Creating Venues

[Maintenance Justice]

I’ve seen a few posts recently about the general state of the trials market and inevitably participation / health of the sport. In my mind one of the biggest barriers is not having somewhere ‘official’ to ride. 
 

@Chakers1998 makes the valid point that parents don’t want to take kids to sketchy car parks after hours and prefer controlled environments like skate parks or events run in a club structure that are supervised for young children.

I’ve repurposed and added a fair bit at Tarty for the Get into trials mission but a goal for me is to create a solid location that’s publicly accessible to build on this. Disclaimer - Cocky (Luke) has already put in place the trials park I’m about to discuss, I’m not sure what his tag is but kudos is certainly due.

So what if you want to build something for yourself? Well, seeing as that’s exactly what we are doing with TNT I thought I’d share our progress as knowing how to go about this is half the battle and if I can share our lessons maybe it will inspire other groups or individuals to achieve something similar.

Location:

Barrowford pump track is where the site of the existing trials park is. It’s pretty cool but quite tech. Our goal is to add more features with a big emphasis on rideability for novices and MTB - crucial for engagement. We’ll be adding in some stuff for experienced riders too! The park came about in the first place because the land was ear marked for development as a cycling space by another club, Pendle Panthers BMX. When looking for a spot finding somewhere that already has land scheduled for or currently used for cycle sport is key, it’s much easier to gain council permission.

Cycle Clubs:

Once you’ve found your spot find who maintains / runs it! In my experience, quality spots like pump tracks are often tied to a club. Most clubs are stoked on any form of cycling so approaching them and making your case is a good start. Clubs love participation and our sport needs it so focussing on accessibility is important. Campaigning for a TGS playground will likely get you nowhere but once you get going you can add tech in later. Nothing beats face to face. Make time to meet people and show an interest in what they do.

Materials:

Quarries, building sites timber yards. These businesses (I’ve recently learned) are obliged to do some kind of community contribution and getting rid of junk (to them) material is a great way to do it. The company I’m in talks with is more than happy to supply tonnes of material and even get it to site for us for free. Amazing. These companies will want to see a coherent plan so make sure the site owner is on side before approaching them and have a good idea of what you want to do. I found this company supplied materials for the pump track in the first place which helped massively in striking up a meeting.

Mates:

Man / Girl power! Some solid I.O.U’s to mates prepared to dig or move stuff is really helpful. We got some rocks put in at Tarty with the help of a friend licensed to drive a wagon with a big grabber arm. These guys are the best, ask them nicely!

Make a plan:

Ive found councils to generally be supportive, especially if you approach those involved in cycle sport. These people have often worked with clubs on the main sites like pump tracks and skate parks so engaging with clubs is really important I think. Councils need a solid plan and again, like to see accessibility. Make it very clear what you aim to do, where the material is coming from, how you’ll get it in place and who you are working with that might already know (clubs).

OK - that’s where I’m up to! We’ve identified a site made much easier by a pump track already in place and some trials features there. I’ve approached and met in person the man behind the club who uses this space and through him met the original materials donor who is happy to help again. I met with her and outlined our plans and I’m working on arranging a visit to their compound to discuss materials and delivery. I’m working on a plan to submit to the council with the kind help of the head of the club (see why they’re so important?!) and from there we’ll be able to hopeful get the thumbs up and get materials to the site.

 

The above is the start of the plan. The colours are ‘zones’ we aim to work on and each zone will have its own unique features explained in moderate detail. We’ll need to be flexible depending on material but my hope is if we outline a strong ambition it will give a clear indication to the materials donor and council what we want to achieve.

As this progresses I’ll add updates and anyone who wants to do something similar I’d be happy to talk about what I’ve learned. 
 

Who says lengthy posts on TF are dead?

Edited September 27, 2022 by Maintenance Justice

[Paperclip]

Thanks Ben! I appreciate you stepping up and taking on the task of dealing with the council and quarries for this project. 

Originally we was told we would get the opportunity & funding to build a skills area/ MTB skills loop following on from the trials park. Maybe not in trials riding volume but it's a talking point for everybody seeing  riding done in that area. Despite that it's not all that simple when it's on council land & with the pump track running out of the same money pot any funding really needs to be spent on surface materials. So getting a quarry willing to donate items is mega. 

I remember we only got the approval of the trials park mid way through the build of the pump track as there was a previous trials area/ ruins of the original park gate entrance. So other than some additional concrete pipes Tim managed to get from a local housing development the existing items were used. They had a  8 tonne digger we managed to get in the afternoon it was due for collection and we did what we could/ nabbed as much mot sand as we could to create the surface. We tried to use the rocks in ways that opened up a few more lines with the mindset we could create more gaps, landings & take offs from the skills loop. 

There's a number of run-ups it would be great to avoid dropping things in the way of & there is a land drain I think you might have marked in green/yellow but plenty of scope kicking around. I'm really excited to see what you do with the place & if I am back up from Leicester in time I'll lend a hand where I can. 

Manny who runs the pump track is awesome the local community don't appreciate or phrase him enough. His role in helping get the trials area more accessible for everybody is huge. 

- We need a sign specific to the trials area for safety 

- We need a seesaw

- We need a seesaw, can we have a seesaw please? Thanks 

[Maintenance Justice]

9 hours ago, Paperclip said:

There's a number of run-ups it would be great to avoid dropping things in the way of & there is a land drain I think you might have marked in green/yellow but plenty of scope kicking around. I'm really excited to see what you do with the place & if I am back up from Leicester in time I'll lend a hand where I can. 

Manny who runs the pump track is awesome the local community don't appreciate or phrase him enough. His role in helping get the trials area more accessible for everybody is huge. 

- We need a sign specific to the trials area for safety 

- We need a seesaw

- We need a seesaw, can we have a seesaw please? Thanks 

Good to know your tag Luke!

