Parklands MTB Trails Project Breaks Ground!

Parklands MTB Trails Project Breaks Ground!

Hi Folks,

Last week Rob and Eugene organised the relocation of the trail care container from its secret never to be disclosed location to the ‘old car park’ which will become the skills area. Please keep an eye on it and report any evidence of tampering. Moreover Michael and I posted up a project info sign at the Radar Hill Road car park to let other visitors know about what’s going on (but seriously, who doesn’t visit this glorious website??).

Today Eugene (QPWS), Michael (club secretary), Pete (Trailworx) and myself met at Parklands to go over the next 8 months of work. Starting off at car park we walked the access trail (stage one) to the proposed skills area and up to proposed flow trails starting points and then up to the ‘Ant hill’ section of road rage.

Stage 1: Access trail

The access track going in this week will be brushing up existing trails, building a creek crossing, and benching in switchbacks. It will be designed to take a lot of two-way traffic and is first and foremost an access and exit trail. It’ll be a good experience for those who want to get started in volunteer trail building.

Skills area

The skills area will hopefully be back-burned before being cleared and then furnished with various features such as rocks, logs, skinnies, steps etc. If we keep the vegetation managed it should make for a nice area to learn your skills and chill between repeats of the beginners loop or the flow trails.

Flow trails

The biggest change will be that the ‘black’ flow trail may be shifted to the other side of Rocky Creek Road (Eugene will check to see if this is okay). So there will be a flow trail on each side of fireroad heading back to the skills area. This became more and more exciting as we walked the lines looking at how the fall and terrain could be used.

The first flow trail will be primarily designated ‘blue’ but it will largely be ‘roll-able’ without much effort. There will be technical features so that you can include them as you see fit to mix things up. The second flow trail will be blaaack and will include gnar, lots of gnar. Think of it as Phoenix but longer and with rock gardens and drops and more awesome. With this flow trail following the fireroad it should make for some good viewing for spectators too.

After the walk Pete got to work on the access trail with a little excavator marking the beginning of the trail building and Michael and I hung up the trail care info signs.

Come help us shape the first section of trail at the Radar Hill Carpark at 9am this Saturday 06/05/17. We have some tools but bring your own tools if you can (rakehoe, rakes, mattocks, shovels). Also bring water, gloves, hat and mozzie repellent.

Ben Johns
Club President