PMBA

Free Car Parking for Volunteers at Gisburn & Beyond

Work is now underway on the new car park at Gisburn with the area having been marked out and cleared of trees. The power lines running along the road have now been buried and the telegraph poles removed and a significant amount of stone has been dug out up in the quarry for surfacing the new area. The forestry team were out brashing through the route of the new singletrack links last week in preparation for the trail building contractors coming on site this week.

Car parking charges will come into force once the new car park is completed (the pay and display machine was delivered last July!). Charges are being set at a very reasonable rate of £3 per day with monies raised going back into trail maintenance and construction (actually the money will be supplementing the already significant investment the Forestry Commission spends each year to keep the trails rideable and the volunteers expanding the network).

Now for the really good news, in recognition of the work the trail building volunteers have put in, free annual car parking passes are going to be issued. Three dig days per year will entitle a trail builder to an annual car parking pass for Gisburn. However it gets better, put an extra 2 dig days in and you'll get a car parking pass covering most of the forests in Northern England including Whinlatter, Grizedale, Kielder and Hamsterley.

We're making really good progress on the link to the swoopy section with over 200m of trail constructed in eight weeks, 200m to go to link it up. The more people that turn out the faster we'll have the section completed and another kilometre of singletrack added to the red route. One request though, please don't ride the trail until it's officially open, especially if it's not been properly surfaced. We know you're all keen to ride the new section, so are we, but if people ride the trail before it's surfaced and bedded in it slows down the whole build process. In particular kepep off any dug out but unsurfaced sections. Riding these absolutely trashes them which means not only do we have to re-dig them, we also have to haul in twice the stone and gravel to surface them.

If you've been thinking of giving the Gisburn crew a hand now's the time to do it and start racking up those dig days for your free parking pass. There's loads of information on the Gisburn Volunteers Page or you can contact us directly and we'll get your name on the Gisburn Volunteers mailing list (contactus@pmba.org.uk). Volunteer built trail is now approaching the 3km mark, that's the equivalent of £ 75,000 worth of contractor time, more if you factor in the fact contractors charge extra for trail features and drainage. If you ever wondered whether the volunteers efforts made any serious difference be assured they do.

In other trail developments the forestry team have their sights on repairs to 'bottoms', the rooty section that'ssuffered rather badly over the winter. Don't worry we know how much the tech fest the roots offer is appreciated, the repairs will be done sympathetically to maintain the character of the roots whilst making the whole section much more sustainable. For those of you who really don't get the whole riding slippery, treacherous roots thing there'll be a chicken run installed alongside.

Hope have also once again very generously supported the trail builders by providing a number of vinyl banners for free. You'll see them up in various places on the trails, especially close to where ever we're currently working. So  thank to Hope for their generosity.