Oh, I was just kidding about having a rockpile taller than the Alabama Hills... truck driving humor, 10-4??? I know these little minis don't have a whole lot of clearance or travel, but I still think it would be cool to have a little trials riding area, a place to test the trials riding skills of those willing to go for it. Maybe even put a big berm in there, like the infamous "Wall of Death" back in the day, LOL. When we were kids here in Coronado, my friends and I built a primo BMX track in a grove of trees down by the bay, and we did it entirely through backbreaking labor, using only shovels and whatnot. Too young to even have licenses, you understand. Once we got the track through the trees up and running, we extended the trail out toward the beach, where the old dirt parking lot ended and a long straight dirt embankment dropped down about 8' or 10' to the beach below. There was a hard dirt trail that ran along the bottom of the embankment, then nothing but soft sand. We dug a huge curved berm into that embankment, like a big ol' bowl at the end of a burly snake run in an old school skatepark. Thing was a monster, and it took us several days to complete, but it was totally worth the effort.
The dirt parking lot above was bordered by old utility poles laid lengthwise in the dirt, running parallel along the edge of the embankment but a few feet removed from the lip, so we built a jump on the far side of one large utility pole. Riders could haul @$$ on the trail through the trees, rip out into the dirt parking lot, pedal for all they were worth and hit that jump, then sail through the air for a considerable distance before landing down near the bottom of that huge curved berm we dug into the hillside... or those riders could skip the jump, duck through a gap in the utility poles, and take that big ol' curved berm at speed, pulling a roundhouse carve down to the trail at the foot of the embankment. In hindsight, I reckon that jump was pretty dangerous, and some kids wouldn't even try it, it was that intimidating, but it was a great thrill to pull it off, once you figured out just how fast you needed to go to make the jump, LOL. The first time I tried it, I sailed too far, clear across the gaping berm like a canyon jump by Evel Knievel... did a big ol' endo on the far slope, with one bike pedal whipping past my ear as I took the tumble, but the landing was on downsloping dirt, so I escaped serious injury. The bike whipped past so hard that it did two or three end-over-end revolutions before coming to rest at the foot of the embankment.
Man, those were the days... the bayside BMX track is long gone, of course, as that whole area has been developed over the decades. You are lucky to have your track on your own property, where nobody else can mess with it or tear it down... keep up the good work, Mr. Shearer, you are doing a stellar job in the track-building department. I may be relatively new to this monkeybiking business, but I'm no stranger to dirt biking, and I can see straight off that you are a credit to the mini-riding community, a real hand when it comes to making things happen and keeping the sport alive. Moi, I'll be posting a few trail-riding shots here shortly, just to share some pics of lesser-known riding venues here in my home county and neighboring counties. Hey, I get to order parts for my bike today, WOOHOO!!! I already feel like a kid in a candy store, LOL... probably won't be so enthused when the time comes to settle the bill, but I reckon it'll be worth every penny once my bike is up to speed and running those trails I mentioned. Wait till you see the shots of Carveacre Road, the Valley of the Moon, and the Santa Rosa Mountains... those will be some cool shots, and they'll give you and your mates a chance to check out some of the more obscure venues here in SoCal.