The right tractor.........for mountain biking?!

[Headfirst]

Let me first introduce my delimma....I love mountain biking. Part two...we just moved to Wichita Kansas. No mountains. Really no elevation change unless you want to drive 1-2 hours in any direction. My wife is on board with the idea of buying 10-20 acres (I'm thinking more like 40-80), but the point is, I want to make mountain bike trails on this land...

What I'd like to ask is what is the cheapest/most effective way to build 30, 40, even 50' (or taller) hills. They don't have to be massive or incredibly steep (those things help), but basically something to make a winding trail on a flat piece of land. As far as steep, I'd actually rather not have it too steep - it'd probably just make huge ravines with runoff. I'm thinking like overpass type of dirt work where they build up the highway to make room for a bridge/road underneath.

My thoughts: a bulldozer. I've seen a medium sized bulldozer move that kind of earth on a construction site, one side is a long runway (for the bulldozer), and the other side is pretty steep - where the bulldozer pushed the dirt and finished it's run. I'm thinking that RENTING one of these guys would be pretty expensive for 3-4 days. I've seen used bulldozers for sale on purplewave.com but I really don't know what I'm looking for when it comes to size, or if I'd be making a well informed decision.

I also thought that a backhoe would work well, but it would probably take longer....maybe even just a tractor with a loader on the front....but (chime in with your thoughts...) I don't think you can dig down into the dirt with a loader - thus the backhoe - where you could dig, then scoop and move - but I don't see that making very big hills in a short amount of time.

So help me out...I want to make on-ramp size hills (several of them) in a short amount of time, as cheap as I can (either renting for a short period of time or buying old/used/cheap/possibly poorly running machinery.

Yes, I am a complete novice with anything to do with any sort of equipment, and if the resounding suggestion is to hire it done, I'm okay with that...I'm sure an experienced operator could do in an hour what I could do in a week (or more), but give me some opinions...has anyone done this?

Thank you all for your support, and I'm really open to any suggestions!

 

[nybirdman]

50' hill is going to have quite a base;you are talking hundreds of tons moved.Dozer for sure,would take forever even with a very large tractor.

 

[bcp]

Building big hills on flat ground without importing dirt will also create big holes, unless you take an inch or two off of acres of land. Not ideal work for a dozer.

What are you going to do with the holes? (drainage? ponds?)

Bruce

 

[KiotiKowboy]

I was thinking along the same lines. Sounds like you need to create a large pond, or two. Otherwise, you may wind up with some low soggy ground.

 

[Headfirst]

That's what I was wondering...if it's going to take a giant dozer to make it happen in a short time span...then hiring it done would be incredibly expensive....and me renting and operating a medium sized one for thousands of dollars per day versus buying one used and crossing my fingers that it's in good working order. Still, to move the kind of earth I'm talking about, i was thinking it might be better to buy one and figure out how to operate it (or pay someone to come show me) and take my time building the hills up the way that I want.

In a magical world where everything's free, I'd have a D10 (again, I don't know that much about dozers, but that seems to be a pretty huge one), or I'd just have the rocky mountains moved closer to Wichita...

 

[AchingBack]

This is the ticket.
Earth Movers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KQibfmLf0A

 

[Headfirst]

Ponds are a bonus around here...Honestly, it'd be awesome to make one huge pond. My second favorite activity is wakeboarding, so a giant ski lake? Bonus! In all reality, though, I think my wife wouldn't be too upset with a few ponds (as long as someone landscapes them....someone being me of course.)

