Asphalt:
pros:
-Grippy in wet or dry
-Lots of bounce for jumps off of it
-no mud pots or slick spots after rain, meaning the course can be used
while relatively wet. It will dry faster
cons:
-not a good surface to fall onto
-expensive
-difficult to anchor obstacles
-can get soft and nasty in extreme heat, sometimes cracks
-the first point is worth repeating. Not good to fall onto.
Grass:
pros:
-Best of surfaces to fall onto
-easy to anchor obstacles
-nicer looking
cons:
-less bounce for high jumps
-stays wet longer
-slippery when wet
-grass blades can come off on tire, lessening traction
-quickly turns to dirt in heavily ridden spots
Dirt:
pros:
-good surface to fall onto, sometimes better than grass
-easily anchored to
-mud
cons:
-depending on what kind of dirt, it can really kill the power from
highjumps.
-gets really slippery in wet weather, making course virtually
unridable
-mud
-some soils have sharp pebbles embedded in them, makign them awful to
fall onto. By my house there's a large empty dirt path that has sharp
pebbles ranging n size from a golf ball to a fist. That stuff requires
gloves, leg, and arm armor, and of course a helmet. It sucks to fall
onto.
Anchoring obstacles is a big deal. On grass and dirt, you can just bury
a large part of an object and use the exposed part, or you can use
concrete embedments. On asphalt everything must be relatively mobile and
it's a lot more work mounting things permanently. I think the best
coursers are just large granite boulders strews or piled on a dirt or
grassy field.
--
gerblefranklin - Trials Unicyclist
http://gallery.unicyclist.com/Trials-Muni
Nick's main man.
"The genesis of genocide is like a Pagan religion; carefully hidden,
woven into the holidays of a Christian."-Immortal Technique
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