging trail. At least for a while.

Ride On.