Bridge Wood Sealing

Special Wednesday night session. Guess where?

If everybody does a section we'll be out of here in less than an hour...



Yep, you three do those...



You guys go those, good...



Sharing is good, yes...



...and done. Thanks everybody!

Between Minneapolis, Des Moines, Omaha & Rapid City

Update: well ok, Mankato not Minneapolis and Sioux City not Omaha.

Introducing the longest publicly accessable contiguous singletrack in a 250 mile radius...



...and these are some of the people that made it.



Please note, the trail is not complete. It simply dead-ends. Also, the twists and turns need some adjustments based on ridability. There is no reason to bring your bikes here to try it...yet.

The other thing that happened today is bridge #1 was completed. Most of the work here occurred Saturday. Our task today was to reinforce everything by placing two more screws where there was already one screw.

Here's the bridge team.



Getting some leverage.



It is finished.



All the activity in the park is starting to attract the kids in the neighborhood. As we worked on this bridge today there were up to nine kids playing in the area.

But really as cool at that bridge is, the singletrack is the reason we're all here. So here are some photos of the builders. I'll let them speak for themselves.










Yes, it's a little bit like Christmas.

Building Bridges

Honestly - that this thing made it this far into the woods before it fell apart is remarkable. This is some pretty rough terrain.



Saturday's highest priority was to make as much progress on the bridges as possible. We made our way to the site of bridge #1. Since every steel piece involved with the bridges is 300lbs, it's nice that all the hardware had already been placed in close proximity to it's final resting place.

Nine of us manhandled the two trusses into place across the creek and found the footings to be within inches of where they needed to be. With them in place it was up to the 7ft tall grizzly people to put the cross bracing in place.



After a little bit of wrangling it was declared good...



...and we were off to site #2.

In meetings with the neighborhood they voiced their concern that sometimes things happen in the park that are not necessarily in the true spirit of neighborliness. Those words proved prescient as we found this set of bridge footings in the creek.



Push back on projects like these is not uncommon. In fact, the FAST big picture requires some of this in order to become what we want to be. Right now it's more of an annoyance than anything. We're working with the land manager (the city) to address the issue.

We made quick work resetting the footings, manhandling the trusses in place, and finally attaching the cross bracing.



This one was declared good by Adam/Ant.



Next step, water seal wood planks and screw them into place on top of the trusses.

FAST work sessions remain Saturday 9 to 12, Saturday 2 to 5, Sunday 1 to 4. All are welcome.