Can you dig it?

Can you dig it?

Yeah, I can dig it.

I dig a lot. Maybe too much. Last year, I bunged up my wrist by digging too much. I thought NSAIDs (non steroid anti-inflammatory drugs) could fix everything. They can't.

But it also is therapeutic to dig. It's part of creating. For me, it's part of the ride. But this year, I've actually admitted that I can't build a real BMX track and build it right. A BMX track is for racing and the jumps are all curved tops. Also, it just doesn't work right unless you bring in truckloads and truckloads of dirt. It would never be wide enough to race on and most importantly, it wouldn't be fun enough because the jumps would be lame.

But my kids are also too young for me to simply start building up a 4-pack or 6-pack. What to do?

My son was giving me grief over the design of the pump track. He complained that he couldn't build up enough speed to get up the jump properly or ride the big berm with any flow. He asked me if I could remove two smaller jumps that were slowing him down and build another berm.

I offered him one better:

"How about we make one giant berm and have it go all the way around?"

"Huh?"

"Let's make a dirt bowl!"

"Oh sweet! It will be a dirt skatepark!"

So today began the digging out of the inner section of the berm. I expect that it is going to take about a week to complete. The walls will be about 4' high to begin and I'll concave out the centre of the bowl a couple feet. Actually, I plan to go as far down into the ground as possible until I hit rock. There is a ditch nearby, so if drainage is an issue, I am prepared to dig out a trench and lay down an actual drain pipe. But it's pretty dry at that spot, so I probably won't even have to do that.

Pushing this much dirt by hand is not easy. For some really weird reason, I just don't mind doing it.

I am still going to order a couple truckloads of dirt for the second section of the dirt park, but I should be able to get this area done with just the dirt from the spot.

It looked like this.



Then I started to hollow it out.



Other side. The left berm that attaches to the little jump with the 'coping' will connect to where I am standing in this photo and everything you see in the middle will be gone. The little jump in the centre of this pic is the one that my son was complaining about. Bascially, everything in the middle where the shovels are will be gone and the dirt moved to the walls to build the berm up. Then the 'bowl' will be dug down and made concave.



Here I am beginning to line the dirt up for where the berm-wall will be.



Always listen to the riders when building. My son had lots of great ideas about how the dirtpark could be built to suit what he wants to do. I'm building it for the kids. Hopefully, they will be building and riding this dirt park for years.



Edit: Here is a poorly photoshopped artist's rendition of what the bowl should sort of eventually look like.