The newest section of six eggs descends into a small valley, starting with a very steep bank to accelerate down. Unfortunately there's a narrow exit from this and it requires a little bit of bike positioning to get through here at speed.
The tree to the left of the trail blocks most of the view into the valley until the last minute, which isn't great as someone riding might flatten a walker, if the timing was unfortunate.
To solve this problem, initially we trimmed the low branches and visibility was a bit better. When trimming, we noticed that this tree had no bark on the tops of branches near the fork, so we assume something had rested on it for some time. That's probably why the first branches fell on the trail. The damage was spread along the three main limbs.
Although the trunk was quite sound, the tree didn't look healthy overall with the bark missing and very dry wood exposed at the main fork of the branches.
With slightly better visibility, the average speed we ride this section increased, back to the point where it's now dangerous again in case there's a walker approaching.
The 'bike wiggle' required to get past this tree is minor, but it sends you a tiny amount to the right before needing to go more to the left. To straighten this out we discussed removing the whole tree.
We didn't want to make a large change like this, as the trail is passable, people now walk it regularly etc and it would be an obvious change.
Some time passed and we mentioned removing the tree again sometimes. Not squishing random walkers seemed like a better idea than keeping a damaged tree obscuring a fast bit of trail...
We made a plan to fell the tree and remove the stump. Leaving the stump wasn't an option as the adjusted line would need to be dug through any remaining stump/roots.
Felling the tree was simple enough... It was a tiny bit limb-tied with two other trees, so I made sure I left plenty of hinge wood and felled it slowly allowing the branches to untangle quite gently.
I trimmed off all the small branches and then cut the trunk and branches into sensible sized pieces.
We left around 1m of the trunk standing, so we have a good lever for pulling up the stump.
We used our trusty chain hauler for the first time in a while and quickly found we couldn't add any more tension once the straps and chains were tight.
Walking away and clearing up other things for a few minutes at a time allowed the tension to work pulling the roots loose. Going back to the hauler, we could hear the tension reduced while we left it, the note of the straps etc was getting gradually lower...
Pulling in more chain a few clicks at a time we eventually raised the root ball, just as though the wind pushed it over.
Getting as much earth knocked off the roots as possible mostly filled in the hole. We have to go back to tidy away the tree stump, but now the line is right and we won't flatten a walker because we can now see further ahead. :-D
The location seems to lend itself to a long, low jump, probably a small step-up, because of the steep bank followed by slight rise, which then falls away gently into the rest of the valley.
This jump is coming soon...
