MTB front page in WA

A few years back, the same thing happened in John Forrest National Park. Where those tracks used to be it still looks horrible and pools water so badly. This time, with social media and these tracks been so close to sanctioned legal trails, there has been a massive backlash. Channel 9 Perth were out there this morning doing interviews with some riders. Going to be interesting to see the news article on TV later this evening.
 
The problem is two fold. Firstly the way they deal with unsanctioned trails and two, the sanctioned trails don't take into account the more experienced riders who are not serviced by the sanctioned trails. When govt spends money they have the drive to make it accessable to the widest amount of people possible and see less bang for buck when creating more difficult and advanced trail networks. But that then drives the most motivated amongst us - the advanced riders who spend time and money on the hobby - to supply our own riding areas.
 
johnny good points. The explosion in mtbiking results in lots of riders who want to ride tame stuff.
Same problem locally Yack great flowy tracks >60 km but not technically challenging due to land manager constraints.
So build my own.
 
NSW is certainly not going on in leaps and bounds. This was done recently off a small extension to Sydney's most popular trail, Manly Dam.
 

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johnny said:
The problem is two fold. Firstly the way they deal with unsanctioned trails and two, the sanctioned trails don't take into account the more experienced riders who are not serviced by the sanctioned trails. When govt spends money they have the drive to make it accessable to the widest amount of people possible and see less bang for buck when creating more difficult and advanced trail networks. But that then drives the most motivated amongst us - the advanced riders who spend time and money on the hobby - to supply our own riding areas.
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They're also scared about liability if some gumby crashes on a trail that's beyond their skill level, which is another reason for them to be reluctant to facilitate more technical trails.
 
People that are making money out of this sport need to get involved more, if shops want to sell top level bikes they need to give people a reason to keep coming back to buy more of them. No point in selling a top level bike to someone if there's no trail features to use the bike to it's full capacity or the first few rides they crash and hurt themselves badly.

Getting involved in making appropriate trails and teaching people how to ride MTB properly is the best thing they can do for the sport and for their business to grow. Teaching people skills sets to ride the advanced trails minimises injury on the trails, keeps the land managers happy and it keeps people coming back to the sport with more interest by having challenging trails so that the sport can grow.

I believe that pushing people into riding unsanctioned trails is not the way forwards for the obvious reasons.
 
BT180 said:
It really is. They tore down all the transitions, both up and down. Dragged branches and bushes all over the shop. Looks like a mini cyclone went through the area.

Looks far worse now than what it was.
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They could at least have applied a little notion of safety...like sure be a jerks and cover the trail and knock down the jumps, but...just in case someone doesn't get the message maybe, just maybe, don't go putting obstacles on (blind) landers.
 
pink poodle said:
They could at least have applied a little notion of safety...like sure be a jerks and cover the trail and knock down the jumps, but...just in case someone doesn't get the message maybe, just maybe, don't go putting obstacles on (blind) landers.
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We get this quite often here, they do it on blind corners with large rocks and sticks but it's hard to catch them in the act. Not sure whether it's strava haters or people that get their kicks out of seeing other people hurt.
 
ashes_mtb said:
Some positive news in WA:
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Collie is a dying town with it's major employers having closed down or going to close down (coal mines and coal fired power station)
so it needs something. Hopefully it won't be the usual government style of too little, too late.
 
hellmansam said:
Collie is a dying town with it's major employers having closed down or going to close down (coal mines and coal fired power station)
so it needs something. Hopefully it won't be the usual government style of too little, too late.
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Yep, reckon it's the perfect place to be investing in trails. Would have preferred to see the Dwellingup money go to Collie as well, personally, for the same reason. Invest in a struggling town with existing infrastructure instead of a small hamlet.
 
This is awesome now all we need (South of Perth) is to have Nannup and Pemberton developed and the Porongurups as icing on the cake!

Of course some metro trails would be also much appreciated, but nice to be able to drive rather than fly to new trails!
 
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