"You might as well asphalt the forest!", "Will this be a path for shopping trolleys?", "Build trails and not highways!" These are the nicer comments that Daniel Tulla receives on the social media account of his company Mountainbike Movement when he posts videos of Moritz. Moritz is a 1.5-ton caterpillar on which a 650-kilogram cutter with diamond blades is mounted. Equipped in this way, Moritz eats its way through even the hardest rock, creating 1.20 meter wide trails on which everything is evenly flat. Some single trail purists dislike this, as you can read on Tulla's online account. 

However, such negative comments leave the trail builder relatively cold: "Since I posted this, I've noticed that I've been getting more and more inquiries from interested parties." Tulla is convinced that Moritz represents a real quantum leap in trail building practice. Moritz can create up to 700 meters of flow trail or blue lines in just one day. On a straight trail without bends, up to 1.5 kilometers are even possible. With the caterpillar, Tulla and his team work four times faster than before, he explains. The use of the cutter also saves the costly transportation of additional material for the top layer on the trail. The diamond blades work the subsoil and break it up in such a way that earth no longer has to be transported by truck or even helicopter. You use what is on site.

Caterpillar Moritz as a second attempt 

Moritz has been in use since March of this year. Tulla bought the caterpillar from Bavarian forestry machine manufacturer Pfanzelt and had it adapted for his needs as a trail builder. An investment of almost 170,000 euros is a lot of money for a company like Mountainbike Movement. Nevertheless, Tulla took the financial risk. He has been experimenting for five years with a similar machine that he had built in Italy. However, this prototype rock crusher only worked moderately well, he says, because the carrier was too weak. With Moritz, in which the caterpillar is connected to the cutter via a cardan shaft, this is now different and the practical tests to date have convinced him. The device mills stones up to 50 x 50 cm without any problems and works them back into the ground; granite has also been successfully crushed. The diamond blades reach up to 15 cm deep into the ground, literally leaving no stone unturned.

The idea for the trail milling machine came to Tulla a few years ago when he was once again asked to remove braking bumps in the Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis bike park: "I wanted a kind of snow groomer for trails that would allow me to simply mill away the braking bumps. Just like you do on ski slopes in winter." Equipped with a 75 hp diesel engine, the Moritz can do just that. It shreds the subsoil and reapplies this material to the trail. This creates exactly the homogeneous surface layer that is required by standards for flow trails and blue lines. The built-in cable winch also enables use on extremely steep terrain.

Trail construction for the masses

"However, we don't use the tiller on downhill routes or natural trails," Tulla clarifies. He is therefore not always able to understand the criticism of his work equipment. After all, he only builds what he is commissioned to do. And the majority of bike parks and trail centers rely on green and blue lines in order to reach the masses of bikers. If mechanical construction is permitted, Moritz is the ideal tool for the job. "I don't build what I like myself, but what I'm told to build," emphasizes Tulla, who has downhill and enduro racing experience himself. But for flow trails or jumplines, the milling machine is a good choice.

The basic rule for using Moritz is: what was built by hand should also be maintained by hand. However, where a mini-excavator was used, the milling machine can also easily carry out maintenance work to save time and resources. In recent years, Mountainbike Movement has built 70 percent blue trails because that is what the customers wanted. Since Moritz has been in service, it has been used to build trails on the Baumgartner Höhe in the Carinthian Lake Bike area, on the Strada del Sole and on the Morning Glory in the Tyrolean bike park Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis as well as on the Burgenland Trails. "The machine has basically been running non-stop since March," says Tulla, for whom the entrepreneurial risk has already paid off. Moritz is also attracting international interest and Mountainbike Movement will be presenting it together with manufacturer Pfanzelt at the Downhill Bike Park Summit in Vermont (USA) in June.

In addition to the diamond blades for shredding rocks, Moritz also has its own forestry mulcher attachment. This can be used to process thorns, undergrowth and the like. In trail construction, this is primarily used to make the areas to the side of the trails safer and to create fall zones. In forestry, for example, it is used to remove the tracks left behind by a harvester. In addition to trail construction, Tulla also sees great potential for Moritz in the construction of hiking trails that are suitable for baby carriages or wheelchairs. He is still at the very beginning with his "snow groomer for trails", but Tulla is convinced that it will open up a new chapter in trail building in the future.

Further information:

• Mountainbike Movement homepage
• Pfanzelt Maschinenbau
• Bikepark Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis
• Lake Bike Kärnten
• Burgenland Trails