Eleven people found time between thunderstorms to help with the first of many bridges at Sunny Hollow in Colchester. The group carried multiple loads of lumber down to the stream crossing site. We assembled a long and winding bridge over the stream, surrounding floodplains, and approaching slopes. The bridge and trail represent a new level of FOTW trail building. Please save the morning of Saturday 8/16 to help on our next trail day at Sunny Hollow.

Sheep Thrills was the first mountain bike specific trail built in the Hinesburg Town Forest. It was constructed around 1998 by Olaf Verdonk and Brooke Scatchard and used for CVU bike club races. The recent logging has provided the opportunity to re-route a few sections of the trail, making it slightly more fun and sustainable.

Last Sunday, a group of 7 volunteers focused on building a few nice turns to replace one straight fall line section of trail at the top of Sheep Thrills. We also incorporated a couple optional jumps into the trail and plan to add more freeride reatures in the near future. The trail is the most consistent downhill in the area fun for riders looking to let off the brakes and catch some air.

Sunday's trail day found 25 volunteers working their hearts out in the pouring rain. It seemed a bit ridiculous to be outside in such conditions, but proved to be a sublime and satisfying experience. The warm rains kept the insects at bay and gave immediate relief to the efforts of all. This dedicated group of workers got a lot done and moved us yet closer to our goal of creating a long and spectacular trail on the Carse property.

Heartfelt thanks to all who showed up and helped.

Our first Trail Day at Sunny Hollow in Colchester was very successful. Eleven of the hardest working Fellowship volunteers carved some beautiful benched trail across a sandy slope. The new trail will be a very sustainable and fun alternative to a muddy and eroding section of trail leading down to a stream.

The Fellowship of the Wheel and the Town of Colchester are collaborating on trail improvements and a maintenance plan for Sunny Hollow Park. The 88 acre park is adjacent to the popular Camp Johnson trails and includes many of the most heavily used trails of this network. This is a great opportunity for us to show the benefit of our organization and advocate for continued access to other trails in the area.

The work will include some trail additions, route improvements, multiple new bridges, and some minor trail closures. Please respect all trail closures and re-routes. The final result of our efforts will be a fun, well marked, and sustainably built trail network designed to withstand bike traffic even when other trails are too wet to ride.

If you are interested in helping at other times, you can email bikesunnyhollow@gmail.com and be added to a list for announcements. There will be additional weekday evening trail work sessions in the next few weeks.

We're replacing this:



With this:

The few dedicated trail builders that helped to clear logging debris from Sheep Thrills over the weekend opened much of the existing trail and added some great new sections. The trail is now rideable and will continue to receive improvements. Sheep Thrills is the fastest and most consistently downhill trail in the forest and will soon incorporate many flowing jumps and berms.

We had a lighter than average turnout of about 15 people for the Trail Day on Saturday. It was great riding weather however and plenty of people thanked our volunteers on their way around the trails.

We split the group into three task forces and got a large amount of work done with the skeleton crews.

Tom and Cyn Dillon led a group that cleared a re-route of the new trail around the edge of Saxon Hill. This trail is now cleared all the way though, but will need just a little more fine tuning to be fully sustainable.

Howie Kargman and Brooke led the repairs of Flo and used crushed stone to create solid groud over the mud. The persistently wet soil of these areas have resisted previous repairs and need some time to recover after it rains. As with all of our trails, please don't ride immediately after heavy rain.

Hans worked on yet another new section of trail with a few people. They made it about 1/3rd of the way around a new loop dubbed "The Paper Route." It will be a great trail for beginner riders looking to extend their ride and enjoy a nice view of the Adirondacks.

Brooke and Mickey led the restoration of a section of washed out trail at Indian Brook Resevoir in Essex. The project entailed one day of creating "rolling grade dips" with a tractor to divert water off of a very straight section of trail. They also directed a small group of volunteers from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters to complete the project. The trail will be a part of the course for the upcoming Race at the Rez.

