Hornsby Shire Mountain Bike Alliance

Fantastic news with Hornsby Council to host an upcoming IMBA workshop here in Hornsby. Joey Klein of IMBA USA and Nick Bowman if IMBA Australia will be running the workshops in late April. These will be aimed at land managers primarily although some mtbers will be going along. National Parks and Wildlife Service are the major sponsor for the workshops which is also exciting. NPWS are committed to understanding IMBA techniques. These can improve the sustainability of walking and mtb trails. Longer term there will be more workshops that will be aimed at specifically training the community in building techniques. Let all hope that Councilors, council management and some Bush Management Advisory Committee members get along to the workshops are part of the presentations because if they can learn about the IMBA model for sustainable trails then it will help our cause. At the moment we are hampered by ignorance. An report written by Frances Scarano shows the huge knowledge gap. This report is now available in the Hornsby library as it was submitted as a reference document. This document concluded with the following words.

"Good bush cannot be sustained as good bush if you put in mountain bikes as the track itself cannot remain in the one place. Tyre grooving and the maintenance technique of shaving down of the track will bring the track below ground level so it has to be moved. Throwing the shavings into the bush virtually puts weed seeds into the bush. Over time all the bush will disappear under the track and all the weeds brought in by its construction, maintenance and use."

We don't actually know exactly what this means but it does show a lack of understanding by conservationists. We are trying to address this with letters and communicating with the various conservationist groups but the IMBA workshops are a key to education.