Awesome Autumn at Passion Trail Bikes

This week’s word on the trail, on December 2, 2009

1. Last Chance for an Intimate Dinner with Scot Nicol from Ibis 12/4
2. Get Your Dirt On: Soquel Forest Trailwork 12/6
3. Leave a Mark: Waterdog Trailwork 12/19
4. The Ecocyclist’s Notebook: Willow Trees
5. Vote for Mount Sutro Trail Steward
6. Test Rider’s Report: Maxxis Ardent Tire


1. Last Chance for an Intimate Dinner with Scot Nicol from Ibis 12/4
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A row of test Mojos from Ibis wait for test riders at a Passion Demo Day

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2. Get Your Dirt On: Soquel Forest Trailwork 12/6

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Charles packs his CDF sawyer certification, chainsaw and McLeod, and hikes up the knife edge on Braille to rearrange some downed timber

The trailwork season is starting in Soquel Forest. We will begin with a little drain clearing, and couple of fun Technical Trail Feature maintenance projects. Charles will be there with his chainsaw for some clearing, and some sculpting, of large woody debris. And there’s quite a bit of it out there after the last front blew through. We are looking for a few strong shoulders to help with pulling silt and leaves out of the drains, and resculpting the trail tread as needed to keep the water flowing off the trail where it’s supposed to go. Also we need a swamper or two to help with moving tree limbs.

If you would like to give a hand with trailwork in Soquel Forest, RSVP’s are required. please visit the Trailworkers.com website and click the link there to sign up for the workday on Sunday December 6th. We think the meeting time for the project is probably 8:30 in the parking lot off Highland Way. But sign up and Scott Robinson from the Stewards will confirm with you, and your RSVP will make sure he has a good work plan for the size of crew he’s getting, plus enough tools to go around.

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3. Leave a Mark: Waterdog Trailwork 12/19

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Travis and crew dig in the new trail on the south side of the lake

On Saturday, December 19th, from 8:30am to a bit after noon, we will work once again on the new Lake Loop alignment around Waterdog Lake. Our big goal for this workday is to finish two retaining walls that we started last spring and have been making quite a bit of progress on lately. We will move earth, compact it, top it off with crushed rock for an all-weather surface. We will wire in retaining wall posts so they stay standing straight. We will dig dirt, and sculpt the hillside. We will make a trail in one of the prettiest places in the whole park.

Please, PLEASE volunteer some time this season to help out on this awesome project. If you can come, please RSVP to Patty at patty@passiontrailbikes.com, and let her know you’re coming. And please pick another date or two below and put them in your calendar, and shoot an email out to your friends to let them know you’ll be helping out. We need recruiters too!

People who are so kind as to RSVP will get an email from Patty with details on the project, including meeting location and some other helpful info. RSVP’s are important because that allows for the proper amount of tools, planning, bagels and coffee to be prepared.

Dates on our trailwork calendar are as follows:

Saturday 12/19
Sunday 1/10
Sunday 1/31
Saturday 2/13
Sunday 2/28
Saturday 3/20
Sunday 4/11
Thursday 4/22

Robert straddles the big culvert while setting cobbles in the catch basin.

To get a chance to leave your mark on this incredible trail, please volunteer some time this season to help out. If you can come on one of the dates below, please RSVP to Patty at patty@passiontrailbikes.com, and let her know you’re coming. And shoot an email out to your friends to let them know you’ll be helping out. We need recruiters too!

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4. The Ecocyclist’s Notebook: Willow Trees

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Editor’s note: Now and again, meaning nearly constantly, Patty dons her docent hat and waxes more or less eloquently about some subject related to Mother Nature that she has been pondering while pedaling. Depending on time and whimsy this may become a regular part of our newsletter.

Willows are a common tree around these parts. Requiring wet feet to thrive, they grow in streams and near springs. Because willows evolved in wetlands, they have many different avenues for surviving winter floods, silt flows, and stream bank failures.

Willow wood is punky compared to other good burning firewoods like oak or madrone. The cellular structure of the wood is stringy and weak. When alive, it’s not very stiff. Think of a willow growing on the bank of a river, and then being subject to the force of a powerful flood inundating its canopy, engulfing the tree with rushing muddy debris filled waters, and bending it sideways against the flow. Amazingly, unless the bank of the river is eroded away in the flood and the tree is washed away, it will survive in place and when the waters recede it will sprout new growth in the spring.

