Lebanon Hills

Published August 13, 2013 by Griff Wigley

A technical scheme: Mark up sections (alternative lines) through rock gardens

I have a scheme in mind: temporarily mark alternative lines through some selected rock gardens to provide fresh challenges to riders who are bored with riding through them the same way all the time. I’m calling them ‘sections’ since that’s the term most often used in mototrials events.

I’ve marked these photos with a red line to indicate an example of a short alternative line (viewed from the start and looking backwards from the finish) through a rock garden at Lebanon Hills.

I started thinking about this when I went rocking climbing a couple weeks ago at Vertical Endeavors with one of my sons. He told me that they change some of the color-coded climbs each month in order to keep things interesting for the advanced regulars.

How to mark the lines? Ideas thus far:

flags
chalk
colored stones/pebbles
tape
washable paint/spray chalk

My inclination is to experiment first using small colored flags to mark the start and finish of a section and railroad chalk to mark the approximate line through the rocks. I want to avoid doing anything that would bother land managers, make things more difficult for dirt bosses/trail workers, or make riding needlessly more dangerous (e.g. stakes or other markers that could impale a tire or body part).

The sections would be publicized with photos and/or video in the MORC forum as well as via Twitter and Facebook. Riders would be invited to discuss the sections, brag about their successes, whine about their failures, share photos and videos, etc. And then a month or two later, the sections would be changed to something else. Others could volunteer to set them up. If this works with rock gardens, then it might be worth trying with other technical obstacles.

To explain a section to riders who discover it while out riding the trail, we could print a photo or two showing the alternative line, laminate them and tack them up on a stake or nearby tree with a little sign that says “Try this!” We could also put up a QR code near the entrance of a section and link it to a web page with photos and videos. Riders with smartphones could then see what it’s all about.

I ran this idea past some of the Lebanon Hills Dirt Bosses last week and they seemed to like it. So I plan to start the experiment there.

What might the pros and cons of this idea be, especially the possible unintended consequences? Want to help? Attach a comment.

Trail work

alternative lines Lebanon Hills rock gardens sections

Published July 11, 2013 by Griff Wigley

Video update: do the big rocks at Lebanon Hills require a full bunny hop?

Last week I blogged about how to get up and over the bridge rock at Lebanon Hills. In a comment thread on Facebook about the video, Dan Haglund noted that my chain ring bashguard made contact with the rock. I wrote:

I think this was because I placed the front wheel a little too high on the rock, almost clearing the front edge. I think it’s best if it bounces off the rock a bit about 3/4 of the way up because when the compressed forks rebound, the steeper angle of the bike gives you more clearance for the bottom bracket.

I poked around and found this old video called Going Up Obstacles (Getting up objects) featuring Hans Rey and pals in which they show how to avoid having the chain ring bash the rock. It’s a trials video but it has application here. I can see that I need to learn how to use my leg/foot to lift the rear wheel with that scooping motion. At the 2:20 mark:

Before your chain ring or your back wheel hits the object, you have to throw your weight forward a certain way over the handle bar and at the same time you lift with your feet pushing down, back and up and unweight the back wheel enough to lift it behind you and onto the object. An advanced technique you can learn to hop up high objects is to ram the front wheel into the top of the object. The wheel bounces upward, giving you added lift.

MORC member Clay Haglund reported on his attempt and Dave Tait’s method:

I manualed into it and as soon as my front tire hit the top of the rock, my bash ring "BASHED" hard into the face of the rock. Dave Tait showed me how the pro’s do it. He pedaled in with some good speed and within the last six inches of the wood bridge, he pulled off a bunny hop that cleared that two and a half foot gap and had his BACK tire landing on top of the rock…. AMAZING! His bike has got to be pushing 40# too as it’s heavier than mine which is 35#.

After holding my bike in position on that rock, I definitely think the 29" wheels are a big help with conquering this without a clean bunnyhop. With my front tire on top of the rock, my back tire was right at the base and bash guard was in contact with the face. I think I’d have better luck coming up slow and trying to trials hop it.

I told Clay that I thought the bashing could be avoided without having to do the full rear wheel leg/foot lift of a bunny hop, just unweighting so last night I went back to Lebanon Hills to see.

I started by attempting a more extreme angle to the Leb skills park rock that I’d mentioned in my earlier blog post as a good training rock. Ray Brown took the video:

I got over it clean but as you’ll hear in this video, not without bashing:

So I wasn’t confident that I could do it on the bridge rock without bashing. Here’s my attempt, first at normal speed, then a slo-mo version, then stop motion:

As you can see in the final frame, I was able to clear the rock without my bash ring making contact. Front wheel placement didn’t seem to be a big issue as I originally thought.

