A super group of Goodgymmers joined some volunteers from Pedal Progession and Architrail on a damp Sunday morning to resurface the Ashton Court mountain bike trails. Alex and Chris were lucky winners in the volunteers raffle, walking away with a water bottle and some sealant. The task mainly involved loading up wheelbarrows from a big mound of crushed stone, and barrowing the loads (a long way) down the trail to where they were needed to build a trail base and some fun trail features. The mound of stone quickly dwindled, and we moved onto the pile of "dust" (which sounds lighter but in fact is possibly even heavier, though apparently easier to shovel!), used to create a top surface on the trail. Needless to say we all got a very good workout, shovelling and barrowing until we could shovel and barrow no more! Certainly one of the physically toughest tasks we've done, but great to see the big mounds of stone disappearing and the trail surface looking fantastic. I think we'll all be hoping Tuesday's task doesn't involve too much arm work!! The newly resurfaced trails will be open to bikes again soon, go on and give them a try :-)

Shreena, Alefiyah, Caroline and I joined a hardy crew of mountain bikers at Ashton Court to help shift barrow loads of gravel donated by the quarry onto the mountain bike trail (where it was expertly raked into place by the trail builders).

Our first attempts with ambitiously loaded wheelbarrows and a long distance to the dump point was a tough introduction to the morning's work. Thankfully work started on a nearer section of trail and we started to get into the rhythm of shoveling and driving the wheelbarrows. We also learned some good tips about the most efficient way to load our wheelbarrow and the best shovels to use. And I learned to keep two hands on the wheelbarrow at all times!

With the pile nicely depleted and lots of fresh trail laid, we headed off to the rest of our Saturday activities (or a hot bath and lie down!) 

Wheels and wheelbarrows in one Community Mission? Unwheel.

Today, GoodGym (in an unintentional blue-waterproof uniform) became part of an army of volunteers helping Pedal Progression fix the trails in Ashton Court. Beyond renting mountain bikes for people to use, Pedal Progression are hugely involved in trail advocacy. This has resulted in them reaching an agreement with the Bristol City Council to have ownership over fixing up the Nova trail in Ashton Court. This trail is extremely well-used and has become very worn-down. This has resulted in bikers recently having to cycle dangerously and directly on tree roots, harming the natural habitat. Pedal Progression want to change this, so have enlisted the help of volunteers to take part in 6 work days to completely redo the trail.

After Matt from Pedal Progression gave us a tour of the work that had been done so far, we started raking the trail to make the ground clear and as dry as possible before the stone was laid (a hard task after a huge downpour just an hour before we started). We then got to the main task, moving gravel down the trail to rebuild the path. This was tough work, filling wheelbarrows then pushing heavy stone along the bumps and jumps on the trail for it be raked into place. After several hours, we then moved on to the top 'dusting' layer to add an extra layer of protection.

With arms showing signs of a good workout and backs aching, we waved goodbye to the team from Pedal Progression (impressively, they were still going strong!).