Oops forgot about this existing topic. I went today. Its good if your in Manchester. Worth the visit.

Yes I knew of th ewebsite but thinking of taking my young kids to the pump track practice bit so is it next to The national cycling centre or at Phillips park?- ie where should i park?
Is it suitable for young uns 7 & 6 for a play/learn?
Does anyone know?

It’s literally over the road from the velodrome, on google maps its across Fairclough Street so you should be able to park at the velodrome but it would be easier on the bottom car park, not the one near Evans so go past McDs, straight ahead at the roundabout follow that road to the car park on the right.

You can’t miss it but follow the old viaduct and its right by that. In terms of the little ones, on the open day there was lots of kids on the pump track as it can be separated from the rest of the track so they don’t have to do the tabletops etc.

It’s great that Manchester is getting a mountain bike play area, but does anyone care about the mxers, i mean they have been around a long time and never get anywhere official to ride and are just hounded but dont you think its time that the council made some time to allocate some where that they could ride legally instead of simply chasing them around?
It’s the same in Leeds and Id like to see some of the old sites where they used to ride be opened up properly for the mx lads to enjoy themselves.

It’s a good idea, but most of the casual MX’ers don’t have road legal bikes, insurance, or the means to transport those bikes legally to the places they ride.

The legal MX’ers, trail riders and trials competitors are not the problem – it’s the scrotes who cause us problems.

And in all honesty, I think a nice big crusher and increased enforcement is the only answer.

Here’s the trails map taken from the manchester council planning portal

http://www.publicaccess.manchester.gov.uk/associateddocs/selecteddoc.aspx?100329-dpp-0009.pdf

This is the planning application, there are loads of plans and info on there to waste a lunch going over, they may have changed slightly since submission but it gives a good overview

http://pa.manchester.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=M9GE69BC6K000

Was out there yesterday and the trails are great, even though I was probably riding in the wrong direction. Still a fair bit of work to do by the opening date, will be superb when finished. The skills section is completely done, looks spot on and was being well used already, though I didn’t have the desire to go round it on my narrow-tyred commuter boneshaker.

And thanks to STW reader Chris – we had a word while rambling round the new tracks and he pointed me in the direction of some other interesting trails nearer to me – nice one!

This site seem to have been updated with a map and some good images if your interested http://claytonvaletrails.org/

some of you guys seem concerned about the local riff-raff, I can honestly say I’ve never had a problem, everybody seems to busy having fun:) loads of places to park etc, get down on your 3k rig or your halfords special, ride what you bring it really doesn’t matter, you wont be disappointed 😉

Cool. Not too far from work, might give it a go

Went today and very impressed. Don’t think we’ll be heading to Lee Quarry for a while

Went and had a look at the new bits today, got to say i prefer the ‘red’ sections to the ‘black’ as they flow better.
As for direction of travel its clockwise from the arches although Imo after riding it once you should get an idea.

For those worried about scrotes, as se7en983 says, i wouldn’t worry too much, been going through for years and had no bother, the scrotes are on there having a laugh as well.

I’d say its money well spent already, the amount of families out trying the easier sections is fantastic, if even a small proportion get more into it then that’ll be great.

Give it another week or so and they should be finished and onto sign posting.

As for mx’ers, this was discussed at the beginning and iirc and from talking to the builders, new gating os supposed to be going in at the access points.

The waymarking needs work, I assume that’ll come once all the trails are finished?

Official update on the site…

http://www.nationalcyclingcentre.com/p/mtb-trails-2

Opens 27th May 12-4pm.

Local riff raff? I dressed in jog pants, socks tucked in and struck up a conversation with two british cycling wearing guys, one blanked me the other looked bored.

So wearing locals stuff works and with the arrogant **** 😆

Amazing place, but motorbikes are going to be an issue I was up there the otherday and some lads were going round the wrong way on a motorbike.
They need to do somthing about it before someone gets hurt, possibly look at building something they can use, or someone patrolling the area and stopping them and introducing them to mtbing. Get them to hire a bike so they can use it for what it was built for and they fill find it will be more fun get them involved.

@phila77 the motos are an issue but i’m sure it will be sorted soon..(hopefully)