Interview: Trail Builder Tom Emrys-Evans

20 March 2014

We all love to ride fantastic trails but did you know that trail building can be a full-time profession? World Trail employee Tom Emrys-Evans provides an insight on what it’s like to be a professional trail fairy.

Q. How do you land a job as a trail builder—is it something you see advertised or do you have to know the right people?

A. For me the stars aligned at the right time. I’d spent a year riding in Whistler and was working at Merlin’s Bar and Grill with Ryan De La Rue. When I got back from Whistler I kept seeing Ryan’s Facebook photos from working with World Trail and was jealous. So after five years working in hospitality, I came back from a holiday and decided that I couldn’t work behind a bar any more.

I already knew Glen Jacobs after doing some video work for him at Kinglake, I gave him a call and asked if he needed an extra pair of hands. As it happened, someone else had called it quits and it all fell into place.

Q. Is that how it normally works or does World Trail sometimes advertise through the regular channels?

A. We sometimes have positions vacant notices up on the World Trail website but we seem to be inundated with people who want to get out there and work, so there’s a long list of names that we can pick through when we need extra help.

Q. What are the qualities that you need to become a trail builder?

A. You’ve just got to be hard working and keen to ride. Extra skills such as carpentry can be handy but being a keen rider is a key part of it. Mountain bikers understand what we’re trying to achieve with the trails and can also offer feedback, which we’re all open to.

Q. Any other qualifications that would help?

A. Stamina is important and you’ve got to be able to travel. It’s not a job for those who don’t like change and you don’t really have a home. I was from Melbourne and my first job was at Atherton—at the opposite end of the country.

Q. How much time do you spend at home?

A. In the last year I’ve had 10 weekends at home, if that, and maybe two weekends at my mum’s bed and breakfast.

Q. Where else have you had to travel to?

A. This year I’ve been at Atherton, Thredbo, Buller, Geelong, Falls Creek, Brisbane, Cooktown and Cairns.

Q. Does the travelling and not having a fixed home address get to you?

A. It’s a pretty cool lifestyle and I love the travelling—I get a bit fidgety if I’m in the one spot for too long. It is good to go home and catch up with mates – and you do miss it – but I’ve come to the realisation that in the short time that you’re home you get the best bits, and then when you’re away you get the best bits of travelling—I feel that I’m getting the best of both worlds.

Q. Do you see this job as a long-term proposition?

A. Yeah, uni has definitely been put on hold—I’m just going to see where it takes me. There are some pretty cool projects on the radar and I’m stoked to see how they end up. I’ll stick with it while I love it.

Q. How many people does World Trail employ?

A. Full time there is Dylan and Glen, the two directors. Then we’ve got Gerrard and Grant down in the office in Victoria. There are five of us on the full-time trail crew and we get split up to work on various projects around the country. Rhys and Ryan are the main machine operators and they head the crews. So there are nine of us that are full time at the moment, plus another two or three locals who come on board depending on the size, location and timeframe of a job. I think we swelled to about 17 during the World Cup build.

Q. How many projects would be going at any one time?

A. At the moment there’s the IMBA Epic at Mt Buller, Falls Creek is kicking off and there’s Smithfield of course. There are also a few other projects that I probably shouldn’t divulge—there’s a lot going on and it just seems flat-out!

Q. So it’s pretty safe to say that the trail building market is booming?

A. Glen and Dylan have worked hard to build it up from not much and as mountain biking has grown, so too has the need for trail builders. The two go hand in hand really; we build nice trails, that gets more people out on mountain bikes and creates a demand for more trails—do it right and the whole thing just snowballs.

Q. Which trail project excites you the most at the moment?

A. Atherton is sick; the trails out there were great to work on and so good to ride but the Smithfield World Cup XC and DH is the most exciting. The trail features that we’ve built into the XC track really take it to the next level and it’ll be very interesting to see how the elite riders tackle it. The same applies to the DH; I ride downhill but these guys are on the next level again and building a track for the world’s best has been a real challenge and I’m looking forward to seeing them ride it.

Q. What sort of tasks would you do on an average day?

A. Well every day is different but here’s a list of the things that I could be doing:

Working as a trail builder can involve a wide and varied range of tasks. Each day is broken up into three ‘sessions’ and the work can involve any of the following:

- Removing trees, logs, dense shrubs and scrub to clear a corridor. This allows the excavator operator to see the trail alignment.

- Shaping up the trail behind the excavator.

- Cutting and shaping the batter (this is the wall on the uphill side of a cross-slope).

- Raking the trail several times with different sized rakes to remove the big, medium and little rocks.

- Placing rock cairns to emphasise the flow of the trail and stop people from straight lining.

- Cleaning up roots.

- Shaping and compacting berms.

- Collecting rocks for armouring the trail. We typically do between one and three rock armoured sections in a day. They vary from one to five metres in length, although the longest rock armour I’ve been involved with was 30-35 metres long.

- Tidying up the trail side.

An Average Day

Here’s Tom’s rundown of a typical day:

5:30am - Wake up eat breakfast and make lunch.

7:00am - Everyone meets at the container to discuss the jobs that need to be done before we grab tools and go.

7:15 to 10:00am - Morning work session.

10:00am - Fifteen minute smoko. Nobody actually smokes but we still call it that.

10:15am to 1:00pm - Midday work session.

1:00pm - Half hour break for lunch. This always comes as a great relief—especially for our stomachs!

1:30pm to 5.30pm - Afternoon session.

Finishing time varies but we generally aim to be done and leaving the container by 5:30pm, although we’ll wrap things up a bit earlier if we’re planning an after work ride.

5.45-6:00pm - Get home and eat, eat, and eat some more.

Food!

Up to 10 hours a day of solid labour can work up quite an appetite. On an average day Tom will burn between 2,200 and 2,800 calories whilst on the job. This grows to around 4,000 calories when he gets out for an after work ride. As a result, eating becomes a real focus—here’s what Tom needs to eat at work to fuel his lifestyle.