Building a Trials course from scratch...need ideas...

[trials_uni]

while scootin around on my uni yesterday i noticed this old abondoned tennis area behind my building...i had seen it before but it never clicked till now. ive decided to create a trials course in there. i just need some ideas(maybe even pictures) of what to put in there...ive never seen a real trials course. i have a way to get some cheap pallets and theyre doing construction to my building so getting some wood shouldnt be too much of a problem but i just need to kno what i should put in. if anyone has any ideas please reply.

thanks
-Phil

[unisteez]

build some skinnies, some sandwich boards, and then get some pallets. then you have a course that you can switch up.

personally i have 4 sandwich boards, 2 of them are a foot tall when they are set up and the other ones are about 2 feet tall when they are set up. i have a few skinnies built out of 2x4s and then i built some boxes to jump around on. but pallets will work just as well(if not better) if you can get em.

[muzzle]

www.unicycletips.com has some great directions to buidling some structures, other than that you can pretty much use your imagination. Depends what you want to ride on what you end up building.

[unitoon]

gapping bars

[manon1wheel]

go grab/steal some pallets from random grocerie stores

go to construction sites and take trash wood/steal wood.

thats what i do accept i dont steal.

[Jerrick]

watch trials course love99, it shows a great trials course, you can find it here or go to unicycle.tv

[trials_uni]

as much as i would love to have a course like in love 99 i dont have quite that much room...thanks all for the help but i dont really need a portable course...this is gonna be pretty permanent.

[darchibald]

The idea is not to make a permanent course vs. non-permanent course. You want to make a course that you can switch up. This week I think you said you are gapping 2.5 feet, so you build a course with say a 2.5 ft gap. Next week that will be easy and boring, so you don't want permanent. Get/make stuff you can move around.

Just get wood and make stuff that'll look interesting to ride on then use more wood to make it stable. Start off little maybe with a couple pallets or whatever (though they are good for working on hop heights they can get a bit boring) then just keep adding and use your imagination.

Make something like skate ranch from Tony Hawks American Wasteland.

David

[manon1wheel]

yeah, just go to some grocery stores and ask the manager if they can spare some pallets. (usually they will throw them in your face) they are stackable and they are easy to move around

[Spudman]

If you want to make it interesting, then get random junk that people have thrown out, like water heaters, car seats, swamp coolers, broken windows, etc. I find that jumping from one pallet to another gets pretty boring after a while.

[zippy]

find a building site and see if you can get hold of them gas pipe reals

[manon1wheel]

you can do alot of things with pallets. you can make giants sawndwich boards. just use you imagination

[maestro8]

Most of the pallets I've put in my course have either broken or flex like crazy... pallets are generally only good for stacking to make a taller object. What you need to get are some good 2x4's, 2x6's, 4x4's, etc. if you want to make something permanent and reconfigurable. If you do end up using pallets, make sure to put some braces (small blocks of wood inbetween the slats) to strengthen them a bit. Put a piece of plywood on top of your pallet stack if you want it to really last.

If you can score some wooden cable reels or shipping crates, those make good bases for skinnies and ramps. Bend a piece of rebar into a little L and drive it into the ground, through a reel or crate, to stabilize the obstacle. Nothing sucks quite like your obstacle toppling underneath you after landing a gap onto it!

I've also picked up some tree rounds (1 - 3 foot sections of tree trunk) and they make very stable bases... no rebar needed in most cases... unless you put them on their side. It's interesting to have some round and off-camber obstacles on your course... gapping from flat to flat isn't quite as challenging.

As for connecting your obstacles, head to the hardware store and pick up some nails and deck screws. Get nails around 2 1/2" long (to connect 2x4's together) and others that are 4-4 1/2" long to connect fatter stuff. Make sure and get nails with fatty heads on 'em so they don't poke into your tire. Use the nails to connect things that you'll want to reconfigure. Get some nice 3" - 4" deck screws to make more permanent connections... the heads tend to get ground to sh*t when screwing things together. Keep a hammer handy near the course as nails tend to work their way out of "wobbly" obstacles.

What I find works best is making one long trials line that's kinda circular in nature so that I can hop into and out of it at any point... when I get good enough to do the whole loop, it's time to reconfigure. I also put some posts / gapping bars inside and outside the loop to give me entry / exit obstacles.

Let us know how your course shapes up!

[zippy]

Mecano Wood

On Tue, 9 May 2006 16:41:05 -0500, trials_uni wrote:

> if anyone has any ideas please reply.

See http://www.xs4all.nl/~klaasbil/props.htm

for some suggestions on how to build simple trials stuff.