"Will this be the best mountain bike park in the world?"

[5h1f7y]

I can probably settle couple of things raised.....

Firstly this is as i have explained it before " a whisper in the wind" and there are no set plans in any way whatsoever.

Although there has been business plans draphted and the property has been loosely scouted there is still a very very very long way to go.

I have no doubt that planned, built and maintained correctly this park could work....though i've never said it would be the best in the world!
The research to complete a project of this magnitude is phenominal and at this stage is at a waiting stage....

In regards to council not listening about sustainable trails....in my experience so far their definition of sustainable trails will take years of work to build and a crazy amount of capital. Though i have not heard a flat out no yet!

Whisper in the Wind....wish we wern't even talking about it to be honest!

 

[pinkgoat]

This thread made me laugh out loud.

+1.

Are you guys like 12 years old or something?

 

[5h1f7y]

Yeah I'm 13 1/2 mate....so yeah proves you wrong!

 

[Ridenparadise]

Geez guys, this thread makes you believe we are the problem with the progression of MTB in Oz, not any other "stakeholders". Go easy on the idea because it is a good one.

I think they are right, there is potential for this sort of development and there are heaps of possible sites along the east coast. I agree with the kids play area. I also believe it can be done without a ski resort being involved and anyway, apart from the head lease at Thredbo, no other NSW ski area can get any go-ahead from the NPWS who basically suck and don't want any of us in the parks anyway (oh, except for the $100million the ski industry hands to them each year for poor infrastructure and backward thinking).

The plan sure does include some significant costing concerns though and medical is certainly a big one. Could MTB be combined with MX (preferably not in the same drainage to limit sound pollution) to increase income?

 

[RGN]

Sounds a great idea, you should defiantly build it within ½ an hour of my place.
Seriously, proximity to a major city will be very important. It could change the park from a place you visit once or twice a year to a place you hang out at every weekend.

Think seriously about why you are making the park. I know you are enthusiastic film makers, but film making is not going to sustain the park. I think you will need to be enthusiastic MTP park builders, with film making as a feature of the park. Not an MTB park designed around film making. But once you get a decent MTB park the potential is enormous.

You may not want to be mountain bike millionaires, but the park will still need to have adequate income to be sustainable. I suspect this means catering to a wide range of MTB’ers. When you say 3 downhill tracks, you need to cater to beginners to experienced, juniors to national training camps.
This may not be as tricky as it first sounds. Cressy climb (track 13) at the you yangs is popular with everyone from 9 yo for whom it is a full on down hill track, to full on downhillers who consider it their version a A-Line (maybe B-line). It is all about good design. Appropriate b and c lines also help for the full on downhill tracks.
Also remember that the downhill xc tracks can also be beginner downhills and generally enjoyable tracks for the general public.

I can not remember mention of shuttles/any way to get bikes and riders to the top. I suspect this could be make or break for the park. Everybody enjoys riding downhill and most enjoy it more than uphill. Shuttles are essential, and they must cater to a wide variety of riders. Different entry prices for shuttle, non shuttle riders are possible.

A pleasant area at the bottom with café, bar, tables, big open fire in winter over looking the jumps area, skill park, pump track and at the end of the dual slalom coarse.
Give people a reason to keep coming back
Wed evening XC sprint
Thurs Dual slalom/ pump track challenge
Fri shuttles to Dark followed by MTB movie with a beer

Coaching is a great idea, and most sports find kids to be the bread and butter of the coach. Weekly after school coaching sessions and school holiday programs are excellent consistent income generators, and I know whistler has great success with these. You could even get school groups in during the day. There is a lot of schools out there. It only takes a small percentage of them to think it’s a good idea to keep you busy.

I encourage your concept. I believe if it is done well, there is a market.
Would parents prefer there 17 yo to be on well designed jumps in a public place with first aid available, rather than in the bush on home made jumps? Yes, and they are prepared to pay for it. Are riders prepared to pay to be driven to the top of the hill. Yes, every You Yangs shuttle day is sold out, and they are not just downhillers attending. Do families want somewhere to go where dad can do a XC loop, the kids have somewhere appropriate to ride and mum can get a coffee? Do friends want to go somewhere where they can hang out, do a few runs, race each other on the dual slalom, have a beer/ wine/ coffee ( actually that probably west coast cooler these days). Will parents pay for movie of their child doing the downhill run , jumps run?

Actually I think it needs to be with 15 min of my place

Good luck

 

[Greenvalleys Freeride]

If your talking about the central coast here , then the san remo x park, has potential to be developed a lot further than what it was originally in its hey day...

