Red Hill; Legal trails

Asininedrivel

caviar connoisseur
Wish they were the same out my way...
Where's your way? I worked pretty extensively with PV Metro Melbourne (a pretty big area but doesn't include places like You Yangs) and the regional offices were all pretty pro MTB (and a lot of them ride too), but also had to contend with universal issues like eff all maintenance budgets, competing stakeholder priorities, and groups who scream mass murder if you even allude there might be a trail being considered that may have a bicycle near it. Was a challenging environment.
 

Mattyp

Cows go boing
Where's your way? I worked pretty extensively with PV Metro Melbourne (a pretty big area but doesn't include places like You Yangs) and the regional offices were all pretty pro MTB (and a lot of them ride too), but also had to contend with universal issues like eff all maintenance budgets, competing stakeholder priorities, and groups who scream mass murder if you even allude there might be a trail being considered that may have a bicycle near it. Was a challenging environment.
A lot of my riding is in the Macedon Ranges, @Jpez and I had to avoid a ranger on a rampage last time we were there...
 

Asininedrivel

caviar connoisseur
A lot of my riding is in the Macedon Ranges, @Jpez and I had to avoid a ranger on a rampage last time we were there...
Oh okay, Macedon was outside of my scope, can't vouch for them. I know there were / are a lot of issues for staff out that way with the Grampians rock climbing debacle. What did the ranger have the shits on about?
 

The Duckmeister

Has a juicy midrange
Good peeps at PV managing that area, they like their MTB there.
Wasn't always so; when I first got involved 10-ish years ago the main ranger was a classic by-the-book knobhead desk jockey who hated the idea of us having fun. Funny moment was when he came out on a ride with us... Wombat (the main blue descent in the middle of the park) had a fence thrown across it, so we had to take him down the Ball Bearings fire road, which in perfect timing was at its worst with loose gravel on the steep slope. He shat himself, and the fence was removed from Wombat the next day!

Fortunately he got shunted aside within PV not too long after, and since then we've had much more supportive rangers, and yes, some of them do ride, which helps a lot. A real lightbulb moment for them, amid their perennial griping about being understaffed and underfunded preventing them doing trail stuff was when we told them we didn't need them to fund or even do any works, we just needed their permission.
 

Plankosaurus

Spongeplank Dalepantski
Wasn't always so; when I first got involved 10-ish years ago the main ranger was a classic by-the-book knobhead desk jockey who hated the idea of us having fun. Funny moment was when he came out on a ride with us... Wombat (the main blue descent in the middle of the park) had a fence thrown across it, so we had to take him down the Ball Bearings fire road, which in perfect timing was at its worst with loose gravel on the steep slope. He shat himself, and the fence was removed from Wombat the next day!

Fortunately he got shunted aside within PV not too long after, and since then we've had much more supportive rangers, and yes, some of them do ride, which helps a lot. A real lightbulb moment for them, amid their perennial griping about being understaffed and underfunded preventing them doing trail stuff was when we told them we didn't need them to fund or even do any works, we just needed their permission.
Interesting that this line worked for you, we've been saying the same thing for years at lysty and getting roadblocked at every turn

Permission denied is seemingly the default position

Sent from my H8324 using Tapatalk
 

The Duckmeister

Has a juicy midrange
Hasn't always been as plain sailing as it sounds. That approach was very effective in getting the initial formalising of the established informal trails - PV rather liked the idea of not having to take care of them. However getting the Stage Two stuff through has seen a lot of jumping through flaming hoops, where they've needed cultural heritage and significant vegetation surveys, and probably others as well.

It's weird you guys at Lysty have such a hard time; it's generally a heavily disturbed environment, so you should have fewer hoops to jump through to get stuff done.
 
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