I discovered that alongside the Gawton DH tracks near Tavistock there is a set of trails called Tavi-Woodlands. Anyone know what they are like? I’ve inlaws rather close and next time we go down I might want to take the bike…

Its a couple of miles down the road.Thought there were directions on the Woodland riders website.I prefer it to Gawton,more tracks and some of the slippiest sections you could ever ride if its wet.

Intetesting….. is it pay to ride like Gawton?

we rode there and I think it was free. We didn’t pay anyway. Lots of fun, short dh-y tracks. Probably didn’t find them all. Big slag heaps you can ride down too (apparently full of arsnic). worth a trip

Yep you can buy a day pass here
http://www.dartmoorcycles.co.uk/
Woods are here
http://www.woodlandriders.com/location.php

They are really lovely trails.

Guys, please note that Tavi-Woodlands is not free to ride, you need to buy a day pass (£5) or be a member. You can buy daypasses on-line at http://www.woodlandriders.com/daypass/daypass-online.php
Please be honest and buy your day-passes before you go. Also DO NOT “ride down the big slag heaps”, stick to the marked & signed tracks. The very large brown slag heaps are strictly out of bounds.

Having said all that Tavi-Woodlands is a great place to ride.

Is there still a blue stream at the bottom. Familiar with this area long before mtbers dicovered it.

Arsenic in the slag heaps – I should say so 😆

I spent many years using Gawton and Devon Great Consols as areas for our research. The Gawton area has high Lead content, despite the Blue Stream, ( Copper content )and Blanchford Down ( D.G.C. ) was the largest Copper mine in the world around the 1870’s, and as pointed out, when mining Copper you get Arsenic too! ….*huge* amounts are still left in the slags and the area in general is stuffed with heavy metal residues. Nothing to do with aging rockers in leather!
The remains of the horizontal chimneys, with internal baffles to slow up the smoke,is where the Arsenic sublimated out onto, where they sent the women in to scrape it off the baffles. They didn’t last long, but did have lovely hair!
I’d follow the advice above and only stay on marked trails, for you health’s sake!
Q

Did my MSc thesis on that area, so know / knew it well. Gawton flue was one place you could get pretty pure arsenic crystals (As2O3?)

Wasn’t the Gawton chimney, along the valley side then up into a stack, the longest chimney flue ever/in Europe or something? Early pictures of it around 19C showed something similar to a Vietnam defoliation zone…..incredible it’s regenerated like it has.
We used to get our Arsenic from the DGC baffles, just above the calciner, where in amongst all this heavy metal mayhem, was a clump of Common Orchids in spring!
What was your MsC on?…and where?
Q

Tempted to enter the Winter DH Series in a few weeks at Woodlands. Need to get up there and and see what the trails are like first tho! Rode Gawton for the first time a few weeks back and loved it.

Woodlands sounds like a bit like my local DH trails at Poldice…only with less arsenic 😀

Spent a lot of time riding Tavi – awesome!

Christowkid..

Looked at the geochemical mobility of Fe, Cu, As, Pb and Zn in the Tamar Valley mining district as part of a Mining Geology masters.

I did a geochemical reconnaissance survey covering the Lynher and Tamar catchments from Luckett / Kelly Bray in the North to about Gawton in the south. Included the major mining areas in Luckett Valley, Redmoor, Kit Hill, Gunnislake, DGC, Bedford Consols, Drakewalls etc.

Then used the reconnaissance to do a detailed study of five areas including DGC and Gawton.

Subsequently done a lot of work on the mining in Devon and Cornwall, including a database of every mining site (& its likely geochemistry) in SW England for NRA. Worked on Wheal Jane and Geevor closures / flooding, and have done a lot since in the Carnon Valley…

… but have still seen nothing like the Gawton stream, anywhere.

Poldice…only with less arsenic

Wouldn’t be too sure of that…

Poldice and Devon Great Consols were both leading producers of arsenic. IIRC there is a fairly well defined area of arsenic in the Poldice valley (white coloured spoil heap with no vegetation?).

Devon Great Consols was the biggest arsenic producer in Europe, and is reputed to have sustained the American civil war by means of it’s arsenic production.

The main lode at DGC was so wide that specially imported timber (from N America) was required for shoring

Yeah I meant Poldice has more aresenic. I have no facts to base that on, I just mean by the fact there’s now an offical ‘leisure’ (MTB) area at Woodlands so must be safe in those areas in that respect, whereas Poldice is still realtively ‘untreated’ mining wastegound.

That defined area of arsenic at Poldice is a popular freeridey play area for local ‘groms’ despite the signs with the skull and crossbones on ❗

rkk01 is on the nail here.
The lack of vegetation is down to Copper in soil messing up several enzyme systems/sulphate uptake, and Arsenic chucked in for good measure. Our line of research was into the tolerance of plants to heavy metals, so if plant is tolerant to copper it’s co-tolerant to Arsenic. Very little is tolerant on DGC hence the absolutely barren landscape!
My academic supervisor went and sampled the neolithic lead mines of Harz mtns, Germany and they are still absolutely bare 10,000years(?) later.
The ‘Arsenic’ bit is interesting as I live about 1.5miles away from wheal Exmouth in Teign Valley, which has *stunning* levels of Lead, but everyone assumes it’s Arsenic cos it’s poisonous and nothing grows!

rkk01 – Before I bore everyone else silly, I’d love a chat to compare notes. Went to Wheal Jane shortly after plug blew, and can relate some interesting tales if you’re at all interest.
I’m
quintoncumbesATtiscaliDOTcoDOTuk

and we can let the bikey blokes talk bikes!
cheers
Q

To the other peeps, Apologies, didn’t mean to hijack the thread into a theme about mines.
In a nutshell, what we’re blathering on about is that ex-mine sites are often incredibly toxic areas,and possibly always will be. If you do use them please be aware of this.
Q

In a nutshell, what we’re blathering on about is that ex-mine sites are often incredibly toxic areas,and possibly always will be. If you do use them please be aware of this.

There is some ongoing human health risk assessment for a well known “red” site (think planets) in Cornwall. The work focuses on risks to mountain bikers. Arsenic in the loose, unvegetated soils does present a very real risk to mountain bikers using some of these former mining sites – through inhalation of dust, ingestion of mud and skin contact with mud and dust.

Using a variety of riding sites, reducing time and frequency at any one riding spot and practicing good hygiene should all help to manage risks to an “acceptable” level… ie, try not to get covered in mud (full face helmet should reduce mud splatters around the mouth), try to reduce dust inhalation (eg not directly following other riders in dry dusty conditions), use full length jersey / pants to reduce skin contact.

Christowkid, rkk01: out of interest what do you guys do for work now? and rkk01 as a geo-environmental engineer working in the SW your masters paper sounds like it would be worth a read… have you got a copy / is there somewhere I can find it?

You might be interested that there are privately funded studies underway near tavi that are doing trails into the bio-accessibility of As etc at the moment… to reassess the current SGV value. Some interesting work.

You might be interested that there are privately funded studies underway near tavi that are doing trails into the bio-accessibility of As etc at the moment… to reassess the current SGV value. Some interesting work.

Don’t really bother with SGVs – look at each case individually, always use PBET / SBET or other testing methodologies. For mtb use it is the exposure assumptions that are difficult to tie down…

Don’t really bother with SGVs – look at each case individually, always use PBET / SBET or other testing methodologies. For mtb use it is the exposure assumptions that are difficult to tie down…

true true, although some contaminated land officers take some convincing, as do some tight fisted clients as PBET testing isn’t the cheapest option.

I take it you work in contaminated land? who for?