Bench cutting is what you see at pretty much every welsh/scottish trail-centre where the trail snakes across the side of the hill. It's a very hardwearing, weather resistant building method. I'm not a huge fan of it on DH trails as it takes away the camber and makes it hard to use natural features, but the technique can be adapted by using an outslope that differs from the IMBA prescribed 3-5% as the trail progresses.

I'd love to see that! Although I can't really see the barber getting the inclinometer out.

I'll tell you Sunday mate....can't tell who might read this thread.

Paul

if i'm coming along tomorrow to mainly help build, should i bring my own shovel or are there plenty around?

Well, just got around to reading this thread having forgotten my log in for this site.

First off the Jump is back! And it’s better than before. It’s a little lower so less kicky, it needs less skill to hit cleanly for the berm but hopefully more people will be happy with it.

Thanks for all the support from people on this thread, it’s great to see that what we’re doing is liked but some if not all.

I’ve got no problem at all with people not liking our work, that’s life. What does p**s me off is when they post up from behind their monitors about how bad things are. For the size of the hill I reckon there’s a decent spread of trails up there, check the trail map to see just how many!

http://www.racersguild.co.uk/Cannock/Maps/Stile%20Cop%20Trail%20Map.html

Chase Trails seem to have a bad rep with some riders but just remember that we’ve spent the last 4 years trying to bridge the gap between riders and the FC. It’s taken me a while to get my head around what people might want but now I seem to spend more time riding at Stile Cop than I do XC on the Chase.

It’s unlikely that you’ll ever see exactly what everyone wants but we really are open to suggestions. Check our forum for updates or email me direct with ideas (stuart@chasetrails.co.uk). Give us as much help as you can, “we need bigger jumps” really doesn’t help, likewise show up once in a awhile to help turn these ideas into reality. The website is pretty empty at the moment but we’re working on improving the content over the Summer to keep you better informed.

A couple of years ago the unofficial stuff (Ridge Run, Wonderlands etc) were out of bounds for the FC but we’ve worked with them and now have official building going on over there. This helps to protect the trails during forestry works so when trees get felled there will be something left of the course afterwards. Remember that apart from Balboa and the new line that’s coming soon we aren’t massively changing the existing trails, we’re tweaking them to make them work better and last longer.

We’ve got more plans for the hill how much of this we can turn into reality depends on what funding we can beg and borrow to do what’s needed. We’re up there at least once a month if you want to come up and find us and I’ll always answer emails.

Chase Trails don’t run the hill but we’re the closest thing there is to a caretaker as you’ll get. Use us to work up news ideas rather than thinking we’re just here to ignore you.

Stu
www.chasetrails.co.uk
stuart@chasetrails.co.uk

This is the problem with just dirt:



The trails on the other side are great, but they come and go every year.  On the official side we're trying to build trails to last 5 years.