Fifteen eager trail workers braved the sweltering heat for the first mid-week trail day at Saxon Hill. The group worked quickly and blazed through the construction of a nice little extension loop to the MoFlo trail. Much of the area is blanketed by soft moss and made for rather easy "Rake and Ride" trail building. We cleared the brush from the route and sent a couple test riders around the trail to determine the exact line. A narrow strip was then raked clean to place a true singletrack through the woods. Much care was taken to preserve the dozens of pink Lady's Slippers that graced the landscape.

The Second Annual Fellowship of the Wheel Memorial Day Trail Construction Project was successful again.

This Memorial Day, more than 40 volunteers from our great organization (some repeat offenders and some new faces) met at the Carse property on Lincoln Hill Road in Hinesburg to further blaze and improve one of our most epic mountain bike trails to date. The trail will be the main access to a large network of over 12 miles of world class singletrack.

The 2 mile section of trail being constructed will wind up to one of the nicest lookouts in the county and eventually join another long trail connecting to the Pinner trail above Hinesburg Hollow Rd. There are still a few more challenging switchbacks to build to make this ambitious section of trail rideable. A map of the existing and proposed trails on the property will soon be available and we'll keep you posted on our progress.

We are very fortunate and grateful that the Carse family has allowed us to create our signature trails on about 1000 acres of their land. They feel that our respect for the environment, sustainable trail construction, stewardship, and advocacy for healthy outdoor recreation will improve the value of their property.

Hans Jenny, President of the FOTW Board, was there early with bagels from Koval’s to greet and get everyone excited about the day’s events. Brooke Scatchard and Mickey Stone, our two paid Trail Coordinators, spent a couple days preparing for the trail construction, brought newly sharpened grub hoes, other tools, and materials to build a bridge.

A special thanks to all the hard working volunteers and to our crew leaders who assisted us in managing the motivated work force:

*Jason Reed managed the Bridge building project and put together a grand entrance to the trail network. They set a very sturdy foundation for the bridge to sit on and added their carpentry skills to install a 15 ft long, 32” wide bridge over a large seasonal runoff stream. Jason and Chris Hill will put the finishing touches on the bridge this week and be done by 6/1.

*Patrick Kell, our VMBA Executive Director, lead a group of new folks and tackled one of the largest rolling grade switchbacks on the trail. It is great to have Patrick make time to help us in his busy schedule. After he was done with our work, he headed to Waitsfield to design a large bridge project that his VYCC crew will be building on the Cyclone trail.

*George and Sam Darling and others took charge of the stonework, armoring sections and doing bench work. It was great to have their talents with us.

*Mickey led a group that worked on benching and built two large rolling grade switchbacks.

*Brooke worked with a very strong crew that cranked out 4 perfectly bermed switchbacks and dialed in a tricky benched section leading into a jump and berm.

*Chris Hill, his wife Kathy, and others blazed ahead and further lengthened the trail leading up to the ridge.

We are striving to become further organized, communicative, and educational at our trail days. Each one seems to go better and better. It helps us immensely having these crew leaders who are educated in trail building to help us spread the word on proper construction. If you have been to a few trail days and honed these skills, please contact us if you would like to lead a group in the future.

There was a tremendous amount of work accomplished for one morning and we hope that it was fun and rewarding for you all. We find the best part of Fellowship trail days (other than the swatting flies and swinging tools) are the new people you meet and get to know while building trails. The beautiful thing about FOTW is that we bring together a wide range of riders including: recreational riders, racers, teenagers, families, and younger children all working for a common goal of trail riding enjoyment.

What a better way to celebrate Memorial Day than to build something we all can enjoy and reflect on those who have allowed us to live here.

Enjoy the pics from Brooke, Mickey and Hans; we look forward to the next trail day with you.

The newly formed Fellowship Freeride Crew completed the second log ride at the Wheel of Fellowship in the Hinesburg Town Forest. Five skilled builders put together this smooth rolling feature. We're branching out and will be building a full progression of "Technical Trail Features" in this area throughout the season. Next time you swing through the Wheel take a few minutes to check them out.

Trail Coordinators Mickey and Brooke have spent the last two weeks doing significant maintenance to a number of trails in the Hinesburg Town Forest. We’ve worked meticulously to clean up and improve Passing the Horizon, Homestead, Enchanted Forest, and Boneyard.

