1 hour ago, X2700 said:

Have a new request from one of our land owners.He wants us to move his section of trail closer to woods because they can see where corn in that section of his field does not grow as tall?This field is plowed up every year!!First for me and i just shook my head!moving trail not that big of a deal but we have homes in that section of woods i can can already hear the phone calls about hearing sleds at night!!

 

I have seen and done all sorts of riding on different fields and crops over the years, with basically zero difference in crop yields or performance.  But hey, it’s their land and if they let us go on it, I don’t argue with where they want us to mark it.

My little 7 acre hay/alfalfa field, I made a point two years ago to only ride across it diagonally in the same tracks all year long, and there is no way you could tell where I rode by May 1st.

2 minutes ago, Bontz said:

If you guys received the MNUSA "Newsledder" a couple weeks ago, there was a video and a PDF presentation on trail signing.  I went back to look at it, and there wasn't any mention of the new caution sign usage.  It makes sense, but I don't see anything in that material to say it's the new requirement?  We're too far into trail marking now to make changes, but maybe that will be the new thing for 2024-2025.

I mentioned it to president and he said state better start making new caution signs or we ain’t changing!

crazy we even have to discuss this!!

I see caution sign I’m slowing down and looking for what’s up!!!!im sick of having to change for dumbasses!!

3 minutes ago, X2700 said:

I mentioned it to president and he said state better start making new caution signs or we ain’t changing!

crazy we even have to discuss this!!

I see caution sign I’m slowing down and looking for what’s up!!!!im sick of having to change for dumbasses!!

Just had an email exchange between our club officers, and we're doing the same thing ..... which is, marking as we always have.  I agree that it's crazy we have to worry about lawyers and ambulance chasers coming after the club for trying to be safe.  Like you, I see a caution sign and I'm off the gas and slowing down.

10 minutes ago, Bontz said:

Just had an email exchange between our club officers, and we're doing the same thing ..... which is, marking as we always have.  I agree that it's crazy we have to worry about lawyers and ambulance chasers coming after the club for trying to be safe.  Like you, I see a caution sign and I'm off the gas and slowing down.

Yeah I agree with you guys - I’m not sure they have formally made it a change of a requirement now that you brought up that MNUSA email, I looked at it again as well.  Perhaps the discussion I heard was more along the lines of a pending law suit, and how it may change going forward.  Totally agree at this point, a lot of signs are already out there, those won’t be changing. 

We're heading out tomorrow ... gonna be a brisk day!!

10 minutes ago, Bontz said:

We're heading out tomorrow ... gonna be a brisk day!!

Yuck - and very hard ground!  Be curious to know how far the frost has gone… 

19 minutes ago, Mag6240 said:

Yuck - and very hard ground!  Be curious to know how far the frost has gone… 

We're gonna find out, firsthand.  The chisel plow fields won't be an issue, and I think for the most part the other fields won't be that bad either.  But we have one section on the north end, towards the Red Wing club, where it's a water run area and that's damn near always rock hard.  We'll have the drill with us though, so if it's too frozen up we have a way to break through.

Well good luck with that - last week busting up a beaver dam I was surprised how much the ground firmed up.  Can only imagine after the last couple days it’s going to be even more.
At least it’s firming up before it snows, always a good thing IMO!

I'm guessing we have close to 4" of frost here. It was 7° yesterday morning and this morning it's 4°. Hope it goes good for you @Bontz.

8 hours ago, Sled_Hed said:

I'm guessing we have close to 4" of frost here. It was 7° yesterday morning and this morning it's 4°. Hope it goes good for you @Bontz.

Just got home, and all I can say is .... I wish we could've gotten out sooner!! LOL  It was about 50/50 as far as pounding signs that would go right in vs. others that had to get through a couple inches of frost.  But we got a bunch done today and that's the main thing.  We're scheduled to have more people together on Saturday to finish it up, so I hope we have a good crew and can get through what's left in a short period of time.

1 hour ago, Bontz said:

Just got home, and all I can say is .... I wish we could've gotten out sooner!! LOL  It was about 50/50 as far as pounding signs that would go right in vs. others that had to get through a couple inches of frost.  But we got a bunch done today and that's the main thing.  We're scheduled to have more people together on Saturday to finish it up, so I hope we have a good crew and can get through what's left in a short period of time.

Sounds like a good day either way. Like I've mentioned before, I have utmost respect for you guys that have to stake and tear down across farm ground. Our clubs up here have very little of that, the only signing like that I did was swamps and that we didn't have to take down.

