Pingu Trail Day Report
What happens at a Trail Day?
Words by Rhonna Gurevich. Photos by Jenny Lee Silver.
Date: 2008-11-27
The 8th and final NSMBA trail day for 2008 took place on Sunday September 28th. Over sixty volunteers sacrificed a beautiful day of fall riding for a chance to win schwag, eat pizza, and of course to show their love for Pingu on Mt. Seymour.
"Pingu: A Swiss animated TV series about a family of penguins who live at the South Pole" Photo ~ Jenny Lee Silver
Pingu is trail that can be enjoyed by riders of all levels. It is a blue / black trail that serves as a great introduction to North Shore riding. It is a short, fun trail with roots, rocks, and berms with some optional jumps for those that like their air-time. Pingu is a bit tricky to access on its own because it runs from the power lines down to Baden Powell. It is most commonly ridden as part of the classic "Tour du Seymour", a ride that includes CBC, Corkscrew, Salvation, Pingu, Pangor, and Empress (or Bypass). Of if you want to add some cardio to your ride, you can access Pingu by riding up Old Buck .
Someone said "let's build a berm" Photo ~ Jenny Lee Silver
Volunteers met at Different Bikes in Parkgate Mall and were treated to coffee from Bean Around the World as they signed in and organized transportation to the trail. Most people drove to the Mushroom Parking lot and hiked in down Corkscrew and Salvation.
The power-tools were already buzzing as first the first crews started to arrive. They were soon tasked with clearing the debris from the powerline trail.
A work in progress. Photo ~ Jenny Lee Silver
While the trail directors held a quick planning pow-wow, volunteers made their way down the trail with loose instructions to "find something that needed fixing and fix it"! As always there were lots of experienced trail-building veterans on hand to guide the day and pretty soon about 6 different crews were hard at work on various sections of the trail.
The finished product after building a drainage ditch, packing in rocks and then mining gold. Berm baby berm. Photo ~ Jenny Lee Silver
Near the top of the trail, a small crew took it upon themselves to make one of the lesser used berms "more attractive to ride". They removed some of the old round rocks, replaced them with flat ones and re-sculpted the entrance. Next time down Pingu, show your appreciation to Mark, Daryl and Marcus by rolling your muddy tires up on all their hard work! They want to see this berm used.
*Cue the Indiana Jones theme song* Photo ~ Jenny Lee Silver
One of the biggest surprises of the day was the discovery of a crew hired by LucasFilms that were disguising themselves as trail-day volunteers. The original boulder from Raiders of the Lost Ark had disappeared and these guys were tasked with digging out a replacement. It's really the only logical explanation for them unearthing a boulder of that size. Bribes of pizza and home-baked desserts convinced them to donate this rock to the trail day. Its new resting place is a fall-line section of the trail that was being rock-armoured. Don't tell George.
Determined not to be outdone, many other groups found them selves some big rocks and continued to rock-armour this section of trail.
One of the optional jumps at the top of the trail received some much needed TLC thanks to Hugh, Dale and Bonnie. They replaced some of the rotting logs, stabilized the lip and smoothed out the landing.
Everyone was rocking. Photo ~ Jenny Lee Silver
Further down the trail there were several groups working on drainage issues. With the heavy rains that fell before this trail day, it was easy to identify the areas that needed improving. And with the rainy season descending upon us, digging drainage was one of the more important, albeit not overly glamorous, fixes that needed to be done on Pingu. After the "reverse-camber drainage technique" was described by NSMBA director Mathew Bond, the crews were hard at work digging, leveling, and placing rocks in attempts to acheive the precise 4.67 degree angle that would prevent water from pooling on the trail.
These are just a few of the many areas of the trail that received some significant improvements with this drainage control technique.
Refusing to take part in any more "dumbing down" of North Shore trails, one group of volunteers decided to decommision the B-line by piling rocks over it. That left an advanced three foot huck as the only option to ride through this section.
Better than ever. Photo ~ Jenny Lee Silver
Well, THAT idea didn't go over too well with many people, being that Pingu is a blue/ black trail and all. So they used those rocks to fix drainage issues that plagued that spot and put the main trail back in better condition than it was before. Hmmm, maybe that was their plan along.
There was a flurry of activity going on near the bottom of the trail. And not all of it was from frantic workers swatting at the angry wasps that had their nest disturbed then hidden under a bucket.
Right at the end of the trail, there were Bunnies (Sandra and Jen) hard at work improving the chundery exit.
Equally hard at work was Jordan doing his "Derek Zoolander working the coal-mines" impression.
"I'm not an ambi-turner." Photo ~ Jenny Lee Silver
Inspired by the guys up top, Steve found a large boulder he wanted to move. Unlike the other groups, Steve wanted his rock moved uphill.
Enter the winch.
This boulder was part of a huge effort that was put into building a new berm, probably the most notable new feature to emerge from this trail-day.
Water flow management is essential task here on the Shore. Photo ~ Jenny Lee Silver
This area was so completely transformed that many riders (and volunteers) exclaimed at the end of the day that they didn't even recognize where they were on the trail anymore!
The trail day was sponsored by the good folks at NS Ride. They provided a fantastic lunch of Little Caesars pizza, homemade salads and also had many members come out to work on the trail.
Let's put in some drainage. Photo ~ Jenny Lee Silver
Karen did not disappoint and reliably provided the delicious baked goodies that keeps volunteers happy.
A generous amount of prizes were donated and given out at lunch by Mathew and Chris. Many lucky volunteers left with backpacks, t-shirts, gloves, water bottles and coupons for free bike tune-ups.
A special thank-you to all the sponsors that help make this trail-day such a success.
"And that there is a big rock." It's always good having mentors to show newbies the ropes. Photo ~ Jenny Lee Silver
Bean Around the World - morning coffee
Different Bikes - morning meeting place and prizes
NS Ride - lunch
MEC - prizes
And to all the directors and lead hands for guiding the volunteers.
Chris Barker
Dieter Bahr
Mathew Bond
David Croft
Steve Sheldon
Have you ridden Pingu lately? How is it holding up after two months of riding and quite a lot of rain? How did the venerable vollies do? Address the masses...
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