One Tool to Rule Them All

 

Gareth_toolGareth Hargreaves has been building trails around Whare Flat in Dunedin for almost 7 years. Like many of us who pick up tools and start working on trails it was because he wanted to create something that he would enjoy riding himself. We like to call that “enlightened self interest”. For Gareth that meant he wanted to create trails that were neither XC nor DH but somewhere in between. Inspired in part by the technical trails and riding style of British Columbia with big rocks and the occasional bit of woodwork he got to creating the type of trails that we now know are the happy domain of six inch “do anything” trail bikes.

The one thing that Gareth didn’t like about trail building was the need to lug around numerous tools and wrecking a good number of them while he was at it. Being a product designer by trade he started thinking about how he could create a trail tool that would meet his needs both in terms of versatility and durability. Well it’s taken a while but after 5 years of development and heaps of designs his latest rendition seems to tick all the boxes: lightweight, not too expensive, multi-use for raking, benching, cutting and compacting. 

The hard work has paid off with a big vote of confidence in his design from the team at Ground Effect who commissioned 30 of the tools for the build of the awesome trails in the Craigeburn area which the Ground Effect Slush fund has been supporting.

More recently Gareth reached out to Trail Fund NZ and offered to donate $10 to our cause for each of the tools that are ordered through our store (where you will also find more information on pricing etc.). Naturally we thought that was a great idea.

If you’d like to see the tool in action you can observe it in a cameo role in this great video commissioned by Ground Effect to document some of the excellent work being being done in the Craigeburn area.

Like what you see? Gareth is heading off to the northern hemisphere for a well deserved holiday for the month of July so if you’re keen to get your hands on one of these for the winter digging season you’d best be in quick.