Louisville, KY: Fixing the Fall Line

KyMBA and the Subaru/IMBA Trail Care Crew sprint through the home stretch

Beautiful, clear weather made for perfect working conditions, as KyMBA members and local land managers prepare to make Waverly Park a better place to ride, hike, and run.
Placing vertical deadfall in the old trail corridor is an effective way to hide the old trail. Trail users often look for the open visual corridor to lead them to the trail, but they won't be able to see this path once it has been fully reclaimed.
Using a short-handled shovel is an excellent way to broadcast excavated soil down the hillside, as demonstrated by KyMBA member Mike Dulin.
The trail begins to take shape, as volunteers work on softening the backslope. Because of the steep sideslope (50%) and flowing nature of the trail, it was important to allow riders to use the entire 24² of the trail without fear of clipping a pedal on the backslope.
Catch of the Day. Gene McDaniel of KyMBA stands by one of the two ATVs that were caught poaching the trail the day of the work party by the park's land managers doing trailwork with the volunteers.
As the sun sets, KyMBA members hike out towards the trailhead, satisfied that they completed a beautiful new singletrack that will add 700 feet to their trail system.
Enjoying the new trail on a brisk morning ride. A softened backslope, grade reversals, and replaced leaf litter all combine to create a fun, sustainable trail.

With a busy trail maintenance schedule throughout the Spring, members of the Kentucky Mountain Bicycle Association (KyMBA) wanted to make sure they finished what they started during the Crew's visit to Louisville, KY on February 24 - 27. With several parks within the metro Louisville area open for mountain biking, KyMBA chose Waverly Park, in the southern part of the city, as the location for their work party.

Waverly Park is a small, wooded area, surrounded by rapidly-growing subdivisions. In the past, the park was part of a large swath of public and private open space. The area was heavily used by motorized recreationalists who created a spiderweb of fall-line trails, with multiple at-grade stream crossings. When the park formally came into existence, and mountain bicyclists were given access, local club members and park staff realized that significant rerouting would be necessary to make the system sustainable. KyMBA members have put considerable effort into the trails at Waverly Park, building bridges to cross streams, building water-diversion structures, and recently completing a half-mile contour trail to bypass a nasty fall-line descent.

After an IMBA trailbuilding school on Saturday morning, the Crew, KyMBA members, and local land managers attacked a long section of new contour trail. As the afternoon waned, the volunteers could see that the trail was nearly done, and, like winning thoroughbreds in the home stretch, worked harder than ever to finish up the 700 feet of new trail.

The new trail section flowed nicely across the hillside, with enough wiggle to keep your attention, and a small bermed turn at the end to match back into the existing singletrack. The large reroute recently completed by KyMBA was also a lot of fun, proving once again that swooping, contour trail gets more "Yippies!" per mile than going straight up and down the hillside.