Not sure if it was the cooler and less humid, breezy conditions that brought out all the volunteers but a fantastic turnout of 15 of your riding buddies heeded the calls & came to dig a bench on Douglas’ newest black diamond trail. In stark acts of selflessness, even beginner riders, who confessed they’d be short on skills at the moment to ride this trail, turned up to learn trail building skills and help out fellow club members build the challenging stretch. If only we served drinks at the start, instead, so I could have used the empties to bottle some of that wonderful community spirit. Whatever were the forces driving people to help today it was a great way for riders among us to put back in and give something back to our network of trails.

Another turn up for today was seeing the bike shops being represented. Matt Jurss, proprietor of Crank’D Cycles opened shop a bit later today as he was on the picks and rock work with the crew. This author for one is looking forward to seeing his Transition Covert eat up this black diamond trail soon.

Rock step down to gap landing	Boulder weave to rock step down
Steep roll down to waterfall	This morning's crew (most)

 Cheers to the crew from this morning (apologies if I missed your name, a few people turned up at different times – email me if I left you off):

Darren Eckford

Lee Williams

Lilly Williams & Bull the dog

Greg Longson

Ian Conrad

Steve Dent

Jason Melrose

Shane Bennett

Garry Hutcheson

Ross Walker

Paul Edwards

Drew D’Arcy

Pat Sutton

Stephen Gilboy

Gary O'neill

Matt Jurss

And just in case you’re wondering who did the earlier work on the waterfall and design (Dags, tweet me if I left someone off):

Darren Eckford

Trevor Clarke

Peter MacLean

Lee Williams

Damon Christian

Adam Leonardi

Rod

Evan the Herberton test bunny

Jonathon Maccarone

Vince Scott

Drew D’Arcy

Like any work of art there will always be some sort of tweaking to get it just right. But as it is, the trail is ready to ride - remember, black diamond implies very difficult to ride. Anyway, this author knows which trails he’ll being riding at 4pm this arv. We’ll all be sure to watch out for Dags lying down on the track, whispering to it and smoothing and stroking those final touches ;-)

Watch out for news of our next project from the Trail Building Committee which may or may not be putting up fences and gates – BORING! Ok, watch out for news of our next project which may or may not be erecting a pearly gateway entrance to the hottest scene in town – ladies night Wednesdays!!! Stay tuned…

More pics from Pat: