I was just wondering if anybody could give me some tips for how to make a fun municycle trail. like material and tools to make it with
There are several critical steps:
-
Find a good mountain bike trail.
-
Ride the trail on a unicycle.
. . . Oh, I guess there are just two steps. 
Ack, sorry, just noticed you’re in Indiana!
Add a step before #1: travel to someplace with mountains!
thats kind of funny. because i am going to the smokey mountains for this spring break. and taking the person who got me into muni. its going to awsome.
Building “real” trails is typically very time consuming and requires 100’s-1000’s of man hours, at least in my neck of the woods.
We have trail maintenance organizations that gather volunteer hikers, mountain bikers, and one unicyclist who build trails, planned with towns and counties.
We follow IMBA sustainable trail building methods. Here’s a good book. Many older trails in my area are just trails left over from people who once owned or traveled the land who weren’t concerned about making the trails sustainable or fun. Many of those are a muddy mess and require crazy man hours to maintain, and aren’t as fun to ride or hike. Understanding the contours of the land, grade reversal techniques, materials, etc… it’s all important if you want a good trail that will stand the test of time.
We typically build trails by clearing debris, scraping down a bit, and benching into hillsides, grading the trail to allow water to flow off it. The material we use is the dirt that’s there. Sometimes we build boardwalks from lumber to cross swampy areas. Sometimes we armor areas with flat rocks, and use logs from the area.
Popular trail building tools include: the McLeod, Rogue Hoes, Lamberton rakes, mattock, garden rakes, and shovels.
On the fun side, I guess it depends on the individual… challenging rocky and rooty sections, hill climbs, downhills, flowy curves, log piles, a skinny plank or log crossing over a ravine/creek, crossing right through water… whatever floats your boat.
Are you thinking of developing a trail in a large area, or is this just something in your backyard woods?
I carry a small pair of pruning shears in my backpack. Since my head / face goes down the trail at a different height than most other people who share the trail I frequently trim small branches and twigs out of the way.
Most people on the trail would just go straight down the middle where I may hit the edge in order to have a more successful line looping around a rock or getting over a root.
I usually only clip the eye whips and leave the foliage at other levels alone.
You do know that there are no off road bike trails in the Smokies, right? National Park, they only allow hiking.
Your closest trails are Tsali which is on the other side of the park from Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge, Bent Creek which is in Ashville, or you could drive to Knoxville where we have tons of riding.
If you are coming from the West on I-40, there is riding on your way if you can get you family to stop in Knoxville. If you are coming from the North on I-81/40, there is riding on the way at Bays Mountain and Warriors Path which is in Kingsport (near Bristol) or Panther Creek which near Morristown.
We get back to Koxville on March 21st, I can ride that weekend if you are still around.
Glad you took it well, didn’t mean to be overly snippy. 
In Indiana you probably won’t find great “mountain” trails, but you might be able to find some fun fast trails for 29er or 36er xc riding.
I’ll be in Indianapolis in August, and will probably bring my Coker for riding around on the riverfront trails. Are you in that area? Know any unicylists who are?
thank you for the replies. but could you give some of the things they use to make the good trails. like rocks, logs…etc
Are you thinking of developing a trail in a large area, or is this just something in your backyard woods?
[/QUOTE]
well i want it to be a nice trail… but i have to keep that exactly in mind, that it is in my backyard woods…but what do mean by like ‘Benching into a hill’. could you post a pic of somthing of that nature?
I think he means making it so the trail will not erode down the fall line of the hill. This can sometimes be done by making it wide and flat (perpendicular to the hill) enough. if the hill is steep and/or not rocky enough essentially rails are put on the downhill side of the trail to stop the soil but allowing the water to go down the hill.
Check the “building” link in my signature.
Here is a guy who built a bunch of stuff in his back yard.
How to Build a MTB Freeride Trail in Seconds
it depends. Southern Indiana is close enough to Louisville Kentucky to visit Cherokee park which has a doosie of a hill. Dog hill is a lung buster up the road and a big grin riding the single track back down. We’ve also got outstanding trails at Waverly park. I am fortunate to be a member (get out and work when I can) of the Louisville chapter of the Kentucky Mountain B*ke Association and we are building 100 miles of continuous single track inside the paved Loop. Come on down! We would love to have you. Just check the Twitter feed first to make see which sections are closed (for maintenance or wetness) on your way down. We don’t have big mountains like AspenMike but you will be hard pressed to find much flat ground here in the Appalachian foothills. Plus, with all due respect to Duke and North Carolina, this is basketball country.
