While visiting some friends in San Diego, we had the opportunity to check out a sweet backyard pump track. John and Maggie are mountain bike advocates with the San Diego Mountain Bike Association, and happen to have the nicest landscaped pump track we’ve seen to date.
Check it out:
This is one sweet backyard.
The rock work on the side of the track looks great.
John has done some cool stuff with the track surface which is pretty innovative. In order to keep the maintenance time down, he’s used a resin on the track surface to harden it. Combined with a layer of chicken wire, the amount of time spent sweeping the track surface is minimal.
Close up of the track surface. The chicken wire offers great traction.
John and Maggie included some wood TTFs for a bit of variety.
The track has a pretty basic loop layout, with an option for a figure 8 cross over, which allows you to change direction. They also added a series of wood features. The track is a bit narrow, which keeps the speed of the rider down. As it is located at the edge of a canyon, going off the edge is definitely a bad idea. The tight spacing of the rollers (around 7 or 8 feet is my guess) also keeps the user speed somewhat low.
Inga loves to get her pump on, fo’ sho.
Personal thoughts
The landscaping of the pump track has been taken to a level I have yet to see personally. The only drawback to the work put in, is that you are definitely committing to the lines created at that point. There is a wall in the middle of the track that to me screams out to be a feature of the track. I would love to see the wall get incorporated into the layout, as well as an s-turn section or two. I’d also build the height of the berms up considerably, so that higher speeds could be safely achieved. That said, the landscaping on the yard is incredible, and for those trying to talk their partner into letting them tear up the backyard, John and Maggie are an inspiration.
Note: We were out getting morning coffees, and didn’t expect to end up sessioning a pump track, so all photos were shot on my iPhone. IPhone FTW!