 

[Headfirst]

AchingBack: Not even joking...I've looked in to this as a hired service. It'd be in the ballpark of $20-30,000 for that much earth moving. I'm thinking I might be able to find a used/auction dozer of medium size for $8-12,000 (again, I may be completely wrong in that statement... check this out...the auction ends on thursday this week. 1981 Fiat-Allis 10C dozer | no-reserve auction on Thursday, December 18, 2014 |

 

[Headfirst]

oh woops, in a few weeks

 

[Headfirst]

BCP - Another thought that came to mind (when you mentioned importing dirt) is concrete waste. I was speaking with our builder in our current house - he mentioned that concrete removal is very expensive because no one wants to take on concrete waste. I was scheming that I might be able to actually charge people to dump their concrete waste, pile it up in the general areas that I want to build these mounds, then take the money made on the concrete to pay for a bulldozer and some fill dirt (maybe there's people that want to get rid of their fill dirt too?). Basically financing my own equipment purchases by using the land as a dump site for a certain amount of time.

 

[dusty3030]

As geographically close as you are to the Missouri and Arkansas and the absolutely gorgeous hills and mountains my take is this.
Purchase price of land plus improvements and whatever regulatory hoops you have to jump through to make hills - mind you what you are asking is a major earth moving / engineering project - versus taking maybe a once a month jaunt over to one of the best areas in the country I just don't see it worth doing. Why spend a million in Wichita to make a dirt hill when you are so close to the Ozarks?

http://www.cerc.usgs.gov/pubs/ozarks/DS_FIG1.jpg

 

[bcp]

Looking at the topo map around Wichita, some places have the lines close together. Go look at that area. Nature may have made a place for you at a lower price than flat, farmable land.

ACME Mapper 2.1

Bruce

 

[AchingBack]

AchingBack: Not even joking...I've looked in to this as a hired service. It'd be in the ballpark of $20-30,000 for that much earth moving. I'm thinking I might be able to find a used/auction dozer of medium size for $8-12,000 (again, I may be completely wrong in that statement... check this out...the auction ends on thursday this week. 1981 Fiat-Allis 10C dozer | no-reserve auction on Thursday, December 18, 2014 |

Thanks for reporting the estimate you received on the dirt work. I tried getting an estimate from an earth moving outfit, but they were too busy to return calls. I wound up hiring a friend who has a nice JD 6way dozer and back hoe with extenda hoe. The hoe excavated and moved dirt and the dozer did all of the grading.

 

[Headfirst]

Dusty3030....we just moved here from Joplin, MO this summer....I could ride the frisco greenway to the local trails on my bike from my house in 10 minutes and be on single track....and Slaughterpen Hollow and Blowing springs down in Bentonville AR only took 45 minutes....I know....I know :-( But we moved here for family, and that's worth dropping the whole thing....still, I do like having cake. And I like eating cake.....

BCP, thank you for the TOPO map. It's getting pretty difficult to find land around here period, and yes, I would hate destroying land that could turn up food with little effort. I'll have a look around. A dry creek bed that's already 10' deep would be 20 or 30' deep with very little work. If you look at mountain bike trails that are being made today, there is a lot of emphasis on "flow" I've pondered just making a fairly flat trail and a wooden platform to start out on to gain speed at the beginning. Maybe a little bit of natural change in elevation and some creative thinking, and I could get away with a small skid steer instead...

AchingBack: We were looking at 40 acres on the southwest side of Wichita near Goddard/Garden plain (it's probably still for sale with all their crazy covenants), but about half of it was pond, and where we wanted to put a house, it was in a flood plane. so we were looking at coming up high enough to have a walk-out basement and the ground was already about 10' too low. The builder we talked to said he would have two of those giant earth movers come in, scrape off the higher land elsewhere on the property, then dump it at the homesite - said it would take the better part of 2-3 days depending on how well they were picking up dirt, and it would be the $20-30,000 that I mentioned earlier. He did say that if conditions were PERFECT, it might be closer to $15,000....that's still a crapload of money. Sounds like you got a better system and deal working with your friend. Was it a big dozer? Like a D6/7?

