Surfacing northshore/boardwalk - what do you need?

bartimaeus

We've been lucky enough to have been invited to help revamp some of our local trails, so last weekend was spent benching and building berms. Now we've come to a section that needs some northshore/boardwalk to bridge a boggy area and we could do with some advice on how to build this so it lasts and is safe.

Can anyone point us at some resources on building and more importantly surfacing features like this? Or possibly provide some pointers from practical experience?

There's some useful stuff on trailbuilding online, but I've not found anything good on boardwalk yet - other than some IMBA advice on using treated wood and galvanised nails etc. Most importantly, what's the recommended surface to keep it grippy in the wet? I've seen boardwalk covered in what I assume is galvanised chicken wire, but is this still seen as the best option, and if so does it make a difference what mesh and guage you use? what about non-slip paint? We have a design, but now we need to put together a bill of materials!

thanks

bails87

Some of it seems to have a sandpaper like material on it, chicken wire works too. That's only from riding, not building, so I don't know any more than that.

Daz555

I have seen the skateboard type covering on a few trails but chicken wire is more common - probably due to cost.

Only thing with chicken wire is maintenance as it becomes dangerous when it starts to fall apart.

cat_with_no_tail

Chicken wire is a cnut when you DO happen to come off on it!

The stuff they use round here is a type of green, non-slip deck paint. Seems to do the trick nicely.

What are you trying to do with the boardwalk section? is it just going to be a straight line with small on and off ramps, essentially just a bridge. Or is it going to be more complicated, with corners, changes in altitude, going round trees etc?

If you're doing this as a club, it'd be well worth sending at least one club member on a trail building course (out of club funds). It's amazing how many ideas someone will come back with once they see what is possible.

mrfmilo

Pallet wood and decking works well, as well as thick logs for legs etc. Use galvanised nails and 'fresh' wood. Always over build the shore - use triangle supports where you can and be creative.

My local FR spot uses chicken wire, but only recently. It used to just be pallet wood which rarely anyone fell off.



If you'd prefer not to use it, decking paint mixed with sand works ok.

If it's just a flat bridge i'd just stick some chicken wire on and regularly check it.

You can make anything out of wood

bartimaeus

Cat With No Tail wrote:

What are you trying to do with the boardwalk section? is it just going to be a straight line with small on and off ramps, essentially just a bridge. Or is it going to be more complicated, with corners, changes in altitude, going round trees etc?

It is a bridging section, but to make it more interesting there will be some up and down sections and a couple of slightly banked corners - so the function is to get from A to B, but we want to make it 'interesting' without being 'challenging'.

We aren't a club - more an anarcho-syndicalist commune organised through the power of the internet. So we have no club funds - but the idea of sending someone on a trailbuilding course is a good one. As this is a feature at an 'official' trail we need it to be both safe and durable - this bit will actually require some cash investment to get it built.

Daz555

Are there any legal implications to consider?

bartimaeus

Daz555 wrote:

Are there any legal implications to consider?

We'll be checking with the operators... they will already have public liability insurance as it's a trail centre operated by the County Council on Forestry Commission land. I guess they will need to do a formal risk assessment before it gets built. We are sending them some plans, so the next step will be to work with them to generate a bill of materials and get it costed up.

jairaj

You can buy anti-slip grip tape which is similar to skateboard tape but this is very expensive.

For cheaper alternative try mixing in some course sand into a paint tin and paint the wood with that.

mrfmilo - I thought pallet wood was supposed to be rubbish and not good quality?

stumpyjon

Talk to SingletrAction, they have experiemented with everything. In a nutshell

Chicken wire is a no, it's lethal if you come off on it, doesn't wear well and is even more lethal once it starts to break up.
Grip paints & tapes do work but are expensive and don't last long.
Appropriate finishing of the timber seems to work best. At Gisburn Forest we've used two techniques, first is to use split rather than sawn logs (split using a hydraulic splitter on a tractor). This makes the surface uneven and fun to ride whilst giving reasonable grip even in the wet. The second technique we've used is to chisel the surface of the wood to make it look like a chess board, i.e. every other square is chiselled out. This is very time consuming but works wekk, best for skinnies and logs.

