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A backyard pump track is born!

43K views 106 replies 63 participants last post by  Indy21 
#1 · (Edited)
So after thinking about it for a couple of years, we finally decided to put a pump track in our back yard! I thought I'd post up some progress pics as we go along.

I hired some local trail builders, The Shovel Crew, to do the work since I'm lazy and need instant gratification. :) Today was the first day of four build days that will be spread over the next week or two.

The first step was to mark up the yard. The shape of our yard naturally suggested the layout, which goes along the perimeter of the available space. The yard is 65' long, 25' wide at the widest point, and 15' wide at the narrowest point. I knew I wanted medium-sized rollers at 10' intervals, so the only big remaining questions were whether to incorporate a table top or step-up, and how much to vary the roller height. I decided a step-up would be fun, and the Shovel Crew convinced me that rollers of varying heights would be best, and they also suggested a crossover from one side of the track to the other that will allow more line options. Here's the marked up yard:





The next step was to bring in dirt. We wanted the whole track to be above the surface level of our yard for better drainage, since we live in Seattle. My guys were able to find a 50/50 clay/sand dirt mix and we brought in about 28 cubic yards in 2 dump truck loads:



We're committed now! The next step was to move the dirt from the driveway to the back yard. The mini-excavator had a perfectly sized bucket to fill a wheelbarrow. With 3 guys rolling wheelbarrows back and forth, the dirt started to move pretty quickly. They started by just filling in the outlines with a base of dirt.





Once the whole track was filled in with a layer of dirt, a plate compactor was used to pack it down:

 
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#55 ·
You can do what you want on your property! Who knows, the neighbors might end up thinking it's cool! Last night ended up being an impromptu neighborhood gathering for us, with what seemed like half the neighbors magically converging in our yard! They love it. I think people tend to be in favor of anything that has the sole purpose of fun.

The track is pimpy now! The guys made rollers bigger and more sine wavy, the berms taller, and it's just killer now. Here are some pics from last night, and a video. The one 180 berm still needs to firm up a bit, but other than that it's running just about perfect.













And a video:

https://s204.photobucket.com/albums/bb167/blckbrn/Pump track/?action=view&current=MVI_1592.mp4
 
#56 ·
I'm beginning to see that the thing that is so cool about a pump track is that anyone can have fun on it. Our neighbor across the street is over 50 and was wearing clogs and hadn't ridden a bike in a while, and she gave it a shot. Our next door neighbor was in pajamas, with no off-road bike experience, and ended up being one of the best riders there. The guy who lives next to him is also over 50 and did several laps, plus another neighbor from 2 houses north put in a nice effort, and me and my partner who aren't very good at it yet, and then my 4 builders who killed it of course... we had every skill level represented and every single person found it both fun and challenging. Even the little kids had fun just running madly around it! I'm starting to think everyone should have a pump track. Imagine how neighborhoods would be brought together, how much fitter suburban America would be, how much more fun it would be for families to ride bikes together in their back yard on a summer evening instead of watching TV or surfing the net. This thing has turned out cooler than I even imagined. Anyone thinking about putting one in should totally do it.
 
#64 ·
yeah....and if she found out how much fun mountain bikes are...she rides a street bike...on a trainer in front of the tv...gotta get some DH helmet cam footage for her to watch while on the trainer...
 
#65 ·
A girl from Seattle said:
I'm beginning to see that the thing that is so cool about a pump track is that anyone can have fun on it. Our neighbor across the street is over 50 and was wearing clogs and hadn't ridden a bike in a while, and she gave it a shot. Our next door neighbor was in pajamas, with no off-road bike experience, and ended up being one of the best riders there. The guy who lives next to him is also over 50 and did several laps, plus another neighbor from 2 houses north put in a nice effort, and me and my partner who aren't very good at it yet, and then my 4 builders who killed it of course... we had every skill level represented and every single person found it both fun and challenging. Even the little kids had fun just running madly around it! I'm starting to think everyone should have a pump track. Imagine how neighborhoods would be brought together, how much fitter suburban America would be, how much more fun it would be for families to ride bikes together in their back yard on a summer evening instead of watching TV or surfing the net. This thing has turned out cooler than I even imagined. Anyone thinking about putting one in should totally do it.
Awesome! We just bought our place last September. A large garden is going in, but we'd still have a good bit of room left... Hell, between a garden and pumptrack/"skills area" we'd have far less work to do. Well, just as much, but going towards fun stuff, or things to eat.
 
