Glenrock State Conservation Area update for 10 Mar

Heard about it. Disgraceful. Our secret tracks at Killy were drenched this morning, surely the demo day can't go ahead.

I thought it was tomorrow, oops.

No point alienating ourselves We all knew that a Fun trail network would attract riders Not saying this is good but surely there is anbetter way than to yell abuse at the land manager and the bike industry.

I was a little frustrated when I saw the mud caked bikes up there. We can't claim we love
Grock more than the next guy because we get out there with a shovel.

RobbieO, I am borderline deleting this post which never do as I have a dislike of censorship.

But, your comments on the NPWS are not only disrespectful, but way off the mark. The NPWS have a huge amount riding on the success of the Glenrock Trails and they will be the last people to want to compromise them.

For your reference, the NPWS fee structure for events is so bad that even if a fee was levied it would be minimal, there is no financial incentive for the NPWS to have the day go ahead.

I do know that Drift/Specialized had met with NPWS and had wet weather contingency plans. Mick and I had spoken about the demo days in the preceding days as well. Obviously it was deemed OK to ride, I've not seen the trails so I won't pass judgement on that.

At the end of the day, posts like this will do the GTA harm, I have had comments made to me already about this thread and would prefer the GTA less aggressive to non conforming views. I don't want to turn away potential allies and from now on won't tolerate posts that cross the line into abuse. By all means be critical, but do not be abusive, keep it factual and don't cross the line.

Don't worry guys, every single employee from Drift will be at the next maintenance day to clean up the mess they made, right? If not, I think I'll go back to riding a Giant ...

this is bloody ridiculous. Lets not forget that we do not own the park. it does not matter how many hours trail maintenance you have put into the park, nor whether you wear a yellow tshirt or not, we do not have a monopoly on the park. We have no right to attack other users, or the mangers of the site. We actually want to make friends not enemies. You educate people when they are your friend.

Besides that, when we talk about damage to the trails after riding in the wet the damage is done over time. 1 day of riding for sure causes damage, however i really don't think the damage caused today warrants this kind of response.

I took my son for a walk in grock today. i came across more non specialized riders than i came across specialized riders.

Any one of you that says you have not ridden a muddy trail is lying.

When I read comments like this

Had a great spin on a Sworks stumpjumper 29 HT... Wow what a ride.
One disapointment was an abnoxious man from the Glenrock trail alliance with very limited PR skills whom threated me and the specialized staff holding a pick/axe. He obviously doesn't reslise that MTBers actually want more bush land. We arent the ones who knock down thousands of hectares of trees and concrete over it.

I get worried about the legitimacy of the GTA and the damage to our image and lack of support it may bring in the future. That is as worrying to me as any damage to the trails. We need rider support to be effective, these actions kill that off.

From what I have read about the trails, some were suitable and maybe it would have been better to stipulate some trails to be avoided, which it sounds like was communicated to riders.

All in all, a bad day for the GTA, and the phone keeps rolling with messages of negative feedback.

over reaction of the year.

I don't have a dog in this fight so perhaps I can throw in a neutral observation.

There's co-dependance on both sides. GTA needs the support of the industry, but local businesses also need authorised and high quality places for their customers to ride.

I can understand trail maintenance volunteers getting thoroughly hacked off with shop representatives displaying an attitude "well, we've paid, so who are you to tell us we can't ride" when it's destroying or setting back a lot of the work the volunteers have done. Unless industry chips in with some kind of contribution beyond the trivial amount they pay to NPWS, volunteers are just going to say "it isn't worth it we just get used". The bike shops are therefore shitting in their own nest for long term damage to their business through being selfish. Not a sustainable business model I'd have thought.

So I'd approach it like this: "Sports clubs pay local councils a peppercorn amount to use sporting fields too, but that doesn't mean they get a carte blanche to use the fields in conditions that would damage them. The volunteers put a lot of effort in to bring the trails up to these standards, and riding when it's like this not only doesn't help but it does a lot of damage, and they feel really taken for granted. What are you going to do to put something back into the facility that supports your business?" and then follow up with a meeting between perhaps a few representatives from each side to see what can be worked out that helps you both.

You probably wouldn't have stopped the ride day, but it would have built a bridge by guilt-tripping them into doing the right thing in the future and maybe contributing something significant to future maintenance days.

If you can make the time, a meeting to mend fences with the shop might be an idea.

I have been holding off with this post until I could get more of the ‘facts’.

Well this has turned into an unfortunate event, the main factor being incredibly bad weather leading up to the day.
After all it had been dry for more than two days prior and normally that would be enough for conditions to be reasonable, but we are talking about seriously saturated ground here.

But there was more to it than that.

There are quite a few problems here, the main one being that all concerned didn't really know what to do in this situation, it was really the first time it has happened.

We did know it was coming, but we didn't know how to deal with it.

The NPWS are under pressure to allow 'events' but don't exactly know how to charge or how to quantify the cost to the network in damage or repairs.
However they did have a clause in the consent form which said in wet weather riders would be restricted to the Management trails.
The responsibility for observing that clause fell to the owners of the consent – in this case Specialized.
In their defence it had not rained for two days.

The promoters of the event put a lot of money into these things and so of course want it to go ahead.

The shops don't exactly know what to do, they don't want to loose a great opportunity to promote their product when they probably won’t see that chance again for a long time.

We are in the middle, we don't want to be the naysayers and nor should we have to.
We want to support the industry players but also need to address the sustainability of the trails. We had to answer to NPWS on how that could be achieved for our own use, I think that gives us the right to expect the NPWS ask the same of other users.

We need a better contingency plan.

In my opinion the responsibility for assessing the conditions cannot fall to the ‘event’ managers, it must fall to the land managers.
The NPWS are already admitting that they should have done the inspection themselves on the day.

Along with our 'traffic light' system we need more. The traffic lights just say "don't ride" when it's wet they don't offer an alternative and so are prone to being ignored - especially when we get conditions like the current situation where it's been like this for months on-and-off. We're all only human - we're an active group, we get cabin fever.

For a long time I've been saying we need to promote a wet weather 'loop'.
A suggested ride within the park that avoids all the vulnerable areas but also provides a satisfying off-road riding experience and a genuine alternative when other trails should be closed.
This can then be used to support the ‘official’ line rather than just saying “the park is closed to MTB’s”

This issue has been raised in recent discussions. I had been holding off posting, as I said, but had already written a submission outlining my ideas on this. I think it’s time we started a more formal discussion on this one so I’ve started a new thread dedicated to just that;

http://glenrocktrailalliance.com/node/34709