In short there's no cheap, quick easy sustainable option but trying to make the surface of the grippy in it's own right seems to work best (yo could consider using a chainsaw to put diamond shaped patterns into it.

mrfmilo

jairaj wrote:

You can buy anti-slip grip tape which is similar to skateboard tape but this is very expensive.

For cheaper alternative try mixing in some course sand into a paint tin and paint the wood with that.

mrfmilo - I thought pallet wood was supposed to be rubbish and not good quality?

We've not had any problems with it. But if you can afford it then go for treated hard wood.

cat_with_no_tail

stumpyjon wrote:

Grip paints & tapes do work but are expensive and don't last long.

Really?
Ok, I agree they're pretty expensive, but not that they don't last long?

Not to say that the other methods you suggest don't work. But the paint they used on the boardwalk sections round here (of which there are quite a lot, getting pretty regular use in all weathers) have lasted 5 years or more so far, and are still looking plenty fresh.

Anonymous

Bartimaeus wrote:

Daz555 wrote:

Are there any legal implications to consider?

We'll be checking with the operators... they will already have public liability insurance as it's a trail centre operated by the County Council on Forestry Commission land. I guess they will need to do a formal risk assessment before it gets built. We are sending them some plans, so the next step will be to work with them to generate a bill of materials and get it costed up.

If FC are involved and someone can get injured then it'll probably get torn down.

bartimaeus

deadkenny wrote:

If FC are involved and someone can get injured then it'll probably get torn down.

Could you expland on this? I'm not sure if the trail centre guys have spoken to the FC yet... do the FC have some sort of blanket objection to wooden features? This is an existing RED trail. There's always a chance someone can get injured anywhere on a trail - if there wasn't then it wouldn't be much of a trail. The extension we are building bypasses a steep (and not interesting) fall line descent which is seen as a potential hazard, so this should make it safer.

dan shard

mrfmilo wrote:

Pallet wood and decking works well, as well as thick logs for legs etc. Use galvanised nails and 'fresh' wood. Always over build the shore - use triangle supports where you can and be creative.

My local FR spot uses chicken wire, but only recently. It used to just be pallet wood which rarely anyone fell off.



If you'd prefer not to use it, decking paint mixed with sand works ok.

If it's just a flat bridge i'd just stick some chicken wire on and regularly check it.

You can make anything out of wood

#

glol that looks like a really solid and safe northshore (Im sure it is, but it looks very rickety)

mrfmilo

dan shard wrote:

mrfmilo wrote:

Pallet wood and decking works well, as well as thick logs for legs etc. Use galvanised nails and 'fresh' wood. Always over build the shore - use triangle supports where you can and be creative.

My local FR spot uses chicken wire, but only recently. It used to just be pallet wood which rarely anyone fell off.



If you'd prefer not to use it, decking paint mixed with sand works ok.

If it's just a flat bridge i'd just stick some chicken wire on and regularly check it.

You can make anything out of wood

#

glol that looks like a really solid and safe northshore (Im sure it is, but it looks very rickety)

Everything there is solid, alot of it has been up for 3 year plus and is still perfect. None of it's dead straight though so might look abit 'ghtto

Anonymous

Bartimaeus wrote:

deadkenny wrote:

If FC are involved and someone can get injured then it'll probably get torn down.

Could you expland on this? I'm not sure if the trail centre guys have spoken to the FC yet... do the FC have some sort of blanket objection to wooden features? This is an existing RED trail. There's always a chance someone can get injured anywhere on a trail - if there wasn't then it wouldn't be much of a trail. The extension we are building bypasses a steep (and not interesting) fall line descent which is seen as a potential hazard, so this should make it safer.