I certainly want to avoid blocking any run-ups, ideally the area around the big rocks needs to be kept clear for that reason and in certain parts of the main area. It's funny you mentioning the skills loop being part of the main features by creating gaps, landings etc - that's exactly what I had in mind too, so some input here would be useful if you already have some ideas of what to do! Everyone involved will get a much better idea of my plans once drawings are complete, and then any feedback is welcome.

Whereabouts is the land drain exactly? I wasn't aware one was on the site.

I know Manny is planning on doing some improvements to the pump track very soon so I want to get the materials on site asap to make use of any plant machinery again, we can even do some pre-digging by hand if need be but I'll need someone to drive the thing! Hopefully the operator will be about on the day, but if anyone can drive one legally, that would be huge and you'd get all the Haribos.

I could put a seesaw in but I'm wary of anything moving as it inevitably will wear and degrade over time / be open to vandalism.

The sign is straight forward enough, I'm hoping to get one done with Tarty / TNT logos as well as names of all those who helped / donated materials and this can include safety and site info.

The big elephant in the room here is machinery - if anyone can help with this in any way, I'd love to hear from them!

 

 

Edited September 27, 2022 by Maintenance Justice

[Danny00135]

Can we fill in the big mario pipe to level it off at the top? So it's a tad less teeth shattering? 

If you need man power and I can get out for a bit I can pop along to help, unfortunately I can't offer big toys  it I do own a shovel 

[Maintenance Justice]

1 minute ago, Danny00135 said:

Can we fill in the big mario pipe to level it off at the top? So it's a tad less teeth shattering? 

If you need man power and I can get out for a bit I can pop along to help, unfortunately I can't offer big toys  it I do own a shovel 

Definitely! I was planning on calling the pipe cluster I’m planning ‘Mario World’…

Any help is much appreciated, ultimately it might be man power that gets it done!

[Maintenance Justice]

An update!

I’ve submitted my plans to the Council and they’ve been approved. We arranged a meeting on site to talk through my proposals and perform an on site risk assessment which I’ve submitted and is provisionally approved. 
In terms of working with the Council it’s been surprisingly easy. Again having that contact through the existing pump track users has been massively helpful and the head of the local club submitted the initial plan on my behalf.

I didn’t use a template for the plan, I just tried to keep it simple and the details concise whilst trying to relay the benefit the project will have for the community. I don’t think you need to worry about anything super official. It just needs to show your idea clearly and that you’ve thought about it carefully! I’ve attached some pictures of the plan if you’re interested in how it was laid out. 

The risk assessment was much more official! Lancashire Council had a template they use and kindly gave advice on how to fill it. As trials riders we can be a bit risk blind I think so it’s prudent to get outside advice if needed and there is much more than you might  think that needs to be considered. It’s easy enough and the on site visit was really helpful in talking through what the Council wanted to see in the assessment. 

There has been a change of plan for access. A good friend who works in concreting is helping to deliver / put in place materials and advised the planned route for delivery wasn’t suitable. He also recommended a smaller wagon! This means we can access the site via the main entrance. Having someone with knowledge and experience of lifting heavy stuff has been invaluable. The Council aren’t much help here so independent advice is a good shout and the material supplier is used to handling much bigger loads. I didn’t realise the issue with access until it was pointed out to me so a good save there.

Today I started prepping the site by moving existing obstacles to make assess for the wagon to lift the pipes in at the rear of the site. It was tough going manually digging out the tyres but I had a helping hand from Phil at Dirt Works BMX who is currently working on the pump track with a digger to move the tyres once dug out. We now have access for the wagon!

I’m looking to arrange a materials drop of the main stuff very soon so exciting things will start going In shortly.

 

 

 

Edited October 24, 2022 by Maintenance Justice

[Maintenance Justice]

An update! It's been a while since I last visited the site, the busy Christmas trading period and few other things in the background have had my full attention. However, on Saturday the 18th, we were finally able to get on site to drop materials off!

We did try and do this before Christmas but struggled to get materials off the building merchant's compound in the time we had so we scrapped the plan and decided to revisit this year. CHC (Cheetham Hill Construction) of Bury kindly donated some pipes and tyres for the first part of the project and even helped us load them too! A good friend of Tarty, Danny, helped us by borrowing a low loader with a Hiab to load and move the materials.

We had a bit of an issue with getting onto the site, the only access is a small bridge with a 17 tonne weight limit, the wagon weighs 10 tonnes empty so we were fairly restricted in what we could bring in one hit and the access road is narrow to complicate things further. Basically the worst possible access for a site and job like this! We managed to get in without too much trouble, thankfully.

With all the big, heavy, materials on site, we can now work towards getting everything in place. We decided to try and dig in a tyre to see what the ground was like to start with. We were without a digger on the day and the ground was awful, full of huge rocks about a foot down. Needless to say, we didn't achieve much but we know for sure it's diggers or nothing for getting everything in. We're needing to be fairly flexible in regard to the initial plan. We'll stick to it as closely as we can, but availability of materials, the ground itself and access are all playing a part in what is actually possible on the day. I'm sure with an army of machines and a big budget we could create something really amazing but so far, with the kind help of volunteers and free donations, I think we're doing pretty well.

What's next? I'm going to be working on getting some aggregate delivered - we'll need this to form the 'path' for the skills loop and potentially place around obstacles. I'm also going to source some natural stone to make up the 'path' of the skills loop and supplement some of the bigger obstacles. The plan next time is to have all the materials, machinery and labour on site in one hit so I've got some serious organising to do. It's been a long drag to get this far but I'm much happier now the bigger obstacles are on site. It may be some weeks or even months before we manage to organise everything and everyone to finish the job, but my goal is still to have this finished for summer.