Hornsby Shire Mountain Bike Alliance

In December 2011 IMBA US Tony Boone and IMBA AU Nick Bowman spent a week doing the final flagging of the trails in Old Man Valley and Hornsby Park. What this means is that flagging tape is placed about 2 metres apart along the length of the trail. This means the flow, the technical trail features, rocks etc are identified. In total there has been about 5.6km flagged in detail. One black diamond descending trail has 11 sweeping corners and it's really exciting to walk it and see it on the ground.

In late July the Sydney North Off Road Cyclists (SNORC) (the social side of HSMBA) with the support of Turrumurra OffRoad Cyclists got stuck into cleaning up Hornsby Park. About 40 mtbers and many family members pulled out over 14 cubic metres of rubbish from years of illegal dumping and homeless camps. A huge thank you to all those involved and to Craig Starling for organising the event.

At the general meeting in July 2011 Hornsby Council Councilors have voted unanimously to move ahead with the mtb project in Hornsby Park and Old Man Valley. HSMBA members spoke on the night and Tristan W's passionate speech certainly won some of the Councilors over!

It is a time when Council is watching the budget closely and it looking to cut back on expenses. So this makes it even more special to be allocated funds. Mtbing is truly seen now as a vital part of moving with the recreational demands of our community.

Where now?

Up until now there has been no money allocated to built the mtb trails in Hornsby. Well this has now changed. Hornsby Council has obtained approval for a rates levy increase to fund infrastructure projects. The big items being funded include the pool (20 million) but we have been allocated $180,000 for building the cross country trails. This money will not go the whole way to pay for the project but its a great start. Grants have been applied for and volunteers are needing to do a big chunk of work to help obtain the funding. So start warming up!

The final report from IMBA has been finalised and it available for viewing on the Hornsby Council website.

https://businesspapers.hornsby.councilsonline.com.au/Open/2011/OC_200720...

Watch out though, its 15 meg.

This is a very good read about mtbing, the statistics about mtb and the benefits. It also shows the map of where the trails will go, and were pocket parks can be located. So if you are keen to know some details then check it out (whilst its available).

In April this year IMBA's Tony Boone (trail specialist from the US) and Nick Bowman flagged out about 6km of sustainable trails in the Hornsby Park and Old Man Valley areas. What this means is that the trails follow the "half rule" (that the slope of the trail is less than half the side slope on the hill which it is being built on). So the whole network will be between 5 to 7 % overall gradient. This provides a great footing to have a trail that will not wash away in the heavy storms that we have here.

IMBA Australia formed in late 2009. Since then they have been getting their structure sorted out. IMBA Australia are a not for profile organisation with the aim of assisting trail advocacy around Australia as well as assisting communities learn to build and maintain trails. They will need us to join in order to help pay their way to allow them to use their time to help communities like ours. They have already assisted our project a lot and we encourage you to jump on their website and look at joining up. In the future we may get more closely associated with IMBA.

Our neighbours in Ku-ring-gai Council have great plans for Golden Jubilee. Dirt Jumps, Pump Track, Hybrid Downhill trail are all approved. There is a second stage involving cross country loops and a cross country oriented skills park. This has been progressing really well until December 2010 when a local action group formed to stop the trails. They spread false information via an anonymous flier stating that we will be making noise all week, 24/7, noise from spectators, crew and riders who will be riding at a Dirt Bike Park of international renown!

Hornsby COuncil are now in the process of getting a trail consultant in to review the plans that the mountain biking community have come up with in conjunction with Council. This will involve actually flagging out the trail and finalising on the ground trail details. If you wish to be involved in the process and want to help explore. Please send us an email.

Feb 2011
The Colong Foundation made a complaint about the DECCW forums that were run. Because the forum facilitator had links to mountain bike groups (which was mentioned beforehand), they claim that it was biased and so DECCW are running another special round for the green groups. This delays the process and is unfortunate. But it is very important that anti mtb groups are shown to have a fair opportunity to put their arguments forward. This is occurring during Feb and Mar. Hopefully DECCW can then get stuck into finalising the policy and completing the first feasibility studies.