It's just my pessimism that's all

But I keep hearing about the FC getting cold feet over anything potentially risky. It could be the stuff is safer than before but then they do an assessment and decide the whole thing is too much of a risk. Haldon Forest went that way. Had a nice red/black with some quite cool northshore inc helter skelter. It fell down in the wind, they re-assessed and decided to turn the place into a family friendly safe trail. They call it advanced "red" but I'd class it as blue and safe enough to take your toddlers on!

It's not just FC, it's any land owner/manager. Swinley keep flattening things because people sue them when they crash due to their own fault. Esher Shore / Esher-X possibly went because of risk concerns though the land owner claimed they weren't aware of the place despite having granted permission.

Seems the better option is with private access and charge membership to cover insurance and get people to sign a "I take all the risks" form. Though Esher was like that I think.

*All that said* - If it's just low northshore to cover a boggy area it shouldn't be a problem. Afan has plenty of that for example.

meesterbond

deadkenny wrote:

Esher Shore / Esher-X possibly went because of risk concerns though the land owner claimed they weren't aware of the place despite having granted permission.

Esher Shore went because the race course didn't want lots of scruffy mountain bikers anywhere near their new Royal enclosure and thought the area would be more profitable as a hotel.... allegedly.

bartimaeus

What we are looking it is similar to the boardwalk at Afan - if anything not quite so difficult (if I interpret the design correctly)... though Afan was my first experience of boardwalk so I probably remember it as more challenging that it really is :oops:

stumpyjon

FC won't necessarily tear it down, it will need to meet certain criteria and be signed off as a suitable construction.

We've built quite a lot of wood work at Gisburn, when I say we most of it has been built by the FC themselves. The key thing is that it's not more than a metre off the ground.

Gisburn stuff

Anonymous

stumpyjon wrote:

The key thing is that it's not more than a metre off the ground.

really? :roll:
That's just crap.

Anonymous

I'm able to near kill myself at that height, but then that just shows I shouldn't be let anywhere near a trail or a bike

bartimaeus

stumpyjon wrote:

Talk to SingletrAction

Thanks for that stumpyjon... having looked at their website they seem to be exactly the sort of crew we need to talk to. I've sent them an email.

Northwind

Ah, I've noticed the split wood "planks" on the gisburn stuff before, how well is that working out? Seems to work for the canadians!

Jedi

north shore should be an option , not the main trail if possible. so you have an option in the wet

Anonymous

Jedi wrote:

north shore should be an option , not the main trail if possible. so you have an option in the wet

Wasn't the original point of "Northshore" to get over really boggy ground, and things like that?

(not that it has anything to do with designing trails, I'm just asking out of curiosity).
There's some bits on the Penmachno XC trail which are simply because you couldn't ride over it any other way, and it also protects the foliage - it is in a national park, after all.

Jedi

thats why i said where possible or are you going to argue with me about how to build north shore too

Northwind

I guess it depends on definition though. Like, some people would call a 2 foot wide wooden boardwalk northshore and that ought to be fine in any conditions. (I think this sort of thing has a perfectly good name, boardwalk, but I still catch myself doing it.)

Chicken wire's a bugger of a thing for technical/scary/difficult stuff, because people brake hard on it and rip it up, and also people fall off on it and grate themselves... But, for the sort of thing you really oughtn't to be falling off or panicking on, it does work well.

bartimaeus

Just got to the bit on SingletrAction which says "Our diggers {include} an 18 year Polish lap dancer* who insists on working in hotpants..."

I need to speak to the team about recruitment.

They can keep their bearded dwarf though.

Anonymous

yeehaamcgee wrote:

I'm just asking out of curiosity

Jedi wrote:

thats why i said where possible or are you going to argue with me about how to build north shore too

:roll:

Anonymous

Northwind wrote:

I guess it depends on definition though. Like, some people would call a 2 foot wide wooden boardwalk northshore and that ought to be fine in any conditions. (I think this sort of thing has a perfectly good name, boardwalk, but I still catch myself doing it.)

Very good point
I was just asking if "Northshore" started off being what we really should be calling "boardwalk" thse days though.

I guess in any other usage, it WOULd all be boardwalk, but the MTB term for it refers to where it originated. I dunno. It's all wood.