The FOTW trails have become very popular and the increased traffic is bringing our attention to the troublesome areas. There are a number of common issues we’ve noticed while walking and riding the trails. We have both learned a number of useful techniques to fix these areas through IMBA trail schools. Their practices have proven to be very useful, but can be quite labor intensive. We adapt the IMBA techniques to fit our trails at a scale that improves the sustainability, flow, and character of each section.

Our overall goal for any new trail or improvement is to incorporate good flow while keeping it fun and challenging for a variety of skill levels. We have been using the following techniques to accomplish these goals:

-Create “Rolling Grade Dips” to clear water from low, muddy areas.
-Bench sections of trail on side slopes to avoid trail degradation and erosion.
-Build bermed turns on steeper downhill corners to reduce erosion
-Build “Rolling Crown Switchbacks” where necessary to enable sustainable trails on steeper slopes.
-Re-route portions of trails that cross consistently wet areas.
-Re-route portions of trails that follow the fall line to avoid erosion.
-Remove small saplings lining the trail to reduce sudden braking, improve sight lines, and allow more smoothly arcing turns.
-Build natural rollers (aka “Grade Reversals”) to improve the flow of the trail.
-Incorporate challenging natural features to give the trail character.

The ever popular Waterbury and Stowe trails combine all of these principles (plus a bit of magic) to create trails that are exciting for many types of riders. As paid trail coordinators, we can now devote the time and effort necessary to bring our trails to a similar level. We hope that you notice and appreciate the work that we’re doing to reach these goals. Please enjoy the trails and let us know what you think.

-Brooke and Mickey

Below are some pictures of Rolling Crown Switchbacks being constructed on the new Carse property trail.

A trail clearing crew of twelve came out on Mother's Day to chip away at an ambitious trail project on the Carse property in Huntington. A few people worked with Mickey on benching some of the numerous side hill sections. Brooke led the rest of the group up the ridge to clear out the upper portion of the new trail.

Both groups worked efficiently and got a fair bit of work done in a few hours. The trail is now cleared and raked up to the top of the saddle, but not yet rideable. The ridge that the trail winds up is quite steep and provided no easy lines. The upper portion of the trail follows the most level groud available, but will require significant bench cutting and switchback construction to be sustainable. This stretch of trail will be fun, yet challenging to ride in both directions.

The upcoming Memorial Day trail day, Monday the 26th, will focus on sculpting a ribbon of trail through the tricky sections of terrain. We will need as many volunteers as possible to create smooth rolling switchbacks and benched sections. Please come out and lend a hand on this exciting new project.

Our first trail day of the season was a big success. Nearly 40 motivated trail workers split into 3 groups and tackled a wide variety of projects at Saxon Hill. The largest project was constructing the first mile of new trail connecting the Flo trail with the network of trails on the far side of Saxon Hill. The trail is more than two thirds complete and will provide a great trail for intermediate and advanced level riders.

Two smaller trail crews focused on fine tuning a number of sections of the Flo trail. One group laid down a new stretch of singletrack which will allow riders to completely avoid the climb up the washed out road in the middle of the loop. The other group added stabilizing gravel to a few muddy areas. Both groups re-routed and improved a number of tight corners to give the Flo even more flow. Please head out and experience these improvements for yourself as the rest of our trails dry out from the recent spring rain. Don’t forget to join us for our next trail day this Sunday, May 11th and help build the new trail on the Carse property.

The turnout at our first annual Barn Dance Fundraiser was phenomenal! We had over 200 people in attendance and raised 2/3 of the monies needed to fund our two trail coordinators for the summer. The generosity of our sponsors and everyone that came out was incredible. It also seemed that the timing couldn't have been better, as everyone was super enthusiastic about biking, the trails, and looking forward to a great season. Thanks to all of you for this incredible show of support, and for providing the encouragement to press on and make FOTW better and better.

The event will become and annual spring celebration for the Fellowship. If you couldn't make it out, be sure you come by next year.