PMBA

Things have been a bit quiet over Christmas hence the lack of news snippets on here. However the new year's well underway and things are beginning to hot up MTB wise across our patch so we thought we'd give you a quick taste of some of the things we've been working on. More news will also follow shortly on some of the bigger projects we've been involved so keep coming back over the next couple of weeks.

The first thing to mention is our revamped and updated trail guides for Gisburn and Lee Quarry. Hopefully you'll find a load more useful information in there including real time weather reports, interactive location maps and regular updates on the trail conditions as well as a bit of history about the trails and of course a description of the routes. WE DO ALSO NEED YOUR FEEDBACK! If you've been up the quarries or over to Gisburn let us know the latest of the conditions and we'll update the info for other riders, we try and get out as much as possible but we can't be everywhere. we're also after your feedback about your experiences on the trails and any cracking photos you've taken, we'll create a riders gallery section for each of the trails but if you don't send the stuff in we can't post it to the site. There's over 800 of you visiting the site a month, some of you must have something to say. Either email us direct at contactus@pmba.org.uk or used the feedback form at the bottom of the trails guides or the news items.

On the subject of needing your input we've identified a funding source for small projects through the Lancashire Environment Fund which could provide grants of up to £ 20k. The money has come from landfill taxes and as long as they can fulfil the objective:

'Providing, improving and maintaining public amenities and parks and community buildings, within 10 miles of a landfill site, when the work benefits the natural, social or built environment'.

All we need now is some ideas along the lines of pump tracks, BMX tracks, cycleways bridleway uprgrades etc. so if you've got any ideas or know a local group who want to do something to improve MTB facilities locally let us know.

We're already involved in a number of small projects including a new pump track development in Rossendale (away from Lee Quarry), development of new natural XC routes (more to come in the next couple of weeks), actively putting mountain bikers voices to the fore on a number of groups including the Rossendale Cycle Forum and the Three Towers Project in the West Pennine Moors, Lee Quarry developments (again watch this space for more details imminently).

We're also looking to build up a database of local volunteers who can be called upon to help out trail building, trail maintaining (Pennine Bridleway in particular), marshalling at events and anything else that people might want to help with. Again contact us with your details and what floats your boat and we'll pass your details on to those who need the help now and for future projects.

Also coming shortly will be an evening event for networking and information sharing to discuss and hopefully move forward mountain bike access issues. We're planning for a couple of guest speakers to attend and give us an access issues 101 talk. The event will be open to those who want to know more about access issues and hopefully be prepared to help take up the baton and champion better access for rider.

In summary we've been quiet but busy over the last few months, now we need more grass roots involvement which means YOU! Get in touch, we'll put your views and contributions up on the site and move things to the next level. 2012 has real potential for being a bit of landmark year for riding locally, the more of you who get involved the more momentum we'll have.