Thad and John deliver a load of rock to line the catch basin for the culvert
in the seep zone. Photo taken during construction of the new Lake Loop Trail alignment
in November 2009. The horizontal tree trunk behind them is a willow growing in the seep.

You won’t find willows mixing it up with Madrone trees on an arid rocky ridgeline. Willows grow with their roots in sandy, silty, clayey, mucky dirt. One aspect of this kind of substrate is that sedimentary earth is flexible, pliable. Willows also grow phototropically, meaning towards light. The stems will bend towards the light as they grow. The branches that get the most sun will grow fastest. If the tree is growing in a canyon, oaks, bays, or other trees that inhabit the hillsides above the stream will cast shadows on the willows. The willow will grow sideways, away from the shadows and towards sunspots. Combine sideways growth with flexible wood, and roots in a weak substrate and you have a perfect recipe for a tree that has branches that sag, and a trunk that falls over.

This of course, is not a problem for a willow tree. That’s because it sags and falls over into sandy, clayey, mucky dirt. And at every bend and joint in its branches, it has the capacity to send down roots, and establish a new alternate root system, and it will just keep on growing, with its trunk on the ground and new branches sprouting upward from its side. If branches are broken off a willow in a flood and deposited in a sandbar or silt flat, they will often take root, far downstream from the tree they originally grew on.

Willows are present on a number of trails in Waterdog where you cross drainages, and they line the side of Canyon Creek Trail, where certain branches seem to be getting closer and closer to your handlebar or helmet. They also inhabit the silt flat in the back of the lake. Where Patty has been working on the new Lake Loop Trail alignment, much humming and hawing has gone into selecting a route that is less likely to suffer problems due to willow tree failure.

Willows are one of the last native tree species around here to turn colors and drop their leaves in the fall. Buckeyes have been bare for months now, and most of the maples are done, but the willows in Waterdog are glowing yellow and umber right now. Enjoy the low light of late autumn as it filters through their thinning canopies.

Brian and Krishna reset a board on the first switchback as you climb up from the bridge
on Finch Trail. Photo taken during a maintenance project in November 2008. The golden leaves
behind them are from a willow tree growing in the creek below.

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5. Vote for Mount Sutro Trail Steward

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Exciting news! Craig Dawson has been selected as a finalist in the 2009 Cox Conserves Heroes Award. Craig Dawson is the founder of the Mount Sutro Stewards, an all-volunteer organization, dedicated to habitat and trail restoration. His work involved uncovering, restoring, and preserving a hidden sanctuary in the heart of SF—Mount Sutro Forest.

Please vote for him so that this awesome program can continue to thrive so that everyone can enjoy, retreat to, and recreate in one of SF’s hidden beautiful places. Learn more, watch his video below. Please feel free to spread the word to all your family members, friends at home and work to Vote for Craig!

VOTE HERE: http://www.coxconservesheroes.com/san-francisco-bay-area-ca/finalists.aspx

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6. Test Rider’s Report: Maxxis Ardent Tire

The following is a quick rider’s report from Tom Rice, Passion Trail Bikes groupie, all-round nice guy, and gear head. If you’ve given a test ride on a new product lately and are feeling like typing, feel free to send your gear report our way.

So, what is an Ardent anyway?? The dictionary says it means vehement, fierce or intensely feeling. The Maxxis Ardent certainly has some of these attributes. . .

I did a quick lap in Skegg’s today with the 2.4 Ardent on the front of my Versus Blitz. I mounted the tire tubeless using Stan’s No Tubes on my Mavic SX wheels. The conditions today were predictably wet so we had elbow dragging traction randomly intermingled with slick mud. It made for high speed fun with brief moments of panic.

Even so, the Ardent gave up a great deal of confidence. I think it is the mid size knobs between the center row and the deep corning knobs at the edges that make the transition from straight up to maximum lean angles smooth and predictable. It is not a big rocky conditions tire with an overly solid feel but the Ardent holds a line at speed and is very precise. It is a lively tire so a little more rebound damping at the front is worth considering. I like this tire. It is not overly heavy and it wants to go fast. I’ll run the Ardent on the front while I research rears.

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Read back issues of the Passion Trail Bikes Community e-Newsletter on our website.

To contact us, email us at info@passiontrailbikes.com, or call the shop at 650-620-9798.

Happy Trails, from the PTB crew
Charles, Patty, John, Bret, Sterling, Pancho, Will, Peter, and Reba