Ed was dead helpful on the Ilkley Moor access issue when it all blew up due to some pretty NIMBY attitudes a few years ago. Off the back of this a new access agreement got negotiated with BradMet. It’s poorly publicised but, most significantly, legitimises the responsible use of the Moor by bike riders. That is the Moor owned by BradMet which is only part of the wider Rombalds Moor area.

Fingers crossed with the Moorland owner that Ed is talking to about access. SingletrAction is waiting for the call to assist. Certainly we have tools, a volunteer manpower force (ish – being volunteers it’s hard to guarantee their presence ;-) and considerable experience of design, specification and construction. There’s no point in agreeing this and getting materials to then do poor quality work :-)

Ed was also key to development of the Buck Woods / Thackley skills spot. That place went from being badly laid out, barely achieving any of its potential to have several jump lines with opportunities for progression and a pump track. Result.

The more people that talk and get involved, the more chance we all have of making Leeds / Bradford and the wider area an even more stonking place to ride.

It actually amazes me that there are trail builders on here slagging off others trails. WTF??

Trouble is, when you’ve built some stuff it actually becomes very easy to see faults in other trails. Pretty quickly most folks also realise that a trail is often the result of a multitude of compromises throughout the period of development be it time, money, alignmnet, experience etc etc. And then most people shut up or put the comments across in the best way at all possible without telling the poor bugger’s who’ve spent umpteen weekends grafting that their efforts are “crap”. They rarely are, but often they can be improved (albeit with hindsight, experience or a disregard for the local practicalities). We’ve rebuilt (and I hope improved) loads of stuff :blush:

Also, it has to be admitted, (volunteer) trail builders are incredibly prickly about their babies. Often rightly though sometimes not so. 8-)

1) Costs, how about all the people that moan about how much the FC charge for parking make a list of all the FC centres where cyclists are welcomed and a second one of all the non FC forests that do likewise?
2) Lack on investment in trails: You may have missed the fact, but the FC are currently making about 25% of their staff redundant. There is no money in the kitty. they are however, actively supporting volunteer groups and facilitating opportunities to build trails.
3)…. Oh bumbiscuits I can’t be bothered …. see here It’s not like any of this has ever come up before

I hear you and agree on some stuff. I do have a bit of a contrary view that it’s already public land, publicly funded etc so the kneee jerk response of “just pay parking” isn’t always appropriate. Plus there are issues of performance regarding some elements of FC (although I’m sure in many cases we don’t know the “full story”). Also, for example, spending umpteen million on Glentress makes some people think some of FC’s “work” is rather self serving. They are also, IMO, lacking in some real-world commercial experience / realism.

Saying all that without FC we probably wouldn’t have the woods or the trails and I firmly believe that something is better than nothing. I know and talk to a number of FC staff / cycle rangers / local authority rangers etc. I hope everything I’ve said is balanced and not taken as being too sweeping or in any way deliberately nasty. I’d be the first to agree that some “volunteers” can be utter c8cks too ;-)

That apart, FC linked trail builders how about we hook up and swop knowledge? Tried it via IMBA and it was less than useless to the point that we’ve canceled our membership.

Sounds good, although I think there could be good and not so good ways of doing this. Think we’ve emailed about it before. I’m always happy to talk though (chairman@singletraction.org.uk).

Try the RoW officer in the local authority?

Not such a “legal” option and, in theory, these are the professionls at dealing with such issues.

Not sure why someone posting before thinks a group of folks legitimately using a public right of way ought to announce their intention to do so to an arsey (or any other for that matter) landowner / occupier? Weird way of looking at the world IMO.

Personal taste it is then?

Absolutely. Sure there are some poorly designed, badly executed trails (or parts of them) but in the majority they’re extra places to ride. What’s to bitch about in that, really?

8-)

We would love to build some “decent trails” but there is no money and no labour. Each trail build is just the same dozen or so of us who turn out all the time just to have our work abused by people who don’t help, ignore the “trail under construction – do not ride” signs which damages new bits causing us more work, and ride down trails we have closed to work on and abuse us for ruining their ride when we try and make things better.

I could have written that about any of the SingletrAction sites, LOL.

Apparently Singletraction shot themselves in the foot a bit with the FC ranger by generaly anoying him, hence nothing gets done.

I’d love to know how you came by that impression? Care to share?

I wouldn’t say SingletrAction shot itself in the foot, I’d say FC consistently failed to engage, realise the potential of the place and to make anything good happen. So total was their lack of positive input that nothing the local guys did, be it planning, route design and marking out or anything else was ever going to suceed. For example, when we get the offer of free aggregate and that’s rejected (for no clear or stated reason) by FC what are we supposed to do?

The Beat Forester is usually key to getting anything done and in the case of Wharncliffe the BF didn’t want to know. This was despite numerous emails and comm’s trying to meet and make arrangements / strike up a relationship. Unfortunately the only person with any cycle-savy from FC was Chris, the ranger for Sherwood Pines but his involvement was a bit arms length, “ranger without a mandate” so I think he was always struggling to be effective in this instance.

When SingletrAction got involved there was a fairly active unofficial trail building contingent and a sizeable existing user group (MTB, nevermind all the other recreation activities). We first got invited in because the FC threat was to eradicate all trails in the woods due to user conflict on the bridleway / trail at the bottom (Trans Pennine?). We intiially helped do some stuff to address this, and completed everything we agreed to do. FC never came on site with plant and machinery to build the big catch berm and trail re-route as was agreed but hey ho. Whatever else, the trails are still there in part thanks to our work.

