New Cycle Track

Its good that money is being spent on cycling facilities but wow…just wow. Apparently British Cycling had some involvement too. Reminds me of that pump track article not so long back and the ‘worst pump track in the UK’.

This quote made me laugh as well…

Councillor Shane Moore, Leader of Hartlepool Borough Council, said: “It is a fantastic asset for the town and, in particular, will enable young people, families, disabled people and women to cycle more safely, more often.”

It’s like someone made a pump track without the rollers?!

I suppose they could paint road markings on it and use it for Bikeability training.

What is it’s purpose ?

Not so sure it’s even big enough for Crit races.

isn’t there a bmx track there too?

How dangerous must the roads be if you choose to go and ride around that? wtaf?

Marsh Tracks in Rhyl is a 1.3km crit circuit (with BMX and pump tracks too) and Tameside is 1km.

Not to jump on the STW cynic-train – that actually looks like a good idea for a safe place for doing training and introductory cycle lessons. My team ran a survey here at work, which found one of the biggest barriers for people taking up cycling was the intimidation of having to learn on busy roads.
You could also run some decent kid sized crits on that for U12’s and below.

Yeah I’m not seeing the big issue. You can close off whatever parts you want to setup different variations of the track as desired. Looks a bit narrow for crits but not as ropey as some races anyway

Looks fine for kids circuit racing.

Looks fine for kids circuit racing.

Agreed – as a venue for local youth crits, BikeAbility classes and so on it looks pretty decent. I imagine with some grass and a few shrubs in what is now earth, it’ll look better.

Tameside is 1km with some narrow and tight corners and they use that for adult crits so there must be some scope there to use at least the outer circuit for that with the inner bit for warms ups and for kids racing.

However, as with some of the comments above, facilities like that do very little for promoting “functional” cycling like commuting, replacing short car journeys with bike journeys etc – if anything, people end up driving to them to race a bike…

I wish there had been something like that nearby when i was teaching my kids to ride, they kept crashing their balance bikes on the pump track.

Looks like a fine crit track to me, could do with a hill but beats the car parks the americans race around.

I used to go to one in North London as a kid which was great for riding on mock roads without the risk of cars running me over. It had crossings, roundabouts, traffic lights and so on, really good safe place to learn to ride.

Think it might be this place but need to ask the folks.

Local London: Lordship Rec model traffic area

This quote made me laugh as well…

Councillor Shane Moore, Leader of Hartlepool Borough Council, said: “It is a fantastic asset for the town and, in particular, will enable young people, families, disabled people and women to cycle more safely, more often.”

I can’t see anything funny in that quote but presumably it was the reference to women since you highlighted it in bold.

A lot of people lack the confidence of both riding a bike in traffic and not wobbling and falling off…… yeah I know, hard to imagine.

One of the ways to build up your
confidence is to join a club which can be pretty intimidating when you are new to it all, and no doubt even more so for an inexperienced woman who turns up to a cycling club consisting of 95% men in lycra and £4k bikes

To add to the problem women are routinely hassled whilst cycling on the roads by leering halfwits, which is unlikely to help with their already low confidence.

The new facility, backed by British Cycling, is presumably designed to give children and those with low skills to develop cycling skills in a safe environment and boost their confidence.

It will also presumably give those with certain disability who are unable to cycle on public highways the opportunity to enjoy cycling in a safe environment.

We’ve got one like that in Doncaster, locked up and pay to ride, but only for 13 hours a week of timetabled sessions.

https://www.dclt.co.uk/cycling/

A vid taken by the tarmacking crew while building it.

isn’t there a bmx track there too?

Yep! It’s good fun too.

Areas for the nippers is always a good thing but shame the plans didn’t include a pump track also, as that would have been more popular for sure. Some of the local residents were under the impression that’s what was being built, so this will end up being a disappointment for them.

I haven’t been there for years but is the BMX track off to the right of the building in the picture? Would be a shame if they’ve replaced it with this tarmac spaghetti.

Anyone know what condition the track is in? Could easily visit on our next trip to visit family in the armpit of England.

I can’t see anything funny in that quote but presumably it was the reference to women since you highlighted it in bold.

Some might see the quote as patronising to women by grouping them with children and disabled by implying they need a ‘safe space’ in order to ride a bike. It’s pointlessly gendered.

Looks fun. One of my favourite crits was on a carting circuit! I’d certainly race that if it were local.

There is a road circuit (only slightly longer) in Middlesbrough and it gets used quite a lot. Kids learn to ride, skills and coaching every weekend and a couple of clubs use it for training in the winter, sort of closed road chain gang cycle track cross. It’s next door to the velodrome but you need track bikes for that and I think the banking might have restrictions if the surface is damp so the road circuit provides all weather training. Might not be everyone’s thing but it is used.
The BMX track at Summerhill is well used and they’re keeping that so something for everyone. If you don’t fancy that there are artificial climbing boulders too. It’s a pretty good facility all round so glad the council are keeping it up as lots of these type of facilities are let fall by the wayside with cuts as an excuse.

The article says it’s 750m long, I could see some interesting crits being run on such a course perhaps? Fixed crits could be pretty good on that. Probably also handy for bikeability or other kids (or adult) teaching/coaching sessions where a flat, traffic free course would be useful.

Let’s see how long before the KOM becomes hotly contested eh?

