A friend of mine with a big private property offered me the opportunity to take any curved cedar trees off his land. I’m very happy about this as it is quite difficult to find curving trees sometimes. The idea behind using them for bike trails is that you can cut them in 2 identical peices vertically with the chainsaw, and then use them as curved ’stringers’ when building bridges or stunts, or ‘techincal trail features’, as they have been defined by the Ministry of Tourism, Sports, and Arts.

I have always loved this method of constructing bridges both for the sweet feeling of riding a sweeping bridge with no hard angles, and also from an asthetic point of view.

The bridge below was built with the longest curved cedar I have ever dealt with, one single tree with two curves! I cut it into about a 25 foot length and hauled it into the bush with my quad to construct a bridge I’m pretty happy with. This particular bridge has a 1st curve which acts as a sort of ‘pump’ for the 2nd curve, which is much more dramatic and rounded. It’s a blast to ride and I always feel a rush coming into it on my bike because it was a bit of a project from first finding the curved cedar tree on my friend’s land, to dragging it up there in the middle of the night, to hammering it all together.

Long live curved cedar trees! (The photo is from late June and was taken by BIKE magazine senior photographer Dan Barham)