There certainly is :-)

Tuesday evenings are JFK track building at Makara Peak.

Make your way to the end of North Face, and follow the 180degree left hand switchback from there. The gang are 200-250m along the track, which is prefectly ridable to that point.

Any time between 5 and 8:45

Some people ride in, others walk up from Alington rd..

See you there !

This coming Saturday we are heading to the top of North Face.

Recently we have focussed a lot of effort on switchbacks, so this weekend we are looking at the straighter parts of this epic track, starting from the top end.

Here is a link to our events calendar:
http://makarapeak.org/events?eventId=230330&EventViewMode=EventDetails

Tools, great company and fine weather have all been organised.

Why not come along for a little while ( or even all day if you want) and help keep this young track in tip top shape

Should be a top day:




North Face is (almost all) out of the wind..

Be there or be square

Yus the early morning clouds are burning off so we should have views for Africa. Or at least, Wellington.

Hopefully plenty of riders will come by to provide instant feedback and/or entertainment.

Drop by for 10 minutes or all day, a sweat donation will be greatly appreciated

We spend ages building a nice track and what does Gordon do?

He ignores it !!

Moar pics and blog will appear soonish.

Here is a copy of our blog, places as usual right here, where the colours are brighter and the photos larger.:
http://www.makarapeak.org/northface?mode=PostView&bmi=496220

Today was fine with impressive gale force winds added, which may have put a few people off !

Watching people wobble down from the summit to North Face this morning was interesting, with most bowing to huge invisible forces and walking down the hill, leaning into an impressive wind blast. As I had brought my bike along it was soon my turn, and I survived with no blood loss. Happiness.

After this unusually breezy beginning we set to cleaning up the track surface on North Face. Some rocks were poking out scaring people, and other parts of the track had craters appearing from normal wear and tear. Well that and the sheer malice of the track gods.

So we chipped the top off some rocks, and turned craters into holes, and filled them with rocks etc.

Dodgy edges were fixed, and bits widened here and there.

The track is still quite rocky, and if you are used to smooth paths it will still be quite an adventure

Cheers to Don, Rob, Lewis, Gordon and The Unkown Digger who stopped by late to swing a grubber in the day !

Not many photos of the work from me, until we arrived at the last 200m of track.

The exit of the last switchback runs into a roller which was widened to provide increased feelings of happiness:



And Gordon tested the sequence of corners by riding like this (twice) :



Much of the track after that bit is sidling the hill and quite narrow, so it was made slightly wider here:



And along here:



This part of the track does reward accuracy.

And down at the very last proper main corner of North Face, we attacked the right hander.

In the past it was a flat corner, with braking bumps and ruts forming easily. A berm or even a friendly camber could not be made as this would have had the corner fill up with water and become a bog.

Tinkering on either side provided drain points so a berm could safely be made, and it now looks like this:



And there's more:



The berm will need rain and at least one more shot at packing it down with moist soil - however it is a great start.

Skilled thrillseekers will be able to leap off the proceeding roller and land on the berm and be gone in a hurry.
Cheers to those riders who took the time to say they appreciated the work today: this really does make all the time and effort worthwhile

Next weekend we will be out and about on Sunday, more details soonish

Cheers,

Rob

MAKARA PEAK TRACKS !!!

I thought it was a little inconsiderate to leave a cone at the start of Northface yeaterday evening with writing on it saying workers were on the track when those workers were actually on JFK. We took it very carefully down Northface only to find noone was on the track. Its a great idea to have a warning cone a few corners before the work site but you run the risk of people ignoring signs if they are left on unattended tracks. The cone should have been left at the start of JFK where the plastic pipe was across the track. it would have been easier to retrieve from there also.

1scotty1 wrote:I thought it was a little inconsiderate to leave a cone at the start of Northface yeaterday evening with writing on it saying workers were on the track when those workers were actually on JFK. We took it very carefully down Northface only to find noone was on the track. Its a great idea to have a warning cone a few corners before the work site but you run the risk of people ignoring signs if they are left on unattended tracks. The cone should have been left at the start of JFK where the plastic pipe was across the track. it would have been easier to retrieve from there also.

Quit yur complaining. Just ride back up and ride it again, or go join the work party

speeding_ant wrote:

1scotty1 wrote:I thought it was a little inconsiderate to leave a cone at the start of Northface yeaterday evening with writing on it saying workers were on the track when those workers were actually on JFK. We took it very carefully down Northface only to find noone was on the track. Its a great idea to have a warning cone a few corners before the work site but you run the risk of people ignoring signs if they are left on unattended tracks. The cone should have been left at the start of JFK where the plastic pipe was across the track. it would have been easier to retrieve from there also.

Quit yur complaining. Just ride back up and ride it again, or go join the work party

And be groomed by Robbie?

Perhaps go down Trickle Falls instead...

1scotty1 wrote:I thought it was a little inconsiderate to leave a cone at the start of Northface yeaterday evening with writing on it saying workers were on the track when those workers were actually on JFK. We took it very carefully down Northface only to find noone was on the track. Its a great idea to have a warning cone a few corners before the work site but you run the risk of people ignoring signs if they are left on unattended tracks. The cone should have been left at the start of JFK where the plastic pipe was across the track. it would have been easier to retrieve from there also.

My apologies, we forgot to pick that up.
Put it down to exhaustion after a small team of unpaid volunteers spent 7 hours working in the gale force winds and the sun

There was no official work party on JFK.

The cone was positioned at the top of North Face for a very good reason, (we worked on all of it ) it should not have been left behind.

1scotty1 wrote:I thought it was a little inconsiderate to leave a cone at the start of Northface yeaterday evening with writing on it saying workers were on the track when those workers were actually on JFK. We took it very carefully down Northface only to find noone was on the track..

Good on you for taking notice of the sign and going slowly. When I was line trimming Lazy Fern last week I had guys screeching and sliding to a halt less than a metre from me, said they saw the sign but didn't go slow because "we didn't know exactly where you'd be".

Robbie wrote:

1scotty1 wrote:I thought it was a little inconsiderate to leave a cone at the start of Northface yeaterday evening with writing on it saying workers were on the track when those workers were actually on JFK. We took it very carefully down Northface only to find noone was on the track. Its a great idea to have a warning cone a few corners before the work site but you run the risk of people ignoring signs if they are left on unattended tracks. The cone should have been left at the start of JFK where the plastic pipe was across the track. it would have been easier to retrieve from there also.

My apologies, we forgot to pick that up.
Put it down to exhaustion after a small team of unpaid volunteers spent 7 hours working in the gale force winds and the sun

There was no official work party on JFK.

The cone was positioned at the top of North Face for a very good reason, (we worked on all of it ) it should not have been left behind.

You should pack each cone with a small remotely-operated explosive. Then when you finish up you can press a button and "blam!" all the cones are gone.

Or people could just put it down to human error and get over it.

fatwombat wrote:

1scotty1 wrote:I thought it was a little inconsiderate to leave a cone at the start of Northface yeaterday evening with writing on it saying workers were on the track when those workers were actually on JFK. We took it very carefully down Northface only to find noone was on the track..

Good on you for taking notice of the sign and going slowly. When I was line trimming Lazy Fern last week I had guys screeching and sliding to a halt less than a metre from me, said they saw the sign but didn't go slow because "we didn't know exactly where you'd be".

Ever stop to think that maybe they did that on purpose? It's great fun!