Public pump track building – advice and experiences?

Hi,
I am hoping to approach a local community sports field with the intent to propose the building of a pump track, there is a play park in the village that is designed around the needs of primary school children, but there is nothing for older children or those children that ride bikes, so I’m fairly sure that it would get use, has anyone any experience of this kind of thing? what advice would you offer?
A checklist of things I might need to know before I make my approach would be helpful, cheers.

Check out a post on Architrail’s facebook page. It might give you a starting point.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Architrail/109472799129220

It should be the 5th post down.

Cheers Sam, just want to be prearmed before I go to see the committee.

Book: Welcome to Pump Track Nation

Thanks Chief, got the ‘bible’ just need someone to say Yes.

We’ve recently had one built in Clyne Valley (Swansea) by Jason Carpenter.
Im not 100% on the financing of it but the Council Parks Dept paid some of it and had a Euro grant for the rest ( I think)
http://www.dragondownhill.co.uk/2004site/BMX.htm
that’s Jasons website, we had some problems but in the end the Parks Dept worked really hard to get it sorted so I’d start there if I were you.

Cheers Spev.
Interesting that the low end build cost of a pump track is £15K, wonder how big/small that would be? I’m not sure intially that i’d get a budget, but I know people who work in plant hire and such, a friend who is an insurnace broker, so a self build using the PTN book as above might be an option.
I think I need to go see one of the committee members and get a feeling for how they’d view such a project.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Monmouth-Pumptrack/213573658708889

A few of my riding buddies did a similar thing in Monmouth. Contact them via the FB page and they may have some good pointers.

Thanks Rickos, looks similar to what I’d ideally like to create.(in my wildest dreams!)

Try contacting WordClassAccident on here. He recently worked with the local council to get one built at Lordshill in Southampton. Think Rowen Sorrell was the winning bidder. Think it came in under 10k.

His email is in his profile.

Thanks Field Marshall, I remembered a thread about someone building one, but couldn’t remember who? or find it.
Cheers, I’ll drop him a line.

WCA profile links straight to the BigBigBash, and I can’t see any contact info other than that………maybe he’ll see the thread?
😀

His email is at the bottom of his profile.

There was also an article in the latest MBR (shame on me) about a community build in Tottenham.

Try this link

http://www.thetrax.co.uk/

SingletrAction have built 2 or 3 pump tracks. Chairman, Cheeky Monkey off here is in Gibraltar building tunnels at the mo, but knows his stuff about it. I think the bible of pump tracks is ‘pump track nation’ linked above^.

If you did all the work with a bunch of volunteers and a cheap digger, how much do you think it would cost?

Rowan came to look at ours but during the original process(before parks got involved) the council guy was a complete tosser. It looked like we wouldn’t get it but then parks sorted it. Ours is a tidy size but is a one lap only track with only the one line.we’d have preferred a loop with line switching but beggars can’t be choosers. It cost In the region of 15k ( I think) , I’ll see if I can find some pics to give you an idea of what we have

http://swanseabikeshop.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html
Scroll down a bit
That’s the best pic I can find at the moment

Thanks for all your help, I’m going to try and catch up with a member of the playing fields committee tonight, so I’ll let you know how it goes,
cheers
Jono.

There was also an article in the latest MBR (shame on me) about a community build in Tottenham.

Try this link

http://www.thetrax.co.uk/

The Tottenham one was a Rowan Sorrell build as well. The contact details for the guy behind the project are here or he’s on twitter if that’s any help.

Blast[/url] to the forum….

http://www.wembiketrack.co.uk/

A story of determination against the unbelievable bureaucracy of local government, with no end in sight yet.

Hi
Singletraction estimate for the next pump track is, I think, roughly £3500.
This is buying the material, using a digger to put it place and shape by Volunteers 🙂

Thing is about the Singletraction pump tracks is their members are always going on about them even though they are cack !

I’ve never seen anyone do even one lap of any of them properly (ie without pedalling).

Yet places like Lee Quarry, Llandegla, Hales superbowl have excellent pump tracks that really work and have multiple lines. If you want examples of proper good ones check them out.

steel4real

We at Singletraction make no claims at being world renowned at building pumptracks. Its a steep learning curve and I’m not sure you can compare our stuff (built at almost no cost) with the big, machine, contractor stuff at Lee Quarry/LLandegla.

No1 – Stainburn, our first attempt,scratched out of dirt.

No2 – Buck Woods, small but perfectly forms, your speed will just get faster with each lap.

No3 – Dalby, bigger still (not ridden it myself so no opinion)

With each build we learn a little more.

Stainburn is waiting for funding for a proper rebuild. Save your judging till its done and even then please bear in mind it will still cost a fraction of Lee Quarry or Llandegla.

Or come along and help build it 😀

Preliminary meeting with one of the committee members on Thursday, thanks for all the help so far.