 

[MossRoad]

Yeah, a 50' hill only requires a 25' deep hole! hahahaa

Get an excavator.... and a pile O' cash.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I don't want to be the one to shoot down your idea, but I don't think you're thinking this through. You're not going to be able to put a lot of trails on 40 acres. I've got 37 acres, and I have trails going everywhere, and it's about 3 miles total. I mostly walk on them, occasionally bike, and it's maybe a half hour of biking. Think about the math: if you have 40 acres, that's 1.7 million square feet. If on average you have a trail every 100 feet that's 17,000 feet of trails, or 3.2 miles. With that spacing you're not really going to feel like separate trails, you'll be able to see one from the other. A 40 acre square is a quarter mile on a side, so one lap is a mile. That's not a lot of cycling. You're going to get bored.

Just a couple of people cycling is not going to be enough traffic to keep the trails clear. They're going to need to be mowed regularly. Even a few miles of trail is a lot of mowing.

You're going to have to figure out a way to keep ATV's out and snowmobiles in the winter.

Around here, if you were to just dig out a creekbed or a pond the environmental police would literally throw you in jail. They'd also be on you if you built a 50 foot pile of crushed concrete without a solid waste permit. You need to talk with your local officials and see what they'll allow.

If you really want to build a hill, I'd look at skateboard ramps -- a wooden framework with a plywood skin. Just a couple of bikes doesn't need a lot of strength, although you'd have to do some engineering to make it 50 feet high. This might give you some ideas: Mega Ramp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Of course you'd still have to get a building permit...

 

[MossRoad]

We have 20 acres and a little over 2 miles of trials. You can only see the other trails from each other where they cross, due to the thick woods, except in winter, when no leave lets you see farther. You are correct, though. Walking and running you can do and not get bored, as you can take different turns, run the trails backwards, etc... but I'd think biking them you'd get through them pretty quick.

 

[boggen]

i think you would be better off with BMX or 4 wheeler / atv style race tracks. were they have various humps / jumps, mud spots, etc...

trying to build what you want, i would imagine be better off digging out a pond. and putting all the spoils (dirt from digging out pond) directly on the sides of the pond. leaving one area that is low... for overflow of the pond, so you can maintain max water level. and all the rest of the sides of pond. steep and high.

moving amount of dirt you are asking....also means compacting the dirt as you place it. along with getting some sort of erosion control in place quick enough, before water erodes it all away. a company setup, with dozer, excavator, compaction machine, dump trucks, etc... more likely make quick work of stuff. erosion again is big issue, along with correct good compaction of dirt.

your asking for trails through trees / woods / etc... and most likely will not happen immediately. most likely entire area will end up being destroyed. and then having to plant trees, and give them 5 to 10 years to let them grow back up to some given height.

=========
again i would go with a BMX / 4 wheeler / atv style race track like style setup. much less complex, and doesn't compeltely destroy the land for the dirt required. and can be maintained by a smaller size tractor. .

 

[Gary Fowler]

Do your mountain biking in the not to far from you mountains. Never spoil the land by using it as a landfill for rubble, you would regret that forever.

Get another hobby that involves flatland activities with your family even if it does not involve dirt bike racing over mountains. Flat land dirt biking is popular in a lot of places.

Most folks have hobbies that are related to geographical area that they live in. You wouldn't be a surfer if you lived in Denver or a mountain climber if you lived in Florida, so look for something that you can enjoy in the place that you live.

 

[AchingBack]

AchingBack: We were looking at 40 acres on the southwest side of Wichita near Goddard/Garden plain (it's probably still for sale with all their crazy covenants), but about half of it was pond, and where we wanted to put a house, it was in a flood plane. so we were looking at coming up high enough to have a walk-out basement and the ground was already about 10' too low. The builder we talked to said he would have two of those giant earth movers come in, scrape off the higher land elsewhere on the property, then dump it at the homesite - said it would take the better part of 2-3 days depending on how well they were picking up dirt, and it would be the $20-30,000 that I mentioned earlier. He did say that if conditions were PERFECT, it might be closer to $15,000....that's still a crapload of money. Sounds like you got a better system and deal working with your friend. Was it a big dozer? Like a D6/7?[/QUOTE]
The dozer is a 650. The fellas worked about 35 hrs @ $90 hr., probably moved about 50-60 yards.