Downhill workin’
Work started on the downhill ealy April. The Nevis winter skiing & boarding season still underway and snow still on the ground, practically to the car park which sits at only 100m above sea level. Certain areas of the track were heavily damaged by the rain, and washed away by the melting snow. “Probably more damage that we’ve seen for a couple of years - lots of snow and the track is getting older” according to Donald, the longest serving member of the Nevis bike track crew. This year, there’s 4 … Donald (burger n chips), Liam (will work better if fed regularly), Elliot (happiest when behind a machine), and Duncan (the new boy). They’ve been busy ‘fixin stuff … man’ since April.
Work first starts on the foundations, re-shaping the ground, ensuring that the drainage ‘works’ and that the base of the track is solid - and if its not, it gets filled up with rocks of varying random sizes. Next job is to transport the infill material onto the track. By hand, it would take forever. Using the gondola would mean loads dropped some distance away from the track. So a helicpopter gets called in. Even then, it still takes a millitary precisioned operation to schedule the 4 minutes lifts and drops of the fifty 700 kilo bags to ensure the right construction materials arrives on the right place on the track! The team then work, by hand, to spread the material out into the right area, and into the desired shape.
They’ve also been working to change some of the lines thru the rock gardens, as well as re-profiling the take offs and landings on most of the jumps.
The downhill track opens for the 09 season on Saturday 9 May. It’s lookin pretty good.
NEVIS BIKE TRACK TEAM