It looks like I’ll get to present my proposal to the rest of the committee as it was quite well recieved.
Other than Jason Carpenter and Rowan Sorrell, are there any other companies that build commercial pump tracks?
(No offence to the Singletraction, but I’m not sure I could propose to be part of your learning curve, but good luck!)
I mentioned the figure of £15K for a small pump track ( taken from Jason’s site) and no one even blinked, so I’m thinking that getting funding might be possible.

Phil Saxena makes good 4X tracks, might be worth contacting him.

Thing is about the Singletraction pump tracks is their members are always going on about them even though they are cack !

I’ve never seen anyone do even one lap of any of them properly (ie without pedalling).

I’d suggest finding some better riders to watch. They’re not perfect and could do with some opportunity to reverse your direction without having to stop but you can ride them without pedaling.

to be fair the Stainburn one is gash but everyone knows that. If you can’t make it round the one at busk woods without pedalling then you’re shit, simple as.

Good luck jwt.

No doubt about it, if you can get funding then that’s the way to go.

+1 for Architrail and what about Clixbys?

Hi. I have got permission to get one built in the Southampton sports centre. i will try and dig out the details of the proposal. Main problem is just how much it drags on. I am building more than just a pump track (track 4).

We are planning on doing a lot of the build with local volunteers. rowan Sorrell’s company is basically building tracks 5, 6 and 7 but offering advice on the rest.

Here is a diary of (lack of) progress. It started last March and we haven’t cut turf yet! http://southamptoncycle.wordpress.com/diary-of-progress/

email me if you want more. I can share my detailed proposal document I took to the council and anything else i can find.

Good luck and be persistent. Try to show how inclusive the facility is.

We’ve just had a rash of pump tracks built in Bristol, starting with this one:

The main hurdle we had to overcome was showing that there was demand for the facility – the budget was found pretty easily, £10-15k isn’t much compared to a new skatepark or full size BMX track. There is more money coming in to local authorities this year for infrastructure projects than in previous years, so get this on their radar ASAP.

Get local riding groups excited about it, use social media, make contacts in parks groups and residents’ associations, and generally stress how accessible they are to all abilities and types of rider.

In terms of who to build it, it’ll be put out to tender, but you want to make sure this is circulated to people who know what they’re doing – Architrail, Back On Track, Dragon Downhill, etc. The worst case scenario is it gets built by a generic landscaping contractor who will build something that cosmetically looks ok but is rubbish to ride. Try and be involved in the tender process if possible.

As everyone says, it can be VERY slow going, expect glacial decision speeds throughout. In terms of actual time though, it’s not too demanding and it’ll be worth it!

Thanks again for all your replies, I have to wait until early Feb. now to pitch to the full committee.
One question I was asked last night that I couldn’t answer, do you need planning permission?
(And good luck to eveyone with ongoing projects)

You’ll almost certainly need planning permission if it’s going to be permanent and made from anything other than dirt (e.g. tarmac or block paved berms).

Don’t need planning permission in the Sports Centre because it is a purely dirt construction and therefore isn’t considered permanent

the pump track recently built at the “Lordship” Recreational ground in Tottenham, N London is basically sh*t 🙁

I don’t say this lightly because it obvious alot of money, time and effort has been spent building this new facility

its not a pump track, pump trail or whatever they are claiming its supposed to be, and many london riders who have ventured to the facility on both BMX and MTBs have expressed the same opinion; don’t let the photo above fool you, once you have your wheels on the dirt its just damn frustrating to ride, regardless of your skill levels (I am a former BMX racer and Pro MTB freerider)

its badly built, does not flow or pump properly, has a mismatch of wrong sized / shaped pumps (typically way too sharp) and flat berms, has drainage issues with puddling between many pump bumps and already looks like an old worn-out / rutted BMX track despite opening very recently

too many long flat sections leading into small/sharp bumps you cannot “pump”

you have to pedal around 1/2 the track which is always the sign of a poorly built “pump track”, there are flat straights leading into lame berms which you have to pedal out of, to try and pick up enough speed to get over a size-mismatched tabletop and bumps

and it doesn’t even re-circulate but has a start “mound” that is much too low for the first section, and a “run out” at the end that leads to nowhere except skidding to a stop, turning around, and pushing your bike up the start mound

very poor, considering the ££ spent?

whoever built this abomination has obviously never built and ridden proper pump tracks, or something went very wrong during the handover from the designers to the builders?

riders have approached the management asking to “help rebuild” for free, but met with “we are doing some maintenance including raking some gravel…”

Had a meeting with the playing fields committee on Thursday night, they are being very supportive and are keen to go ahead with a pump track, however they are looking for 100% funding from grants to finance the build, I’m not sure how to go about it?
My first thought is to get some quotes so I know roughly what it will cost then start to approach Sport England and the lottery commission for funding, is this how others progressed?
Any help? please?

HI Jono, Any use?
http://www.sportengland.org/funding/small_grants.aspx
A

try approaching your local CTC rep and/or BC/IMBA.

Thanks guys, any more for any more?

Been a bit busy the last week or so, but the current question is do I get some quotes and then look for funding? is that what others have done?
Just getting together a draft email to see what responses I get from Track builders.