Trail building is finished for now!

Jeff Carter and James Dodds from Southstar Adventures of Rotorua have completed a week's work on behalf of the club to build new trails out in the recently logged area of North Mangamahoe.

This is what the area looked like and by the end of the week, a new loop track on top of the hill was constructed with links back into the existing network in the forest. They also cleared the old 4WD track leading from the northern end of the Samurai Set down to the river flat. There they completed a small loop on top of a ridge over looking the river.

The new trails will need some packing down and you riding them now they have finished will assist.


Here are some photos of the trail building in progress:

Trail building proposal approved by the NPDC Parks Dept.

The trail building proposal that was submitted to the New Plymouth District Council's Parks Dept at the end of June has been approved.

The first set of trails is scheduled to be constructed by using NPDC approved contractors (Southstar Adventures Ltd http://www.southstaradventures.com/) to build trails in the northern area of the forest that has recently been logged, see the yellow and magenta trails below. This work is planned for the week commencing 21st July. Cross fingers for fine weather!

The funding to pay the contractors would initially come from the Transit NZ compensation money received in 2001, currently held by the NPDC in its suspense account. Any balance would come from the club's current account. Application has been made to Ground Effect for assistance from their slush fund.

The plan also outlined the future trail building requirements at the southern end of the park during the summer of 2008-2009 that will depend on the outcome of the new District Cemetary consultations. Plus in the longer term, replacement trails for the area to be logged mid 2009 (Dress Circle/Samurai Set back south to Thomas's tracks).

The club hopes that these successful negotiations will also lead onto to a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the club and the NPDC regarding the long term trail development, promotion and maintenance of the mountain bike facilities at the Mangamahoe Forest.

Committee Meeting held June

The meeting was on the 25th June at Sport Taranaki, starting 7.30 pm.

June's meeting's minutes: http://www.drivehq.com/file/df.aspx/publish/Rocket_Engineer/PublicFolder/2008_06_Committee_Minutes.pdf

May's meeting's minutes: http://www.drivehq.com/file/df.aspx/publish/Rocket_Engineer/PublicFolder/2008_05_Committee_Minutes.pdf

Trail building proposal submitted to the NPDC Park Dept.

A proposal has been submitted to the New Plymouth District Council's Parks Dept to use approved contractors to construct new singletrack trails in the northern area of Mangamahoe Forest.

We plan to do this in the immediate term by using NPDC approved contractors (Southstar Adventures Ltd) to build trails in the northern area of the forest that has recently been logged, see the yellow trails below. The funding to pay the contractors would initially come from the Transit NZ compensation money received in 2001, currently held by the NPDC in its suspense account.

The club hopes that this proposal will also lead onto to a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the club and the NPDC regarding the long term trail development, promotion and maintenance of the mountain bike facilities at the Mangamahoe Forest.

Track Marking Out North Mangamahoe

Members of the NP Mountainbikers club have been marking out routes for replacement XC trails in the recently logged northern area of Mangamahoe.

Work involved determining routes, marking out with a string line and tape and attaching to posts, stumps etc. GPS shows about 2900 metres of track marked out so far and there is more to go. The trail links back into the existing trails left in the unlogged area to the south plus lead down to the recent logging skid area at the northern end adjacent to the access road.

The yellow trails show what has been marked out, the magenta ones are what are planned, the red and green lines show existing roads and singletrack trails:

The timber lying on the ground along the route needs to be cleared away with a digger and some grooming of what is left is envisaged. Then the trees will be planted around the trails.