Been a while...

It’s been a fair old while since I last posted here – pretty slack really – but then again, been pretty busy too.

November was a house move to something bigger (closer to trails, too! Woot!), ready for our second child and a return to full-time work for me.

December was ‘on-call’ for baby, until Christmas Day (yes, really…) saw our son born.

Jan, Feb, March and April have seen work ramp up, birthdays get celebrated and Uni start to add to the bigger, and therefore busier, family life. Time for thoughts and theories, articles and blogs have been somewhat lost – as has riding time to some degree.

Yet somewhere in the blur, other MTB stuff did happen; a GPS was acquired and consequent Strava-ness has taken hold, new (to me) trails have been searched out and found – though arguably best of all on the MTB front, brand new trails have been put in the dirt over at Craigburn Farm.

I’ve still only managed a single ride over there – and the trails were still fairly fresh. They were also an awful lot of fun! However, perhaps more important than getting new trails (is that really possible? Hmmm…) is the fact that this is on DENR land. As in, Parks. As in, the biggest land manager in the state, who also happens to have kept most tracks and trails off-limits to MTBers to date.

So, from a few pootle-y bits of firetrail, some gravel topped shared use trail and lots of “no bike” signs, there is suddenly a trail network that is being actively promoted to the MTB community – this w’end sees the trails host the AMBC 6 hour enduro! – and that was built by an MTBer (Patto and crew at Trailscapes). Quite a change.

Even better is that more such trail is in the pipeline. Cobblers Creek to the north of town is getting a new shared use network in the same vein. Different soil type, different topography, but still trail to ride unashamedly. Pretty amazing stuff.

However, I hope the wider community doesn’t let this chance slip by and we are left with just two (small) trail networks; the original State MTB plan saw a bunch of reviews and targets and played a major roll in getting Eagle out of the ether and onto the dirt. But then it went a bit quiet. Everything was looking good and Eagle was exciting and new and fresh… now it is hammered by the increased numbers of riders out on any given day and needing the supporting cast of previously proposed trails to eventuate and relieve some of the pressure on it.

I know that SAMBA are trying to seek funding to allow for a review of the original State MTB plan and implementation of a new one, in order to drive the provision of MTB suitable infrastructure forward – and keep that drive going; I hope that the wider community gets behind them and helps to get such an agreement sorted; we’ll all benefit in the long term and really start to stamp Adelaide as a city with trail accessibility to rival the likes of Canberra or Rotorua.