What a night last night. Instead of our normal Tuesday ride frivolities, a small group of 10 of us rode to Hall Ranch's Nelson Loop to performa little trail maintenance. The Redstone crew left the shop early to meet the Hall Ranch resident caretaker and Park Ranger, Denny M. Under his guidance, we cleaned out a couple of water bars and did some trail rerouting to help with the on trail flow. It was good.

Here's Lee cleaning out a water drain.


We spent most of our time working on this corner. It had a water bar at it's entrance and an abrupt apex that pitched you off line and into a rock on the outset of the corner. We reworked the corner's apex so that you can ride it faster and more safely.

Then we hopped on our bikes to get to another problem spot at the loop.

Here, the "old" line was inside to the left. This particular corner had been victim to trail creep over the years. You can see that the line migrated to the right and really widened the trail. We moved a huge boulder into position to close off the original inside line. We then "closed" the original line with sticks, tree limbs, and rocks. It'll take a long time to reveg with all that rock, but it's worth a shot.
Up next was the best part. Since we worked until dark (and signed waivers), Denny said we were good to go as far as riding out in the dark. We strapped our helmets and lights on and were off. It's not often (ie never) that you get the county's and law enforcement's blessing to ride Hall Ranch at night (it officially closes at dusk). We made sure to get our dollars worth so we rode 2 laps at the top and came down the rock garden to Hwy 7. As much as we ride that trail in the day, it sure is different in the dark. Here's a glimpse of the action.

Thanks a TON to all of you guys that came out to help work. We got some great work done, showed the county that the Redstone crew is a good partner, and had a good time riding. Doesn't get much better than that.