I dont know about a bar (alchohol) and on-site accom unless its a campground , but definatly a "version" of a food and drinks area..

Wouldnt take much to get council on board with that idea, just need a solid business plan to take over the site and commercialize it...

I reckon you would also need a mtb club on your side as well..

Love the vision with the audio visual side of things though - that would be really cool..

From personal experience you have to be patient and have the funds to do it...

You also have to have a team of dudes who commit to your vision and the site..

In the 2 years i have been building, there are now 4 dudes who consistently come to greenvalleys, and they work hard.

I also have a "track master" builder who has engineering experience and, for me, that is a reward all in itself.

My application for a rezone to allow for mtb activites and basic campground facilities was placed 17 months ago..

It is about to go before shellharbour council in the next month or 2... ( so i keep getting told)

FINGERS CROSSED..

 

[Dozer]

This is reminding me a lot of the "I'm going to break the longest jump record" thread.

It does! This new site could even have a spot where the long jump wannabe could do his 150 foot jump!

Please, don't anyone suggest Wollongong as a good spot to build a mountain bike park..............

 

[elliotdhmcgeary]

* At least three DH runs
* Slopestyle/Freeride course
* BMX /Dirt Jump course
* Cross Country course
* At least one cable cam set up,crane setup,dolly's, POV camera's,hired filmer's/photographer's as well as Peter and myself who have great passion for all film production.

The goal would to make this one of the best MTB park’s in the world if not the best.

Would these Downhill runs have a chairlift to make them compete with anything near the worlds best MTB parks?

 

[harmonix1234]

I puts me hands up as volunteer for track build (ops and maintenance too)

Me too. I'll be moving up to NSW in December and I have seen the success down here in Hobart of the Glenorchy MTB park.
It's nothing near as spectacular as what you have suggested, but a few years ago it was a grassy no mans land, now we have a course good enough to hold a round of the nationals down here (last two years running).

It proves that it CAN be done if you have the numbers and good planning and support.

When you need trail builders let me know. I'd be in it for the long term too.

 

[bikesarefun]

Manly Dam will still be teh bestestest.

 

[floody]

Unless you have literally tens of millions of dollars and hundreds of hectares with a massive patronage...

No.

http://www.working.com/national/resources/career/story.html?id=88820386-768a-4fae-8d0b-fccdce85a0ea

Key paragraph for you -

"Our biggest challenge is convincing ski resorts that there's a viable market and that the investment's worth it. And it's not cheap to develop (bike parks). The price for a kilometre of trail for a bike park is $30,000. And they typically need a minimum of 20 kilometres for a reasonably good product."

Thats USD I believe, and thats just bare trail infrastructure, no support infrastructure, maintenance, no land costs......

 

[SLIPPERY]

Arthurs Seat Chairlift is up for lease, Under Instructions from Parks Victoria
15880000.00sqm (approx)

 

[5h1f7y]

$30,000.....Damn that alot, would you consider that figure to be 100% correct for every situation on every bit of terrain for every different disipline of MTB track?

But i spose before i say more i'll go and read it. Edit: I would if the link worked for me anyway.

I know the idea of a chairlift appeals to everybody as it promotes the idea you get to ride more than you would if you pushed up or shuttled. Is it a viable overhead for a MTB park in Australia?

I'm not a snow person so i've never actually looked but i would assume it costs a bit to ride the chairlifts up there. I would assume maybe $60 for a pass for a day or maybe a bit less. How many people would consider paying this sort of cost to come and have a XC ride on a Saturday afternoon with some mates? If you include this type of capital/running cost with no other purpose but to take gravity assited MTBer's to the top of a hill your going broke pretty quickly i rekon.

 

[dcrofty]

$30,000.....Damn that alot, would you consider that figure to be 100% correct for every situation on every bit of terrain for every different disipline of MTB track?

I couldn't get Floody's link to work but I'm pretty sure that $30K per km figure came from whistler and is pretty much what it would cost to build a highly engineered and high traffic line like A-Line using heavy machinery.

Hand cut trail is obviously a lot cheaper, however if you are wanting people to pay to ride you probably need to be providing the more engineered jump type machine built trails and they cost the big dollars.

 

[5h1f7y]

Hand cut trail is obviously a lot cheaper, however if you are wanting people to pay to ride you probably need to be providing the more engineered jump type machine built trails and they cost the big dollars.

