{"id":652035,"date":"2025-12-24T07:17:38","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T07:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/652035\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T07:17:38","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T07:17:38","slug":"trail-armor-is-the-carpet-like-material-that-could-revolutionize-trail-maintenance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/652035\/","title":{"rendered":"Trail Armor is the carpet-like material that could revolutionize trail maintenance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a>Photos by Jeff Barber unless otherwise noted.<\/p>\n

Building bike trails is expensive, and over time, maintaining them costs even more. Jarrod Harris was spending $25,000 every three to four months to revamp a single trail at his bike park in northwest Georgia, and he needed to find a way to cut costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started to see how expensive it was to maintain the trails that [we] built,\u201d he told Singletracks in a recent podcast interview<\/a>. <\/p>\n

During his BMX trail building days in the 1990s, Harris and friends would use scraps of carpet to cover jump lips and landings to help hold the dirt in place. Could carpet, he wondered, reduce the need for trail maintenance at Jarrod\u2019s Place<\/a> bike park?<\/p>\n

For two years, Harris and his crew experimented with different carpet-like materials at the park to develop their own solution, which they called Trail Armor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s literally saved the park,\u201d he says. \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t be in business right now\u201d without it.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

What is Trail Armor?<\/p>\n

From a distance, Trail Armor could be mistaken for exceptionally smooth, uniform dirt. But look closer, and it\u2019s clear it\u2019s a woven material with a level-loop pile construction, not too far off from the Berber carpet you might find in your grandmother\u2019s house, with a 70s brown tint to match. Harris says Trail Armor is nothing like the indoor carpet scraps he was using to line trails in the 90s; he notes the only thing that\u2019s remotely close to Trail Armor is marine-grade carpet, which is more expensive and isn\u2019t designed specifically for trails.<\/p>\n

Pricing for Trail Armor ranges from $1.10 to $1.50 per square foot. There are multiple sizes and versions of the material available, including an eco-friendly Trail Armor version that is said to be 100% recyclable. Harris worked with a local Georgia manufacturer to develop Trail Armor, and his company has exclusive access to the material.<\/p>\n

Trail Armor is permeable, so water soaks right through it, allowing riders to hit the trail right after a rainstorm without fear of causing major damage. And, Harris notes, it\u2019s great for minimizing dust when it hasn\u2019t rained in a while. One of the trail builders I spoke with likes that Trail Armor acts as a weed barrier, keeping the trail surface free of unwanted vegetation.<\/p>\n

At this point, Trail Armor has been used in 30-40 projects around the country, according to Harris. <\/p>\n

Harris told me he recently pulled a section of Trail Armor off a landing that had been built two years ago, and \u201cit looked just as fresh as the day it was finished.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
\nPhotos: TrailArmorMTB.com<\/p>\n

Rolling out the brown carpet<\/p>\n

Trail Armor is designed to be installed after a trail or feature has been finished. Progressive Trail Design settled on Trail Armor for a bike park build in Oklahoma<\/a> this year because their client wanted to minimize future maintenance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is our beta test of it,\u201d Jason Stouder of Progressive Trail Design told me. Though this was the crew\u2019s first time working with Trail Armor, he says the installation went smoothly.<\/p>\n

For lining straight runs and rollers, \u201cit\u2019s pretty straightforward,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s literally roll it out, stake it down, get it taught.\u201d But for more complicated features, like berms, shark fins, and hip jumps, there\u2019s an art to getting everything smooth. Stouder jokes that he needs a roofer to install Trail Armor on berms where an overlapping, shingle-like pattern is necessary.<\/p>\n

Hayden Kettwich of Dialed Dirt<\/a> worked on the same bike park in Tulsa, Oklahoma (the Rock Yard), and has also used Trail Armor on several other projects for his clients. When I asked him if installation was time-consuming or if it was a pain, he answered, with a chuckle, \u201cIt is time-consuming. It is a pain. It is heavy. It isn\u2019t cheap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kettwich uses a custom rig for his trailer to roll the heavy carpet out on the trail. Once in place, the material is staked down using 12-inch galvanized stakes and washers, or with landscape pins if the soil beneath is soft enough.<\/p>\n

Because Trail Armor is a backed and woven material, it\u2019s susceptible to fraying, ripping, and tearing just like any other fabric. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople wreck, and then the pedal will do a little tear,\u201d Harris says. \u201cSo the cool thing is you could just cut a little square out and patch it. [\u2026] There\u2019s glue that you can use, and you just patch it, or you just replace the whole thing. [\u2026] You just replace the strip.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

