A week ago I published a post about our latest features and the time that went into it. Guess what!? A lot has changed since then…A LOT!
First things first…We destroyed those berms…and built them again!?
BEFORE YOU GO TYPING IN THE COMMENTS “WELL THAT WAS STUPID AND USELESS!” Hear me out.
I invited a friend of mine to help build the features. He’s a much stronger and more experienced rider, so whatever he said goes, no questions asked.
He dropped by the day after I uploaded the previous post and his first order of business was to make sure the berms were shaped to be smooth, and strong. A motto he’ll nail into your head is “Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast”.
Interesting…well, here goes nothing!
“Cut the top, Move it back”
Why was he asking me to move the berm back? Why was it so far back? He keeps talking about a pocket, What pocket?
So basically, when you are turning and cornering, you want to convert as much momentum that you have before the corner to exit with you as well. If a berm or corner is too shallow or too sharp, that’s not going to happen, you want to get to the apex of the corner, which has the the most efficient line.
The basis to good cornering
The beauty of berms is that they are banked so you aren’t doing all the work to get through the corner smoothly, it’ll lend a helping hand…if it’s built well.
Our previous berms were like the red line, too shallow. We would brake heavily before entry, and that’s not something you want to do in any trail. They needed to go back further and get a bit taller to truly maximize their potential.
And so work began. We moved the berms back, cleared a bit of ground to accommodate the new berms, raised them, and packed them down to shape.
more dirt, more distance, more fun
We spent two days building the berms and an additional day building a jump…YOU READ THAT RIGHT! A JUMP!
Considering how the MTB scene in HYD is, we decided to make a small beginners double, very short, very close, very smooth.
The jump is about 5-6m away from the second berm and is at a slight angle. Once you exit the berm, you’ll turn to face the jump and pretty much roll right up to it, Give it a pump and you’ll be airborne for a short amount of time. This jump is the perfect shape for DJ bikes and shorter wheelbase bikes, however my long 29er is able to smoothly takeoff.
And like that…It’s Done!
This project took an unexpectedly long amount of time to complete but now we can probably pull off the same project in a couple days time.
till the next time,
Tschuss!