The stuff you have been building in Canada....$30000 a klm? The Berms and bridges and things

 

[dcrofty]

The stuff you have been building....$30000 a klm?

Nah, I'm cheap

But having said that hand built stuff can be fairly labour intensive.

The berm in this sequence here took about 90-100 man hours for perhaps 20metres of trail. I haven't done the maths but that's probably quite a lot per km. But then other sections don't cost nearly as much.

Machinery is the big cost once you start using it. But you get more done too.

Edit, saw you rephrased the question a little.

That thread that the berm sequence came from was a rehab project. Basically the land manager asked for tenders to build a new trail. My boss went for it but didn't want to do the work in winter as the ground was too wet for us to get machinery in there. So the job went to someone else. We got asked to come in and fix a few problem areas later. The pics in the thread all show work that was carried out over about 6 weeks, with two staff on site full time and rehabing about half a km of trail. We got paid about $15 an hour perhaps and my boss got something on top of that no doubt.

I don't recall what the scope of the original tender for the new trail was for but when I heard the Whistler guys talking about $30K per Km I wasn't at all surprised. Someone like sammydog could probably give a better cost for local stuff if he knows what World Trail got paid to do their thing in Glenrock.


Actually if you want expensive I worked on the grouse grind for a little while too. Building stone steps up a mountain. Crew of 5 guys for a 5 month building season so something like $50K in wages alone to build 80m of trail in a season. Thats not counting other costs like getting some of our materials helicoptered in.

Good trails cost money

 

[aloo95]

sounds awesome, if its not to far away from sydney i would be willing to help out each weekend with a shovel in hand

 

[5h1f7y]

Yeah they the trails i was talking about.....

100 man hours is quite a bit, and that is the sort of track i would be expecting if i were paying.

I pictured the stairs straight away when $30,000 was mentioned. No surprise it was more!

A few machine's are already owned and would actually live on the property, would also have the luxury of one or two full time builders.

 

[sullivanvizual]

Thanks for your reply's and no we are not 12 years old thanks for asking!

I posted this with out talking to 5h1f7y first it was at 12pm and after a full day at work and filming all day the day before so I was very tired ....

First off it's not really even possible to get Thredbo or Mt Buller on this. Correct if I'm wrong but National Park's are holding back all new trails anywhere really as stated.


As soon as winter roll's around you have to pull everything down aswell.

A chair lift is out of the question unless you know James Packer .......

RGN has good some very good ideas and is on the money for sure .

We are not just wanting to build this to film it and make an income from that.As any good filmmaker will tell you it is very hard to make a good living from it .

I would really love to see is kid's and adult's coming up to ride for a day or a weekend to progress there riding and have a great time.Have a great lunch rest up and go out again.

At the same time film and take photo's and forget about the weekly grind.

If we proceed with this project we would have the following prepared:

* Detailed Business plan.

* All course design's drawn up and photo's and footage of the area.

* Show reel from the best and latest HD footage from Sullivan Film's.

* Signed petition from as many mountain biker's,action sport's company's,action sport's lover's who would support and attend this park.

*Evidence from photo's/video's of crank work's,world cup event's,Red Bull Rampage and all other great event's from around the world


i.e. How many people attend these event's and the media exposure they gain.



For now on I will support Kurrajong Height's MTB park and Green Valley all we can through filming and attending competition's.

As we know this park will NOT happen over night!

I expect it to take a least six months to design course's,get the right support and plan many many thing's.

To get this park to it's full potential I think it would takes many year's.

If this park was to go ahead it would mean employment for many people such as:

* Trail Builder's

* Cook's

* Shop assistant's

* Coach's

* Filmer's

* Photographer's

* Cleaner's

But of course this would be the at the park's full potential and may take a long time to get to this stage.

As for funding once we get the go ahead for the land we would approach many different company's and if that's not viable we would look into funding it privately.

Of course insurance is a massive issue and probably one of our biggest hurdles.But all DH,Free Ride and MTX event's are run through club's well in Australia anyway.

I really believe if there's a will there's away.

We are adult's and hardworking people and will NOT do this half assed, if it all goes ahead.

I have ridden a mountainbike for around ten years, been to many many ski resort's and have over forty action sport's DVD's through this I have gained great experience in what works in a park.

I have filmed alot of MTX/DH event's aswell.

So I know what look's good in a photo, on film and what can be done on with land.

So please think about what you post to this, we are very very serious about getting this park going full time and don't need people bagging us before we even start .


Regards Christian

 

[brycethebomb]

I defiantly agree with Jaydawgz.
One near Melbourne would be great