You\u2019ve got to spend money to save money<\/p>\n

With labor, the cost of the material, and hardware \u2014 which Kettwich estimates adds about $1,000 per thousand feet of trail \u2014 Trail Armor is an investment. Harris says he\u2019s spent about $200,000 on the stuff at his park alone, and with an annual maintenance budget of roughly the same amount, he\u2019s confident Trail Armor saves the park significantly more time and money than that in the long run. Though Trail Armor is still a relatively new product, Kettwich is hopeful that the material lasts 5-10 years with normal use. If he\u2019s right, that could result in significant savings on maintenance.<\/p>\n

Stouder of Progressive Trail Design notes that for government organizations and non-profits, raising funds to build a new trail is often easier than securing money for maintenance down the road. \u201cIf you can raise another 50 or 100 grand up front to get and install Trail Armor [\u2026] it\u2019s probably worth it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

For clubs that rely on volunteer labor, it\u2019s time, rather than money, that Trail Armor has the potential to save. Stuart Thiel, Vice President of the Roswell Area Mountain Bike Organization (RAMBO), says the group got approval to install Trail Armor in an area of a local trail system that required constant maintenance. After that went smoothly, RAMBO went on to install Trail Armor in other areas, including a pump track and jump skills area.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be a need for repairs over time, but the product handles the traffic very well,\u201d he says. \u201cGoing into our first winter will be the real test, especially at the pump tracks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cFaster rolling speed than the dirt itself\u201d<\/p>\n

After seeing photos of Trail Armor and hearing from Harris, I had to try riding on it myself. Fortunately, one of my local trail systems, Blankets Creek, installed Trail Armor on a short jump line adjacent to the parking lot.<\/p>\n

Rolling on Trail Armor mostly feels like riding on dirt, though it sounds much quieter. Traction and grip, especially in berms, are notably more consistent compared to raw dirt that moves and shifts beneath the tires. With a grippy, uniform surface, riders can be more confident leaning into turns.<\/p>\n

Among those who have ridden Trail Armor trails, there\u2019s some disagreement about whether the material is ultimately slower or faster than raw dirt. In the end, it seems to depend on what you\u2019re comparing it to.<\/p>\n

Kettwich used Trail Armor on a set of dirt jumps for a client in Ohio, and the riders there were initially skeptical. \u201cThey weren\u2019t sure about the lips,\u201d he says. However, \u201cwe ended up doing it on everything, and it had surprisingly faster rolling speed than the dirt itself, because the dirt was a little bit soft.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt rolls pretty similar to a fresh\u2026 maybe a little bit slower than a fresh flow trail,\u201d Kettwich says. \u201cBut if you ride a clapped-out flow trail, there\u2019s no doubt that [Trail Armor] is faster.\u201d That\u2019s because trail speeds change over time; they\u2019re slow at the beginning when the dirt isn\u2019t fully compacted, get faster as the dirt packs in, and then get slower again as braking bumps form and roots start to poke above the surface.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably going to slow you down a little bit more than what dirt does, just because there\u2019s got to be a higher friction coefficient,\u201d Stouder says. \u201cBut you\u2019re also able to grip really hard into the berm, so you don\u2019t have to slow down in it. You can really just rail through the berms, right? So I think there might be a little bit of a trade-off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harris says customers at his bike park were also skeptical about Trail Armor initially, worried that the material would change the ride quality of the trails and features they had come to love. But he says the feedback has generally been that the armored trails roll just as fast as before, and are grippy in all conditions.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Trail Armor isn\u2019t dirt, but it\u2019s better than asphalt<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be honest: the first time I saw photos of Trail Armor being used at Jarrod\u2019s Place, I thought it looked ugly. Maybe \u201cugly\u201d is too harsh a word; at the very least, it appeared unnatural. The dark brown color will never be a perfect match for the surrounding dirt, though over time, as vegetation returns and leaves and dirt get scattered along the edge, Trail Armor starts to blend in.<\/p>\n

For trail projects where maintenance and durability are a priority, some trail builders have used asphalt and chip seal construction<\/a>. Compared to those materials, Trail Armor is less permanent and won\u2019t hurt as much if you fall onto it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re dirt guys, right?\u201d Stouder says. \u201cWe\u2019re dirtbags. We\u2019re not asphalt bags.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everyone I spoke with noted that each trail build is unique, and Trail Armor isn\u2019t a one-size-fits-all solution. While there are examples of entire trails being lined with it, in most cases, Trail Armor is being used on key trail sections and features like jumps and berms.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

More places to ride<\/p>\n

Running a bike park is expensive, and with their own money on the line, Harris and his business partner had to come up with a solution to minimize their maintenance costs. The same goes for other bike park owners and public agencies, who are considering not just the up-front cost of their builds but also future maintenance costs. Harris is convinced he\u2019s found the solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of Trail Armor \u2014 and this is a bold statement, but just going to say it \u2014 you\u2019re going to start seeing more places to ride.\u201d<\/p>\n

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