2 hours ago, Bontz said:

Just got home, and all I can say is .... I wish we could've gotten out sooner!! LOL  It was about 50/50 as far as pounding signs that would go right in vs. others that had to get through a couple inches of frost.  But we got a bunch done today and that's the main thing.  We're scheduled to have more people together on Saturday to finish it up, so I hope we have a good crew and can get through what's left in a short period of time.

I went out and marked a bit this afternoon also.

had couple spots that there was a good 6-7” of frost other spots couple inches.

hope to finish up the end of week!!

thanks for getting those trails marked up!!

I’ll be headed that way as soon as conditions allow!!

some of my favorite trails in your neck of the woods!!

mighty zumbro had a little ice on it this afternoon!!

You have some dandy trails in your neck of the woods, too, @X2700 ... can't wait for mother nature to cooperate for all of us!!  You mention ice on the Zumbro .. I was shocked to see patchy ice on Pepin today, too!

19 minutes ago, X2700 said:

I went out and marked a bit this afternoon also.

had couple spots that there was a good 6-7” of frost other spots couple inches.

hope to finish up the end of week!!

thanks for getting those trails marked up!!

I’ll be headed that way as soon as conditions allow!!

some of my favorite trails in your neck of the woods!!

mighty zumbro had a little ice on it this afternoon!!

 

16 minutes ago, Bontz said:

You have some dandy trails in your neck of the woods, too, @X2700 ... can't wait for mother nature to cooperate for all of us!!  You mention ice on the Zumbro .. I was shocked to see patchy ice on Pepin today, too!

One of the resort guys here walked out 1/4 mile in the bay today and had 4-6" of ice. I was shocked.

Love the ice/frost reports - let’s hope it continues in this direction!

Started a bit today after work. Have a bit of a reroute due to solar panels that are not there. Company said they would work with us. Which they did not.

I did a horseshit job of taking pictures (zero!) ... but I'm glad to say we're done marking our trails.  We had a good crew that showed up today to finish the remainder of our trail system, and then we have one more day next Saturday to finish up re-planking a bridge.  Then it's up to Mother Nature to allow us to actually take advantage of our work.  Let it snow (after next weekend)!!!

My last stop sign this afternoon!!

spent couple hours yesterday and today and finished up!!

bring on the white stuff!!

spent rest of the weekend in garage working on pros!!

another list of parts to order Monday but it’s about ready to roll! 

Yeah our roller doesn’t make it a paved Highway, but it certainly allows for less snow to make it rideable.

This was last year (just for the pic of the roller), the ground was super soft yet a couple weeks back when we rolled what was plowed.

Those rollers look good, guys   We were discussing the idea of doing something similar this week with some of the warmer temps that re in the forecast, just to see if it would help soften it up a little bit.  Thankfully, a few of our land owners already helped by knocking down some of the chisel plow on their sections of trail.

I'm definitely getting anxious, now that we're 100% marked.  One thing we will need to do is work with Ride Command to update a couple of sections of trail that have changed.

18 minutes ago, Bontz said:

One thing we will need to do is work with Ride Command to update a couple of sections of trail that have changed.

If your club is like ours, assuming it is being in MN, someone has that ability - I know we have a guy that can update trail reroutes…

Yeah we don’t have anything required to GPS our trails… it’s a manual change in Ride Command, but we can update it.

I've been asking our president about mn going to gps in groomers and bringing it up at state meetings.I heard that their was some discusion this year about it?I really like wi system and use it alot when deciding where the day ride is going to be!

Question is who pays for gps system for groomer?club or state?Whats the cost?

http://gts.groomertrackingsystems.com/map

i just look at this the night before or early in morning and make a plan.couple of us road alot on new trails last winter in the wheeler chetek weyerhauser area and by using this tool we found mostly just groomed trails!!we do usually get on trails by 8am!!i also use local clubs websites facebook etc to see whats closed or open.what i found last year is that wi will close a trail on monday then open it up late in week to save trails late in year!!I always thought how wi would close trails during winter was stupid but i now know how it works. I now watch it closely!!

we just need another winter like last over there!!

 

Edited December 4, 20232 yr by X2700

I do get the rolling of eyes every time i bring up gps in groomers!!Some just will not accept change even though its to better our system.i feel sometimes our club doesnt groom enough and maybe with this system it will show them what were actually doing!!

Groomer notification - besides someone coming around a corner or over a hill on the wrong side a the trail, that's my biggest fear, meeting the groomer.  Something to help let you know where they are would be nice (Besides that sweet ribbon of white!).  But that would require me to upgrade my dash... 

Edited December 4, 20232 yr by Mag6240