Recreational & Family - What is Ballast?

What is ‘ballast’? I ask this relationship to trails that have “a ballast surface”.
Or “a surface made of ballast’.

Such a trail is the Blue Ox Trail in MN. I have seen many other trails listed as
having ballast as a surface.

So, what is it? Gravel? Wood chips?

Forgive me if this has been discussed before; I searched, but found nothing
on this topic…

Train track ballast is the small stones that makeup the rail bed under the tracks.

If the bike trail is called "ballast" then I'm not sure ... it might not be rideable!

I think it's like crushed stone dust with chunks of crushed stone but it's all been packed down by a steam roller. basically it's not a paved road surface. I did a quick image search and came up with a few. if I see any links or pics that are helpful, I'll edit this reply and include them

http://blog.delawareandlehigh.org/2009/10/05/new-section-of-dl-trail-nears-completion/

this page show a picture that may be ballast that was driven over by cars and trucks and so there are 2 smooth tracks in the ballast that look pretty rideable but not with a fast road bike

http://www.transplan.com.au/casestudies.html

this is stone dust:
http://bobmcmullen.info/waterf100.jpg

the above came from this link:
http://bobmcmullen.info/BrantfordtoPortDover.htm

rr6 is correct, ballast is a compacted crushed stone surface. Generally it is ridable for 'fat tired' bikes like mountain bikes, hybrids, and beach cruisers. If you ride a skinny-tired road bike that isn't to say you can't ride over it but you'll have more difficulty and a much harsher ride.

Below I've listed some fairly famous trails that use this surface. A google image search should turn up thousands of additional images of either of these trails if you want a better look.

The C & O Canal Towpath that runs from D.C. to PA. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wUibFSecOQU/SqU543gkKNI/AAAAAAAAA2s/x-MRcBQm7k0/s400/DSCN2465.JPG

-And-

The Virginia Creeper Trail that runs from Abingdon, VA to Damascus, VA- http://www.pinnacle2303.com/vatrail.jpg

I hope this helps.

What is ‘ballast’? I ask this relationship to trails that have “a ballast surface”.
Or “a surface made of ballast’.

Such a trail is the Blue Ox Trail in MN. I have seen many other trails listed as
having ballast as a surface.

So, what is it? Gravel? Wood chips?

Forgive me if this has been discussed before; I searched, but found nothing
on this topic…


Here in the U.S. the conversion of old abandoned railroads into "Rail Trails", or MUPS, sometimes goes in stages.
A contractor will be hired to remove the rails and wooden cross-ties. If the cross-ties are not in too bad of a shape they may be reused. If they are old and starting to rot they generally just heave them off to the side. Sometimes the contractor will salvage the coarse rock that had been used as ballast stone under the cross-ties. Sometimes they simply go in with a grader and push it off to either side of the mup. They will scrape it down close to the dirt base. Then go in with a heavy roller and roll it.

When I see in a trail description that it is a ballast surface I generally avoid that trail. These ballast stones are not little gravel. These ballast stones are fairly large, angular and sharp edged.


"Stone dust" is usually limestone crushed to a fairly small size with a good bit of limestone dust. Applied originally up to about 2 inches in thickness. Initially a stone dust trail is fairly soft and gives a good bit of rolling resistance to a bicycle tire. Rain will wash the dust down in between the larger bits of stone. So the combination of rain and use will cause it to compact into a fairly hard mass. Generally about 1 to 2 years of rain and use will give a rather hard trail surface that is fairly easy to pedal on.
With some of these stone dust surfaced trails they will use thick beds of wood chips along one side of the trail for use with horses. Horses can really mess up a good stone dust paved trail. Over in York County the horse folks refused to stay off the stone dust trail in certain sections so the county simply banned horses from certain sections of the trail.

We have a number of rail trails (mups) around here that are paved with asphalt. The problem with some of these is that after a few years of use the surface becomes ridged or corrugated. When the trail was an active rail road you have heavy trains. Tracks resting on wooden cross-ties. The cross-ties then compacting the ground under them due to the great pressure. The ground under the ballast between these cross-ties was not compacted nearly as much.
So with Winter freeze and thaw cycles the overly compacted ground starts to spring back and raise ridges in the asphalt paving. On our Schuylkill River Trail some sections are getting to be most annoying in regards to this.

One of the MUPs I commute on was until recently bare railroad gravel, about 2" rocks, it was unrideable with less than 2" tires. They just finished clearing that out and paving it. I liked having it as an added justification for fat-tire commuting but I'm sure it'll get more (or any) use now.

Great, thanks for all the replies. I hope that the Blue Ox trail ballast is not those 2" jagged rocks--I hope to ride it this summer.

I'll ultimately post a ride/trail report either here or on the Great Lakes sub-forum...


thanks!

js

It might work better to figure out the trail(s) of interest, and then just inquire whether they're rideable with a road bike, a mountain bike, or what. Even if you know the surface material, the smoothness of it could vary, too.

Here locally, all the trails I've been on are either paved, or fine limestone gravel (fat tires work best) or mountain bike trails. On the fine limestone gravel trails, they've mostly been pretty smooth and well-compacted, so you COULD ride them with a road bike, it just wouldn't be the best choice.

Ballast really just means whatever was on the railroad under everything that got ripped up. My experience on these trails has been that they are all usually easier to ride than your average (very 'soupy' gravel road). But there are never any guarantees as to how much the ballast has decomposed and broken down. Really, really fresh stuff would be almost impossible to ride on without expending tremendous energy with very fat offroad tires.

The wife's hybrid tires usually do well on most all of these surfaces. :)

rr6 is correct, ballast is a compacted crushed stone surface. Generally it is ridable for 'fat tired' bikes like mountain bikes, hybrids, and beach cruisers. If you ride a skinny-tired road bike that isn't to say you can't ride over it but you'll have more difficulty and a much harsher ride.

Below I've listed some fairly famous trails that use this surface. A google image search should turn up thousands of additional images of either of these trails if you want a better look.

The C & O Canal Towpath that runs from D.C. to PA.

-And-

The Virginia Creeper Trail that runs from Abingdon, VA to Damascus, VA-

I hope this helps.

The GAP has a very-good crushed-gravel surface. The C&O is often packed dirt/mud and a bit more lumpy. The VA Creeper trail looks like the GAP.

People have done the GAP and C&O with road bikes with narrow tires. 32mm or 35mm cyclocross tires work fine.


The Blue Ox Trail appears much rougher than these other ones.

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/ohv/trail_detail.html?id=5