Here is a slideshow of some benching work my group did:
http://www.meetup.com/GROC-Trail-Crew/photos/1105807/#
The land we have to work with is very hilly. “Fall line trails” are trails that run up a hill. These are bad because water and trail use cause a lot of erosion. Following the contours of the hill is better, but you can’t hike or cycle well on a hillside. The trail profile (outslope) would be too great, causing you to slide down the hillside. The technique of benching cuts into the hillside to create the preferred trail width and outslope.
It is desired to have about a 5% outslope. This allows water to flow off the trail, and is agreeable with hike and biking.
You can make the trail wider by cutting in deeper either downward or back into the hill.
A “half-bench” is basically when you cut out only about half of what you want (as if you’re creating a trail only half the desired width) and then use the loose dirt (castings) to form the lower second width of the trail by packing it down. That lower half of the trail will be softer at first, but will hopefully firm up. It will likely need more attention later, after it has settled and gotten some good use. It depends on the soil type and environment, so it’s not preferred by some people. But it can be significantly faster to construct.
A “full-bench” is when you cut out the full desired width of the trail. The castings are not used and are spread downhill. Since you cut down/back to dirt that’s been there for 100’s of years, it’s typically a solid stable surface.
There are many more guidelines and techniques to make a great sustainable trail. The trails I’ve worked on serve the residents of my county, so they need to be built to last without a lot of maintenance.
If you’re building a personal trail on your own land then “sustainable” might not be a priority. You might want a fun muddy section and steep downhills.
Your closest trails are Tsali which is on the other side of the park from Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge, Bent Creek which is in Ashville, or you could drive to Knoxville where we have tons of riding.
funny thing is that i am going to gatlinburg to stay in a cabin haha. but how far away is this pigeon forge. away. just need an estimate.
Staying in Gatlinburg? You are an hour plus from any riding other than road.
Do a search on Panther Creek (morristown), Bays Mountain/Warriors Path (johnsons city), Haw Ridge (knoxville). You don’t drive right? So you’re stuck with your parents are willing to do.
Don’t get caught riding trails in the park, it’s a federal offense, so expensive and a huge hassle.
If I know which interstate you’re driving down, that would help.
Though you may have been kidding, this is why George Peck disliked the name “Mountain Unicycling.” It’s not about mountains, it’s about dirt. Kris Holm offers a similar definition in his new book. Though your local terrain limits what’s available, you can still have great trails in non-mountainous areas. There are excellent trails in Southeastern lower Michigan (flat) and Long Island (pretty flat).
I estimate using Google Maps. It can show you pretty decent pictures of most areas, and give exact mileage for driving to and from trails, if you know where the trailhead is.
Totally true
your totally right, i have been waiting for me and my family to go to a place with mountains, but trails have been under my nose this whole time. like me and my brother who is getting in to muni for the first time have just started to use the benching tequnique and we are really starting to come along after only a days work. i might post a few pics on new posts of what we have recently done. but thank you for all the advice it has really helped. Muni on…PS if you have anything else that can help me in any way dont hesitate to post it.
Yeah, I agree. I prefer xc over super tech riding anyhow. My main point was that there’s nothing special about a “muni” trail vs. a mountain bike trail. It’s a little too easy for me to poke fun at flatlanders when I’m living in Western Montana. :o
To OP: try trails in riverfront areas and regional parks (but not in areas marked off limits for bicycles). And if you’ve got private land to build on, rails and bridges built into a xc trail system could add a lot of variety.
[QUOTE=uniShark;1510211]
Yeah, I agree. I prefer xc over super tech riding anyhow. My main point was that there’s nothing special about a “muni” trail vs. a mountain bike trail. It’s a little too easy for me to poke fun at flatlanders when I’m living in Western Montana.
just curious what does xc riding mean?
xc = cross country, which I interpret to be trails you can roll without hopping.
Kris Holm has a good summary of riding types on his web page.