This past weekend saw the inaugural Mountain Bike Ontario: Trailblazing Festival roll out with great success. While IMBA Canada was involved with various facets of the Festival, Trail Solutions played a role in the development of the Festival’s pumptrack.
Rewind to days when walking outside made you shiver instead of melt. Igor Hoogendoorn, a member of the Festival Planning committee, got in touch with IMBA Canada to see whether Daniel Scott was available to participate in a pumptrack project. We here at IMBA Canada have a hard time saying no to Igor, and sure enough, Daniel agreed to jump on board.
Fast forward to one and a half weeks before the Festival and construction had yet to commence. The issue? The initial soil that was requested for the project did not have sufficient documentation to meet Kelso’s strict ecological restrictions and Igor was sent scrambling to find a substitute source. As fortune would have it, a stockpile was found
on site and the project commenced in earnest.
Under incredible heat on an exposed site, the crew busted their butts to create a pumptrack with limited resources and a dramatically shortened construction timeline. Despite these and other challenges, they managed to create a fun pumptrack which demonstrates the fundamentals of what pumptracks are all about and something that was enjoyed by those who went to check it out during the Festival.
Here is what Daniel had to say on the project.
“I feel that the crew should be proud of what they accomplished. Igor, Jon, Sean, Bobbi-Jo and the Trail Care Crew stepped up to tackle all of the challenges that faced us throughout this build, with creativity and smiles. Working alongside them during those insanely sunny days leading up to the Festival was made easy by the hilarity and dedication that everyone demonstrated. I’d gladly work with these folks again, kudos!”