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Anyone done it? Waste of time? How hard is it to do?
Dunno.... Idle thoughts of a lunchtime led me to wondering whether i could make a small pump track in my garden. My kids are properly getting into MTB now (aged 5 and 7) and they could get plenty of benefit from it (as could i).
Probably waaaay too much effort for the return but the garden is large, i hate cutting the grass anyway and the plan is that we don't leave this house until we are in boxes....
Thoughts?
Get this guy in with a mini digger.
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Could end up being a bit bigger than you first imagined though...
https://dirtmountainbike.com/features/athertons-well-dans-really-backyard-track.html
If there's enough space and you hate gardening then do it! 😀
My first thought was to just buy one - then I realised it's not a track pump you're on about...
This would be a good place to start: http://www.leelikesbikes.com/ebook-welcome-to-pump-track-nation
been having this debate with the missus. We've got a big back garden - about 1/3 acre. We're due to renovate and extend the house, so the garden needs to match, but as we'll be selling, probably a couple of years after, we need to think about re-sale - will it put people off??.
I did have the go for it originally, with the idea of having it run right round the outside, as top of garden has a big climbing frame and sunken trampoline. I'd still loike to do it, but it's a lot of bloody work, especially as i found out after digging out the trampoline hole (14ftx3ft deep).
Get the pro-s in!
Have you got substantial trail building experience? it's a LOT of work.
We're in the process of flattening our back garden and starting again pretty much from scratch so I've built a few little berms and jumps in the middle of the lawn in the meantime 😀
Took very little effort and hardly any space. Remember pump track 'jumps' only need to be barely 6" high or so if you want - very little material to move.
Get her done. It's great. Mine is small but fun enough!
Not a huge amount of work. Probably 3/4 months of riding and digging. The fun bit is changing it up.
It's not pro size but I'm not pro and it's in my garden so I'm happy.
You can buy a pump track. [url= http://www.biketrackpeople.com ]pumptracks[/url]
Only £8500 too (and guessing that one is pretty small)
I want one but my garden is a bit narrow for it i reckon. Has anyone got any basic plans with outer dimensions for reference?
I tried selling the idea to my wife when we first moved into our current place... she bit initially, then came the inquisition after which I gave up.
So I just built a whole bunch of ladders and skinnies and that wore off pretty quickly with the kids and myself and ended up giving that to a friend.
Still harbor thoughts of building some sort of mini jump zone / pump track but in reality I know it will never happen.
If you have the space, inclination, time, energy and a mutual agreement then I guess why not. Resell not being an issue. Loads of ideas on the net.
Cool, we have a joinery company so there's a project fro the next bit of down time.
I think it will take more space than you might think.
Unless your garden is really huge you'll end up compromising so much it might defeat the purpose after you have spent a lot of effort ...
Our garden isn't THAT big but I was putting a single moderate sized jump in and it ended up needing more space than we had. In the end I made a plywood portable jump we can carry ...
[url= http://www.leelikesbikes.com/ebook-welcome-to-pump-track-nation ]http://www.leelikesbikes.com/ebook-welcome-to-pump-track-nation[/url] as above is a great book! Got it! 😀 Never built one... 😥
Edit - from MBA
[url= http://mbaction.com/home-page/how-to-build-a-mountain-bike-pump-track-story-video ]http://mbaction.com/home-page/how-to-build-a-mountain-bike-pump-track-story-video[/url]
[url= http://mbaction.com/home-page/a-pump-track-for-christmas-the-gift-that-keeps-on-pumping ]http://mbaction.com/home-page/a-pump-track-for-christmas-the-gift-that-keeps-on-pumping[/url]
I think the basic oval pumptrack is about 6m x 12m. You can get 4 riders on it once fairly comfortably, it may even be possible to get up to 14 on it at once but I wouldn't know, we never tried to do that. They're great fun, we do timed laps or pursuit races on it once folks have got the hang of it. That price is just a guide really as the majority of tracks are custom built to the individuals requirements and we are always looking at refinements and different designs.
The problem is not space but scale. Each roller doesn't need to be 6ft or anything like that. I could no way fit a single double on my garden as the run in would be too long. I can however double the rollers on the back straight on my track on a good day. It's a small jump. Rollers are max 1.5ft maybe a bit less. It's tight. Like really tight. Took me bloody ages to get around the first 180corner with any confidence. I can't ride it on a regular ht. Oh and you can't wall ride your neighbours chicken wire fence. Well you can but it does end well... B-)
It's amazing how much speed you can generate and how sodding dizzy you can get. Putting in a crossover to change direction was a great evening.
Ignore any advice. Build something. If it doesn't work you change it. You will want to change it after a while anyway as you get bored and alot better. What starts out as hard to ride becomes easy and fast and then you end up riding through fences...
Mine looks noting like most pictures posted of pump tracks. no aggregate has been used. No machines. I just dug a few holes liked with a few berms and hey presto. It's not complete and never will be. The fun is seeing a line and then trying it and amending stuff to make it work.
[img] https://flic.kr/s/aHskSyfHk2 [/img]
This is the garden in question - bit of a mess as I've been away with work and kids have been running riot! Mrs Chief not impressed at the idea of losing grass so compromise would be to go around the poly tunnel.
Loads of good ideas here. Didn't realise how many people have done it already.
[img][url= https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2844/33906966215_5e2814ace2_h.jp g" target="_blank">https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2844/33906966215_5e2814ace2_h.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/TEf4KM ]2017-04-08_09-22-50[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/149453183@N07/ ]graeme.lees[/url], on Flickr[/img]
This time with a link that works!
These a guy on youtube that does awesome videos of his pumptrack builds. Well worth a watch. Im toying with my design at the moment, but I have a bit more space so it keeps getting larger and larger.... gonna need a bigger digger!
Look at the B1KE website. They've built in someone's garden.