Trail Volunteering Opportunities - Piedmont Fat Tire Society

Trail Maintenance - The Key to Open Trails

At PFTS we hate closed trails as much as you do. But, in order to honor the hard work of trial builders and keep our agreements with the city and county regarding trail sustainability, we must close them when necessary.

When they reopen is contingent on just a few factors:
1) When are they safe?
2) When are they dry enough to open?
3) When can we get a post out and gates open?

That’s it! #1 is usually a subset of #s 2 and 3, but from time to time we need to get sawyers out to remove a dangerous problem.

The main factors in fulfilling #2 and #3 is almost completely dependent on volunteer labor. The amount of time and energy our volunteers (which is everyone, because nobody at PFTS or volunteers gets paid) spend maintaining the trails so they drain quickly and predictably.

This is really quite simple to help with from a public standpoint. A few hours per year from each of a handful of people can keep trails maintained to the point they’re draining very quickly, even after a hard rain.

To this end, most of this issue is dedicated to how YOU can help maintain our trails with a very low level of time and energy, but the outcome can be considerably more open and available mountain bike trails.
Thanks!
Stephen – President of PFTS

Opening and Closing Gates
Unfortunately, gates are necessary to let riders know when trails are open and closed. Opening and closing the gated is pretty easy, and many can be done in just a few steps from the car and only take a minute. Gates currently exist at the following trailheads:

Rich Fork Preserve Parking Lot
Blue Heron and Kingfisher at Yanceyville Road Lot
Reedy Fork and Wild Turkey at Lake Brandt Road Lots
Wild Turkey and Owl’s Roost
(2) at Greenway EntrancesBald Eagle at Main Parking Lot at Lake Higgins

If you would like to volunteer to help open and close gates, we’d love to hear from you! Usually this means you’re on a text thread and if you’re available to go open or close, you just say so and the crowd roars cheering for you. Wouldn’t that feel great?

The more people we have in the trail opening and closing group, the faster trails open after a rain!

Able to help? Hit us up HERE.

Help with Basic Trail Maintenance
The vast majority of trial work hours done annually are simple, basic maintenance hours. This work is important for several reasons:

It keeps the trail from being muddy, it keeps the trail clear of derailleur snapping debris, it keeps trails open more often, and it keeps trails sustainable and ecologically friendly.

This primarily consists of walking the trail with a flat shovel or trial hoe and doing three simple tasks:

1- Deberming the trail in areas where dirt has built up on the downside of the trail slope and restoring the outslope so the trail can drain. Of course sometimes we built berms on purpose to help carry speed through a turn, but in this case the berming is unintended and holds water on the trail. Berming happens from natural trail activity (but happens a lot faster when people ride closed trails), so we need to clear them a few times a year. Here’s a pic from US Forest Service presentation on Trial Maintenance 101:

We deberm the trail by scraping the mounded dirt off the tread’s downhill edge in order to reestablish the outslope and allow trapped water to easily flow across the trail. Here’s another sweet pic from the US Forest Service presentation on Trial Maintenance 101:

Here is a pic of a local trail that needs a little deberming and drain cleaning. A flat shovel works great for this, but even a stick or heel of a shoe can handle this in a couple of minutes and keep it much drier for weeks to come:

2 - Clearing debris out of trail drains. When the trails drain naturally, debris often gets in pre-existing drainage and clogs it up. We need to get out and shovel/hoe that out from time to time, and then the trail can continue to drain well.

3 - Clean debris off of the trails. Limbs and other debris happens all of the time, and the more we all clear that off of the trails, the better the experience is for all. If a tree needing a saw is down or you see any other issue needing more tools or expert care, post it up on TrailForks as a trail report, and be sure to include the GPS location option in the app.

If you’re interested in being on a very high impact, low commitment trail crew and helping maintain our trails, let us know HERE and we’ll pair you up with a trail captain and trail crew so you can spread the love! Want to be an expert? There are tons of materials available, and we’re even willing to facilitate classes and more. Just reach out to us and let us know you’re interested in any of the above!