But you can also see that the rear wheel does make significant contact with the rock. I’m able to absorb it without too much bounce back but ideally, a well-executed bunny hop with full rear wheel leg/foot lift would be best. I need a lesson from Dave Tait.

07/13 update:

Last night I reread Chapter 6, Wheelie and Hop Over Anything in the book Mastering Mountain Bike Skills by Brian Lopes and Lee McCormack. Some quotes:

… push explosively into your pedals and propel your body forward. After you push, lighten your feet to allow the pedals to come up.

… At the moment your weight presses into rear wheel, press explosively down into the pedals and spring upward. If you get light on your pedals… the rear wheel will levitate.

… The harder you push your pedals down, the harder the earth returns the force, and the higher you go. It’s just like hopping on your feet.

He uses the label "lift your rear wheel" in several places but nowhere does he define this as a scooping motion where your foot/leg actually lifts the wheel like Hans Rey described in the video I cited.

Most of the how-to-bunny-hop videos that I’ve pinned to my Pinterest board on the subject recommend the scooping/lifting motion.

But look at the one titled Bunnyhop for Beginners which has no narrative, with text captions that appear to be in Japanese and/or Chinese. The slow motion sequences, especially the practice exercises starting at the 37-second mark (screen capture above), seem to show what Lee McCormack recommends: an explosive pushing down into the pedals and not a scooping/deliberate lifting up of the rear wheel. My inclination is to learn the pushing down technique first.

Learning to ride

bunny hop Clay Haglund Dave Tait Lebanon Hills manuals

Published June 29, 2013 by Griff Wigley

Video: how to get up and over the bridge rock at Lebanon Hills

I’ve been eyeing the big rock at the end of this bridge on the XX loop at Lebanon Hills every since I saw it for the first time back in the summer of 2011, shortly after I started mountain biking and took photos of all the technical features in the park at that time. I knew it would require speed to get over it but I didn’t have a grasp of the skill required.

When the Lebanon Hills skills park opened a year later (Aug. 2012), I got the hang of riding over the rock in the photo on the right using speed, a manual (non-pedaling wheelie), and a concluding modified bunny hop.

The approach to the rock is slightly downhill so it’s easy to get going fast and coast ever-so-briefly prior to starting the manual. The face of the rock has an angle to it that makes it less intimidating — you can’t just coast up it but it doesn’t require a perfectly accurate placement of the front wheel. As the rear wheel is about to hit the rock, you have to unweight (unload) with your legs so that it doesn’t bounce back. It’s a bunny hop motion but you don’t really have to use the rear foot ‘scoop’ motion to lift the rear wheel.

So Friday was the perfect time to try the bridge rock: I was riding with my eldest son Collin, visiting from New Jersey; and I had all my body armor on, including my full-face helmet. Everything was pretty much the same as riding the skills park rock, only 1) more speed (you can see me furiously pedaling the first half of the bridge); 2) starting the manual further from the rock; and 3) placement of the front wheel high on the rock, as the face of the rock isn’t angled.

I rode it a second time, to prove it to myself that it wasn’t a fluke. Piece o’ cake!

Here’s the 13-second video clip of my first attempt. Below that is an 8-second slo-mo from the same video, but just the over-the-rock sequence.

Learning to ride Photo album

bunny hop Collin Wigley Lebanon Hills manuals

Published May 8, 2013 by Griff Wigley

Lebanon Hills trail work night

I joined a crew of MORC / Lebanon Hills volunteers last night as we did some berm repairs, removed downed trees and branches from the trails, and improved a small jump line. The trails are still too wet to ride.

These screenshots are from short Vine videos that Dirt Boss John Lundell took that night. I’ve linked them to the originals.

Trail work

John Lundell Lebanon Hills MORC

Published October 7, 2012 by Griff Wigley

Photo album: Lebanon Hills West Trailhead grand opening

Despite the windy and cold conditions, a big crowd showed up for yesterday’s grand opening of Dakota County’s Lebanon Hills West Trailhead, featuring the new mountain bike skills park (see my Aug. 7 blog post of preview photos/video of the park’s technical features).

There were dignitaries on hand, including Dakota County Commissioners Willis Branning, Thomas Egan and Nancy Schouweiler. MORC‘s 2012 Land Manager of the Year award went to Dakota County Parks and board member Chris Anderson presented the commissioners with a cool plaque, prior to the official ribbon cutting. And board member Amanda Scholz presented Meghann Fedde with MORC’s 2012 Volunteer of the Year award.

Crews from the Blue Door Pub and Indeed Brewing kept the crowd well-nourished.