#69 ·
Thanks everyone! There is a video at the end of post #55 and I will try to get another one soon! The problem we've been having here in Seattle is that it's been raining almost nonstop for a couple of weeks now. We did get a couple of good dry days and the track dried out like concrete as we'd hoped, if you can tell in this pic:



After that I felt I could get away with taking the tarps off, so I did. But I was awfully nervous when it rained hard today, wondering what I would come home to! Here is what I found:



It's perfect! The rain actually helped its condition, erasing some of the cracks and beat-down appearance. Most importantly, it didn't get soft or slippery, which is what I was worried about. So I'm pretty happy about the whole thing. The guys are going to come back one more time to put a layer of dirt over everything, and then maintenance should be pretty straightforward from there on out.

I learned you can do a test to find your soil composition. Soil is composed of sand, silt, and clay (with possible organic material as well). To find out how much of each you have, you put soil and water in a jar, shake it, and let it sit for a day or two. When it settles, the bigger/heavier sand particles are on the bottom, the silt is in the middle, and the clay is on top. Here is what mine looks like:



In this pic, the top layer is water, then clay, then sand at the bottom. So our soil appears to be about 65-70% sand and only 30-35% clay. I would have guessed the opposite since it seems like there is a ton of clay in it! No silt or organic material that I can see. Very interesting (to me at least, but I'm nerdy). I guess a little clay goes a long way! I think our dirt is pretty perfect for our application.
 
#71 ·
-Where did you buy/get it?
lots of local places will sell dirt, call around for pricing. I searched for top soil

-Do they have different compositions of dirt for sale?
yes, if you dont know what you are buying over the phone ask to stop over so you can inspect their dirt. my dirt guy had probably 6 different types of dirt he sold, fill, top soil, screened, etc.. once you are on site, make balls of it in your hand, you will know the good stuff when you find it. my guy calls it 'gold clay', but was completely confused on what i wanted it for. told me no one ever buys it and had to rip it out of the ground

-How much did it cost?
dirt is cheap, it is the delivery fee... $100/10yards delivered is what I paid. Could have got it cheaper if I called around more but I cant complain.

-How many dumptruck loads or cubic yards?
I did 10 yards at a time as I was working solo. 30 yards total.
this build was 28 yards, two loads of 14

-how much dirt will you need?
more than you think! you will find a use for it!

-is it worth it?
YEAH!
 
#73 ·
I would echo most of DL1030's responses above.

-Where did you buy/get it? In the Seattle area, we got ours at Gerrard Recycling. Another place, Pacific Topsoils I think, said they had a 50/50 clay/sand mix they thought would work well. You have to call around and tell them what you want. If you say topsoil, they may be misled into thinking you want a garden-type soil. You don't want too much organic material. I hear baseball diamond clay is also good, but expensive.

-Do they have different compositions of dirt for sale? When evaluating different soils, I agree with DL1030 that the ball test is a good one. If you take slightly damp soil and close it in your hand, it should remain in a cohesive ball when you let go. If it crumbles apart, find something else.

-How much did it cost? $5 per cubic yard for the dirt plus several hundred bucks for delivery.

-How many dumptruck loads or cubic yards? We used 2 dump truck loads. A standard dump truck load is 12 CY but we think we had more like 14 CY per load, so ~28 CY total. Of that, there is still perhaps 5 CY left. Some of that will go on the track next week and the rest will be a "borrow pile" for future repairs/changes.
 
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