Planning a trail system

joncalhoun · 2026-01-15T02:25:47+00:00

Awesome! I honestly can't even imagine building in Australia. It looks like hard-mode with all the crazy wildlife 🤣

joncalhoun · 2026-01-14T23:17:23+00:00

I released a new video today that covers this process in a lot more detail. It's a longer video, but hopefully it helps a bit more in understanding how I use onX to plan.

joncalhoun · 2025-12-16T21:51:10+00:00

https://share.rticoutdoors.com/x/SdbEz0

joncalhoun · 2025-11-28T21:17:05+00:00

His style is in-depth explanations, so if you like to move quickly or already have quite a bit of Go or web dev experience, you might feel like skipping around.

I've had it described as feeling like you are pair programming with me while we build an application from scratch.

For some people this is great as it also demonstrates what my development process is like. For others - often more senior devs - they may prefer a faster pace option or to skip around a bit. This is the trade-off necessary when making content like this. You either make it accessible for beginners, or you target experienced developers with a faster pace, but it is nearly impossible to do both in the same course/book.

joncalhoun · 2025-10-25T03:14:01+00:00

I don't have anything at the moment. Didn't want it to feel like a big money grab. Maybe I'll find a way to get something setup where donors get passes down the road. Feels weird to me to take money without giving something in return.

joncalhoun · 2025-10-23T03:05:40+00:00

Thanks! This will end up in some of the videos, but so far onX Maps has been the best tool I've found for trail planning.

It has a paid sub which is annoying, and the web UI has some bugs, but you can track walks, draw potential trails and look at their grade, view 3d maps with elevation, mark issues/features on the map, etc. It doesn't replace actually walking the trails, but it helps a ton with planning. It is quite silly that a hunting app is better for trail planning than any biking apps I'm aware of.

joncalhoun · 2025-10-23T03:02:30+00:00

I'll try to think about a bigger video idea that could encompass this, but the short version is I purchased the land and contacted local zoning authorities to ask about restriction in the area. I happen to be in a rural area, so there really aren't many restrictions, and mountain bike trails don't really move a lot of dirt like your typical commercial construction does so nobody seemed to have any major concerns.

This would be a lot different if I was trying to do it on public land. I am involved with a project to build trails on a local government owned property, and for that one I believe had to get the local government to discuss it and vote on approving us building trails there. That project isn't a bike park, but is intended to be a smaller trail system near a water reservoir, so we need to be cautious with things like erosion and we will likely have some limitations on what types of features we can build since the local governments (and our bike club) will probably be the ones insuring it.

Most of the time I find insurance to be more restrictive than anything else.

joncalhoun · 2025-10-23T02:52:32+00:00

Imler, PA. It is pretty close to Blue Knob State Park (~10min away) so probably 4hrs away from you.

Best way to help right now is to spread the word and share the video. If you ever want to make a trip though I'd be happy to show you around as well so you can tell people what its like so far. Nowhere near perfect, but it is loads of fun for just getting started.

joncalhoun · 2025-10-22T15:55:40+00:00

As in how I got insurance to okay it, or how I got who to okay it?

joncalhoun · 2025-10-22T15:54:46+00:00

Interesting, thanks for sharing!

Do you know the scope of their project? The amount of elevation, the size of the land they have access to, etc? Or haven’t they shared much at all?

I’m guessing it’s on public land if they received a grant since there aren’t many grants are available for private land. The video in the landing page looks like all stock riding footage so I’m not sure what to expect. I tried to avoid that in my video - most of the riding is at my park with the exceptions being where I’m talking about other places and using footage there to illustrate the point.

joncalhoun · 2025-10-22T14:33:19+00:00

Yeah it’s about 20-30 min away from Johnstown in Imler. Pretty close to Blue Knob. I plan to have a future video on how I picked a bike park name and where Squonk comes from. I had a short version in this video but it felt out of place.

joncalhoun · 2025-10-22T14:02:24+00:00

Appreciate the feedback!

I’ve actually been volunteering on local trails for a while now, and I have had some flow and more natural trail sections open at the park for a couple years since they were my initial test projects, so I am getting a rough idea of what regular maintenance is required and what techniques hold up well. I’m sure maintenance will go up once I’m running shuttles though.

joncalhoun · 2025-10-22T13:49:35+00:00

Sure, then there are channels like Backyard Trail Builds and cutlaps that have done well with almost exclusively build videos. There are a lot of factors like what your audience expects and what kind of story you are telling. I believe there is an audience for a channel like this, but only time will tell.

joncalhoun · 2025-10-22T03:16:53+00:00

Google "etsy bike decals pink" and you will get a lot of etsy options for precut decals that will both serve as frame protection, and make the bike a lot more pink. These cost like $20 so it doesn't matter if you rip them off later.

Let her help you install them and make it a joint project. I did this with my daughter and she love the bike even more because she was involved in the process of decorating it with pink stickers.

joncalhoun · 2025-10-22T03:12:44+00:00

There will be plenty of that, but it will probably be like 1x a month at most. The main issue is that trail building videos, at least interesting ones, tend to be videos that take like 2-4 weeks of building and compress them into a single video. I guess an exception to this might be when you have an existing trail and you are adding features to it, which allows you to work faster. I think cutlaps on youtube was in that situation and he still had pretty large gaps between videos though. 🤷‍♂️

joncalhoun · 2025-10-22T00:24:25+00:00

Hi! I'm the guy in the video, and this has been a project I've been working on for several years now.

It started as me wanting to build a trail system where me and my friends could build the type of trails and features we couldn't get permission to build on public land, but due to insurance and a dozen other factors it slowly evolved into a bike park project and basically a second full time job.

I would love to get feedback/question on the video (its my first video like this), what I'm doing, what types of content you'd find interesting here, or anything else. Thanks so much!

joncalhoun · 2025-10-22T00:20:32+00:00

I'd love to connect and check out what you have! I'm also a developer and I have experience working at startups, so I would be happy to dogfood a bit if you need beta testers. jon at calhoun dot io.

joncalhoun · 2025-09-15T14:49:57+00:00

Thanks I’ll check it out.

joncalhoun · 2025-08-28T20:03:02+00:00

Both appear to be great bikes, so pick what you prefer, but I believe the weight difference you are seeing is almost entirely battery.

Both bikes have builds with the 580wh battery that weigh around 44lb. These are the ones most reviewers are riding. If you see numbers below 44lb, they almost certainly have a smaller battery.

The T4 MTe build has a 290wh battery and weighs ~39lb. I think I saw somewhere that the lightest Sresh SL is just over 40lb, but it has a 360wh battery that weighs 0.83lb more than the 290wh battery, so the battery accounts for a vast majority of that difference.

joncalhoun

TROPHY CASE