See the large slideshow of 60 photos (recommended) or SLOW CLICK this small slideshow:

Events Organizations Photo album

Amanda Scholz Blue Door Pub Chris Anderson Dakota County Indeed Brewing Lebanon Hills Meghann Fedde MORC Nancy Schouweiler Thomas Egan Willis Branning

Published October 6, 2012 by Griff Wigley

Lebanon Hills West Trailhead grand opening is Saturday

I blogged about this event back in late August but since the The Blue Door Pub‘s menu was published yesterday, I thought I’d post a reminder. From the Lebanon Hills Facebook page:

Join us at the West Trailhead Grand Opening event in Lebanon Hills Regional Park 12-4 PM on Saturday! Free event parking onsite and just south of the trailhead on Johnny Cake Ridge Road at the School of Environmental Studies.

Bring your mountain bike to talk gear with experts from Valley Bike and Ski, Penn Cycle, REI and MORC, or borrow one to demo from Trek or Giant Bicycles. Chat about snowshoes, cross-country skis, hiking and even barefoot hiking with Midwest Mountaineering and the Barefoot Hikers of Minnesota. There’s something for everyone!

Dakota County Parks will be passing out swag bag vouchers to the first 200 people in line for the event and can be redeemed between 12:15-4 pm. Doors open at Noon!

I was up there earlier this week and took some photos of the classy new trailhead facility with my crappy smartphone camera:

Events

Blue Door Pub Lebanon Hills

Published August 23, 2012 by Griff Wigley

Lebanon Hills skills park grand opening on Oct. 6 with food from BDP

Ben Datres posted this info in the MORC forum so I’d thought I’d leverage it here:

Mark the date! Dakota County Parks will be putting on a Grand Opening event for the New trailhead/shelter/skills park on October 6th from noon-4pm (note- the festivities will continue past 4 , Dakota just needed to put an end time)

Dakota county has been putting a lot of thought an work into this, looks like its going to be a great time!! The event includes:

Trek and Giant Mountain Bike Demos

Food

Tune-up Booths

Local Bike shop tents

Door Prizes and Swag bags

Group Rides

Rumor has it a local microbrewery will even there!

Among the logos at the bottom of the poster (PDF) is that of The Blue Door Pub. Two of my sons work there and have confirmed that BDP will be at the grand opening all day ‘doing the food.’ My advice: do NOT eat a Juicy Blucy before you ride.

See the Aug. 20 StarTribune article: Lebanon Hills biking trail reopens with improvements draw for off-road bikers

Lebanon Hills has long been known as a premier, if not the premier, off-road cycling destination in Minnesota. And it just got better.

On Aug. 10, Lebanon Hills opened a facility with restrooms, a picnic shelter with grills, and a heated changing area. They also opened a new skills area with turns, jumps, berms, rock gardens and bridges.

Events

Blue Door Pub Lebanon Hills

Published August 7, 2012 by Griff Wigley

Preview photos and video of the Lebanon Hills skills park, opening Friday, Aug. 10, 3 pm

The entire Lebanon Hills MTB Park will be closed most of the day on Friday August 10 until 3 PM as the Leb Dirt Bosses and Dakota County Parks staff prep for the opening of the new trailhead and skills/terrain park. The current parking lot will be closed and the new one (paved) opened for the first time. Access to all the trails at Leb will then be behind the new trailhead building.

South/adjacent to the trailhead building is the new skills/terrain park. I got a chance to pre-ride it a bit on Monday with the guy who constructed it, Tim Wegner, owner of Trail Source. (Last fall, I blogged about Tim and his contributions to mountain biking, as did Chance Glasford in his blog.) Dave Tait, one of the Leb Dirt Bosses, joined us for the photo/video shoot.

Above: Dave and Tim riding some of the separate beginner and intermediate level skinnies, rock sections, and logs.

All of the advanced rock sections have multiple lines. The series of photos above shows Tim (left) riding an intermediate line down the one side of the rock pile, Dave (center) riding an advanced line down the middle of the same pile, and me (right) riding up the pile.

Riding down these three rocks (above) is challenging because of the gaps between them. Weight back, wheelie, unweight, repeat. Dave made it look easy. Ride up the rocks for a bit less of a challenge.

The same rocks (above) can be criss-crossed in a variety of ways, intermediate-to-advanced. I predict they’ll be popular with intermediate level riders looking to advance their skills as the rocks 1) have round edges and 2) are surrounded by strategically-placed wood chips to soften the, um, unplanned landings.

This rock section (above) is considerably more difficult when ridden this direction because of the slight downward approach to the extremely narrow skinny of rocks in the middle. Dave was able to clean it a couple of times. The video (see below) of him riding it the other direction (easier) also shows the right-turn, then left-turn narrow wooden skinny approaching the rocks section.