Not everything cycling related has to be a pumptrack, trail centre or a sustrans route.

As for encouraging women to cycle, well I think we’ve discussed it on STW before but cycling both for utility and as a sport has trouble attracting and retaining female participants.
It’s probably not a terrible comment, I’m sure the quote is lacking a bit of context for the sake of brevity…

My initial reaction was very much “what the utter **** is that?” but thankfully others have provided some context and I now know what a crit is. I didn’t even realise I was considering entering one once. Learn something new every day.

It does look good for bikeability, we used to use road markings in the playground.

As for encouraging women to cycle, well I think we’ve discussed it on STW before but cycling both for utility and as a sport has trouble attracting and retaining female participants.
It’s probably not a terrible comment, I’m sure the quote is lacking a bit of context for the sake of brevity.

That’s my thoughts, there may well be plans for women only sessions in the future to give them an accessible way in that doesn’t involve getting stuck in with the guys as discussed above.

There is a decent clockwise circuit longer than 750m on that circuit with doubling back and a close to crossover which would need cones. Since BC were involved, it will definitely have been designed with a racing element to it. Some of those curves don’t looks so different to Hog Hill. Well the bottom of the hill anyway. Seriously, it’s a nice circuit. Lots of opportunities for juniors too.

Hillingdon has only just had a cut through to allow two shorter courses. It’s about twice the outer distance.

The layout provides maximum flexibility for different activities. It clearly allows segregation of different skillsets. It’s much better than a single loop and makes the track much more varied and offers opportunity for several different activities to take place at the same time.
Much like the work we did at the Hillingdon Circuit to add link sections.
Hillingdon also has quite significant use by local women of differing ethnic backgrounds who wouldn’t otherwise cycle by providing a very welcome diverse healthy facility.

There is a similar set up at Shrewsbury sports village, it gets plenty of use for kids sessions, training, evening races and as part of the CX circuit.

Have I used it? No. Can I see the point of it? Absolutely.

There’s a similar one at Harvey Haddon sports center in Nottingham – although slightly more spread out. I know that’s used by clubs for training on, crit races. It’s quite good fun to blast round it, trying to find the best line around the corners without the threat of being mown down.

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/about/article/20150910-about-bc-news-British-Cycling-welcomes-new-1-5km-closed-road-circuit-in-Nottingham-0

Pembrey has one:

This looks great…anywhere that encourages anyone who is looking to gain confidence and practice is a good thing. May not suit experienced bikers but that is absolutely fine – it will allow many people to start doing more biking. Also does look like it can be a nice crit course for some events.

I walk the dog at Summerhill most days and have been watching the track’s progress as it was being built, I wish it had been there 10 years ago when I was teaching the kids to ride.

Looks like it would be an awesome go kart track, just needs some kerbs adding

Yep similar in Leeds at the Brownlee centre, Wakefield at Thomas a Beckett school, and York at the uni sport village next to the A64. I’ve used the one at the Borwnlee centre for training and with my son for getting used to the road bike or just trying to get him to ride fatser. My son also went to the Wakefield one for kids Triathlon triaining.

They are all private and pay as you ride, but good facilities to have. They also run roller skiing sessions at York and Leeds!

I have no idea what a “crit” is.. some kind of race? You lot do realise this isn’t for STWers and their roadie dreams.
Also says new stuff will be built to enhance the BMX track, didn’t take much looking to find that.

However, there was a nice little track built near me with a winding down path and a couple of jumps (I hurt mythelf on them!) … it’s now just overgrown with grass and weeds. Lack of use and lack of maintenance… but it’s in a normal park, rather than a sports/leisure area, so maybe the Hartlepool one will have more success.

There’s a cycle track in proposal ATM in Hereford, it’s not as interesting as the one in the OP. It’s a bit of a loop around one side of an existing football pitch on the leisure centre complex.

I’ve asked various sensible questions, after the initial WTF is that for? There’s only one cycle path to and from the site, so it’s a drive to it to ride situation. The car park is a pay and display with height barriers so no roof mounted bike racks. It will be a pay and ride facility, timetabled by the local company that runs the leisure centre.

I really can’t see the point TBH.

Mrs100th is a breeze champion. So I’d guess if groups not usually found in cycling was a part of the funding bid then every group mentioned will have been used in the bid.
Assuming access is sensible it is actually probably a good space for novice riders. Mrs100ths group uses the park for novice rides.

I really can’t see the point TBH.

Training, racing, kids or inexperienced learn to ride stuff, or just being somewhere without cars trying to kill you, not really that difficult. I mean whats the point in a velodrome, those tracks are even shorter and go round in circles….

York at the uni sport village next to the A64

I coach there.

There’s quit lot of racing too. And CX on the land beside it. And track on the outdoor velodrome beside it. Trying to work out if we can get a basic MTB skills course put together too.

There’s a similar cycle track near the Brooklands museum (and Mercedes World) in Byfleet – Brooklands Community Park.
My brother lives nearby & last time I was down there I took my daughter to the park for the playground bit. The cycle track area was rammed with kids on bikes.
It looked like a great idea to me.
There were quite a few parents with their kids on balance bikes or teaching them to ride pedal bikes.

Hopefully this track will be similarly busy – it looks like it has the potential of a great facility if it gets used.