Have Your Say "Downhill Bike Track Knapsack Reserve" - BMCC

Cheers Mog for posting this up.

Can we move/copy this post to "Trail Advocacy" So it is shown on our associated sites eg NobMob?

A bit of a novel, but here you go:

I support the construction of both Downhill and Cross-country trails at Knapsack reserve.

The evidence is clear from overseas studies and local experience that mountain bike trails have similar impacts to walking trails. The main issue with any trail's environmental impact and sustainability is water flow.

When routed and constructed to internationally recognised standards (IMBA) water flow is controlled and the trails are sustainable. In many cases in the US, NZ, and now also in South Australia, IMBA routing, construction and maintenance standards have been adopted by statutory land management authorities for all their trails, including walking tracks, because of their least-impact and least-maintenance results.

Mountain biking stands out for its high rate of volunteerism, and the local mountain biking community is more than willing to get involved, both in construction and ongoing maintenance, as demonstrated by the many trails already in existence in the area.

It is important that the Downhill discipline is catered for, not only Cross Country. While not my chosen form of mountain biking, it is important to satisfy the younger age group with suitably challenging and appropriately constructed Downhill trails to the appropriate standard to suit a range of abilities.

If not done, this key stakeholder group will feel ignored, and will have nothing to lose and much to gain by continuing historical practices. The key aims of controlling the spread of unauthorised trails into more sensitive areas and preventing the use of inappropriate alignments (e.g., straight down-slope) will then not be met.

It is also important that the positive lessons from the Rotorua trails experience be taken on board.

There, local trail maintenance groups (known as "trail fairies") are assigned specific trail sections, and have their group's name on signs as being responsible for the segment. In addition to performing maintenance they are authorised, empowered *and funded* to shut down and rehabilitate any new unauthorised trails immediately they appear. This has the advantage of using peer pressure to minimise their occurrence. By shutting unauthorised trails down immediately before they become established and habitual, the cost of doing so is minimised.

Delays while a request for authorisation to act go up and come back down through the layers of bureaucracy can be critical. I have seen this in my local area where in the space of four weeks the intrusion of motorcross bikes onto an off-road cycling trail area has gouged soil away to a depth of a metre and a half down to bedrock for a length of 50-60m by 2m wide, and created a flora "island". If local off-road pedal cycle use of singletrack had been authorised, and local cyclists empowered to attend to this issue immediately, the damage could have been much less severe and probably capable of reversal.

I hope that expected adverse comments about mountain bike noise will be appropriately discounted. These comments inevitably spring from confusion in many members of the public's minds between motorbikes and mountain bikes, no doubt due to the pronunciation similarity of the terms.

As I'm sure you are aware, motorbikes are frequently very noisy, weigh 80-100kg without the rider, and have 30-45kW of power that is capable of flinging topsoil across a wide area, and inflict a lot of damage.

In contrast, mountain bikes are pedal bicycles. They weigh 10-20kg, and have a maximum of 0.3kW of power, provided by the cyclist's legs. Very little soil is displaced. Turns are coasted through to avoid striking a pedal on the trail. The loudest noise you are likely to hear will be ... heavy breathing.

Mountain biking has a proven track record for attracting tourist visitation and improving the local economy.

The Coed y Brenin trails in Wales are credited with significantly boosting visitation rates and today 90% of all tourist visits to the area are for the purpose of mountain biking. On the verge of having its trail centre shut down by Forestry, the introduction of mountain biking has completely turned things around. It has led to much improved exercise participation amongst the local population and transformed the area from being where drunken and disenchanted youth went to do burnouts, drink, dump rubbish and take drugs to being the site of a favourite activity. Rates of antisocial activity have fallen dramatically.

The same experience has been duplicated elsewhere repeatedly. Government authorities are investing in mountain biking facilities for a reason:
www.riderotorua.com
http://www.visitvictoria.com/Regions/High-Countr...
http://www.thedirtydozen.com.au/
http://www.recsport.sa.gov.au/whats-on-where/eag...
... and there are more.

I trust the above information is useful.

it hits all the right spots

Feel free to use it as a template, but make sure you use your own words and add a couple of items of your own, otherwise it will look like an organised campaign and will carry *much* less weight.

Now if only I could ride half as well as I can talk!

Yeah I got to try and write something that makes some sense....

Just had my say as well, and yes kept it nice.

Had my say. Short and to the point.

You gotta love office jobs.
I actually look like I am working away at my job, haha... submission in!