Two other tough obstacles: 1) the skinny made of uneven upright logs (left photo above) has a couple of slight bends in it; and 2) the large round bolder in the middle of the field can be tackled from all directions, not all of them successfully (right photo) I discovered.

There are two connected bermed turns in the NW corner of the park. Beginners can take them slow but there’s room to get a good run at them if you want to go fast.

The south end of the park has three lines of rollers and jumps. Tim shows that you can have fun just riding down the them at various speeds; riders can pump and manual over them, too, of course. The back two runs end with two large berms.

Dave shows (photos above in the 50-second video below) that you have fun jumping there, too.

See a large slideshow of all the above photos.

Trails

Dave Tait Lebanon Hills skills park skinnies technical Tim Wegner

Published June 13, 2012 by Griff Wigley

Cuyuna boys stray; no longer Leb virgins

CLMTB Crew president Aaron Hautala and Cuyuna legend John Schaubach drove down to the Twin Cities from Crosby yesterday to attend last night’s MORC board meeting.

John and Aaron had never ridden anywhere besides the Cuyuna Lakes Mountain Bike Trails so they decided to check out Lebanon Hills before the meeting. I joined them, along with MORC VP Reed Smidt and fellow Northfielder Todd Orjala.

We spent 3.5 hours riding every trail at Leb. I was glad worried when they crashed a few times but I still think they enjoyed themselves and maybe even learned a thing or two.

I also walked them through the soon-to-be-opened skills park at Leb and then took them over to see the Lexington Pump and Jump park in Eagan, as they’re scheming to add similar features to Cuyuna.

Organizations People

Aaron Hautala John Schaubach Lebanon Hills Reed Smidt Todd Orjala

Published May 3, 2012 by Griff Wigley

Anatomy of a MORC MTB trail work crew: adding options to the XX rock gardens at Lebanon Hills

Last Tuesday I joined a MORC / Lebanon Hills trail crew working on the XX rock gardens and was amazed at what was accomplished in two hours.

I only took one photo that night (right), and that was just half of the 20+ people who showed up to work from 6-8 pm. So this week I went back for round 2 to chronicle the follow-up work with photos.

A MORC mountain bike trail work crew is typically organized by the Dirt Bosses for the trail. One of them announces the date and time in the MORC forum for that trail, inviting others to sign up. When I saw this April 23 invitation by John Lundell, one of the Lebanon Hills Dirt Bosses, I just had to go since I love Leb’s rock gardens:

We will continue our efforts in the XX rock gardens this week. Meet in the parking lot (assume trail will be open) – everyone is welcome! Post up if you can make it. Crew leaves the lot promptly at 6pm so if you are coming late let us know.

First lesson I learned: you don’t ride your bike to the work location on the trail. The Dirt Bosses bring all the tools for the job but you’re expected to help carry them. So everyone walks in. They recommend long pants, gloves, boots, and eye protection. Newbies are given a short safety chat on handling the sharp tools.

The task for the crew on this project was to add some difficulty and options to a couple of Leb’s double X rock garden areas. One of the hallmarks of good mountain bike park is that it’s constantly changing, drawing riders at all levels back for new challenges. Leb excels at this and last year’s addition of a huge advanced beginner’s loop is but one example.

Worker bees like me on last week’s crew spent much of our time digging out boulders from the wooded areas around the XX portion of the trail and rolling them downhill (bowling?) for the ‘architects’ to place. While the Bosses have a general idea of what they’re trying to accomplish, everyone’s input is considered because the terrain and available rocks require creativity. “We’re making this up as we go” is the modus operandi.

The photo on the left shows what was accomplished after this week’s session with one section of the trail. The green arrow indicates where the only option was originally. The red arrows indicate four new options, with varying levels of difficulty.

In the center photo, the green arrow shows the original more difficult line down the rock. The red arrows show two new challenging lines down the rock steps. Previously, that line was quite easy.

For a closer look at the process, see the large slideshow of 40+ photos (recommended) or SLOW CLICK this small slideshow:

Photo album Trail work

dirt bosses Lebanon Hills MORC

Published April 6, 2012 by Griff Wigley

Lebanon Hills is not the Continental Divide. However…

Last August, I blogged about former Northfielder Ben Oney riding the world’s toughest mountain bike race, the Tour Divide.

Yesterday, we met up at Lebanon Hills and, unlike the Tour Divide, took our sweet time getting around it.

It was hardly a tune-up for Ben, as he has an ambitious ride schedule this year. See his Boney Bikes blog and this post, Events I’m Looking Forward to in 2012. Sheesh.

You can also follow Ben on Twitter.

People Trails

Ben Oney Lebanon Hills Tour Divide

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