On November 17-19 an IMBA Trail Care Crew was in the Triangle area to provide technical guidance to TORC's trail builders. On Friday Stewart took the IMBA Crew out to Briar Chapel to look over the area where we will be putting in the initial trails. They were impressed with the property and worked with Stewart in shooting (with a clinometer) and flagging almost a mile of new trail. On Friday night Stewart and the Crew met with several TORC members at the Open Eye in Chapel Hill for a little pre-event socializing. On Saturday we met near Bynum and caravanned to the planned start of trails in the Briar Chapel development. We had 38 for the kick-off session. Besides the Trail Care Crew's technical review of IMBA's "sustainable trails principles", staff from Newland Corporation presented TORC with a check for $25,000 to support our future work on their trails. (A large portion of these funds will be used for a walk-behind trail grading machine.) Next we broke into several 4-6 person teams for either a hands-on design clinic or to work on building the trail section already flagged. Those involved in design got a chance to do clinometer shoots and to identify trail alignments that will minimize erosion and still provide an interesting rider experience. After a break for a pizza lunch, design and building continued until about 3:45. Our 38 volunteers put in a total of 266 hours and built over 1200' of trail. This was a fine accomplishment for TORC's first workday at Briar Chapel. We are planning frequent workdays there over the next year as we develop the first segment of the large MTB trail network already approved by the developer (the Newland Corp.). On Sunday several volunteers rode with the Trail Care Crew at Chapel Hill.

Pictures from the Open Eye warm-up, Briar Chapel work day and from the Sunday ride

Click on the thumbs to see the full size images

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