Howdy all
Slade Valley seems to hold a special attraction for the MAD crowd, and still has plenty of development potential for race/spin circuit.
With this in mind, we are thinking of clearing a new section of trail (keenly spotted by Alan Ayling, trail finder/designer extraordinaire) up in Slade
This will serve several purposes:
1- Avoiding the c-sik section which is presently impassable (we may revive this section at some stage)
2- Adding an additional trail which could be further developed once the present felling pattern is completed
3- Reducing the amount of work needed next year if we decide to use Slade as a (NPS?) race venue
4- Enabling a complete circuit/loop for weekend or night spins
Alan has advised a section up near the aerials (see section below for description) which has development potential for a fast/flowy section.
We’ll also possibly be cleaning-up some existing sections that have gotten fairly messy over the past few months
With a reasonable amount of effort – we may be able to get this all done in the one day, which would be a great achievement.
We’d REALLY like to see as many beginners get involved as possible as you get a chance to help shape build a track that you and fellow riders
will likely be using quite often – thus when you hear other bikers praising the great trails up in Slade, you can proudly boast “hey, I helped build that!”.
OK – so when are we going to do this?
We’re thinking Saturday 25th Nov, with a 9am sharp start for an all-day session (or as long as you can spare), we’ll work til people have to head off
Bearing in mind we will very likely be having our MAD Club Champs the following weekend (2nd of Dec) according to the latest polls,
then that means we would have another option for a venue to hold our club champs.
There were some planks of wood/timber up there last week (also logs) which we may be able to use to ramp/bridge a certain section
So let me know if you can make Sat 25th – if you can only spare a few hours, or can only drop-by to throw a pack of jaffa cakes at us then no problem at all – ANY/ALL help would be much appreciated!!
In terms of tools required – here’s a list of options:
Loppers / shears, saw, rake, shovel/spade, mattock, hammer, hatchet
Most important tool are probably gonna be a rake and spade for clearing ground – if you have a mattock then that would be excellent
Don’t forget gardening gloves, boots, warm clothing and lunch and energy drink
Thanks a lot lads & ladies!!
The plan I had in mind was to use the section of open land to the north of the masts.
There is a sort of old vehicle track (double track type thing) heading roughly north across the open land, I reckon this dates from the time the trees in this area were felled a few years ago. With minimal clearance, this could be turned into a fast flowy mtb trail. About 2/3 of the way to the present tree-line you cross a sort of old ditch/bank type affair - the plan is to build a bit of a berm here to facilitate a 90 degree turn to the right - this would bring you back on a similar old track to a point on the sort of north/south path that pretty much divides the forest in two (turning R then past a fallen tree and then L would bring you onto the way down off the hill used by both MAD & IMBRC races this year).
What I’d like to do though, is cross the ditch & bank (bridge or ramp or something required) and keep going straight - this would link up with Damo Duggan’s “Area 51″ jumps trail. The latter option would take a bit more work, but not that much - a few lads for a few hours should see it done.