Try juggling a bunch of unofficial trail builders, a group trying to get things on a legitimate footing, rider / volunteer apathy and the fact that any minute change to existing trails was pored over with a split of “love it” / “hate it” response that ranged from internet flammings to physically removing stuff on site. Great fun :-S

So saying nothing got done because we annoyed the FC is so far from the truth as to be laughable.

At Wharncliffe, i think the locals must have moved the signs, as all i found was zero flow, deep mud and a trail that felt very unfinished after the first 500meters gave the impression it was going to be ok, before it just vanished into nothing! The DH there is ment to be world class, so id have thought the trail might be a gem and not a turd….

The woods are subject to quite a bit of antisocial use (quads, 4x4s, car theft and vandalism etc). They’ve also got some local characters who were pretty happy to threaten anyone doing stuff they didn’t like and vandalising signs / cars was a too frequent occurence.

Laughably signs got put in a year or more ago for the XC route along the intended alignment. But we never built the damn thing, it feels unfinished because it’s exactly that. Volunteers did what they could but we staed from the outset it needed a fully armoured construction (i.e. hardcore and rock surfacing). Without FC letting us bring that in it will always turn to slop come the winter months.

Add to this that the delicate balance of volunteer enthusiasm was constantly being undermined as we tried to “hold back” folks who wanted to just carry on with unofficial building with a promise that FC would permit some good stuff sooner or later. As FC never did come through (in fact most comm’s were usually of the “don’t do this, we’re taking that out ..” kind then that promise became very hollow. Everyone got fed up and eventually it all fizzled out.

I have a lot of respect for the people both local and within SingletrAction who tried their hardest, on a voluntary basis, to try and make something happen at Wharncliffe. The fact it didn’t doesn’t rest with them. Maybe looking at the organisation with a mandate to promote physical activity, who have an underused site within spitting distance of major urban conurbations, with better ttransport links than almost any other “trail centre” and that would be usefully deployed to ease visitor pressure on one of the busiest (footfall by area) national parks in the UK might be a bit better? Heavenforbid they might even be publicly funded and the land might be publicly owned?

They might even have taken a commercial view what with the UK’s “greatest ever DHer” on the site’s doorstep advocating development.

Pfft :-P

But hey ho, I’m ranting and facts or reality should never get in the way of the odd throw away comment, eh?

Cheers

Tim
Chairman, SingletrAction

Big hand to all the regulars, first timers, sporadicals and random attendees that made it to the Stainbun woods today. A lovely day in oh, so many ways including the fantastic amount achieved and the glorious November (bonkers) weather.

A very good day 8-)

Done.

Dalby is a stacked loop design so it’s easy to break down into “pieces” to fit time and inclination.

So far as I know there’s no direct link between the toll road fee and trails, some money goes into various bike related stuff (Rangers, resources, materials, etc) but whether it’s more or less than what’s raised by bikers going to the forest I don’t know. Then again there’s a lot more to Dalby than the MTB trails (although you do have to pay for some of it – cafe, Go Ape etc).

Dixons Hollow was designed by Adrian Carter (Pace) with input from the FC Engineer and was based on bike park style features Adrian had seen abroad, AFAIK. It’s quite an old design and had to fit with requirements of the area and money etc etc. I doubt anyone would argue it’s perfect, but recent rebuilding of the jumps has got to be a good thing (IMO). It has certainly proved popular for certain groups / users. I imagine it could be improved and with hindsight designed differently but that’s true of many things, not just trails. Time consuming and expensive to do so.

SingletrAction built a wee pump track adjacent to Dixon’s last year and that’s proved quite popular (although possibly rather misunderstood ;-).

Dig days in general have suffered from really poor turnouts. Mind boggling really when you think how many people go through there and use the trails, but hey ho, that’s volunteering for you. Efforts are re-starting so if you’re interested visit the SingeltrAction site, ask on the forum or look them up on Facebook.

really rather too harsh.

In your opinion, possibly. In my opinion after this and yesterday I don’t think so. But to be clear, I meant “meet with the Ranger” rather than simply “talk”.

TBH I’m not up for debating it further, I’ve said my piece and explained my opinion about what you’ve said to as much of an extent as I can be bothered / think it warrants.

Said it before and I’ll say it again now – TJ, by example of your posts yesterday and today in this thread you have proven you’re sh1te at communicating with people over the internet. I realise that could be harsh but blimey, what a funk up. Take a step back and a careful look will you.

I don’t get why you’ve taken it on yourself to talk to the Rangers when BT already said he was. By all means invite yourself along with him but what you’ve done makes me very suspicious and is at least ill advised, worse it’s potentially manipulative and conniving.

You refuse to get off your arse and meet in person which most anyone knows is the best way of engaging with people and for that reason as well I think your involvement sounds like a bloody awful idea. Not that anything can be done to stop you because it’s a free country but, hey, if you were part of a group I was involved in I’d be seriously worried.

BT – I suggest you try and take the higher ground and rise above stuff e.g. your obviously nettled response to TJ. As understandable as it might be you have to avoid that approach IMO. Whilst you might not mean to do it with people that “matter” it’s best practice not to do it at all. I mean that as friendly advice based on my experience in this field (at least 6 years as SingletrAction’s point of contact between the volunteer group and Forestry Commission), not as an insult 8-)

And there was me thinking TJ had managed to turn a corner yesterday. Leopard can’t change its spots, eh?

Hallejulah.

Cheeky monkey – do you really think creating new trails from scratch by clearing ground cover, digging up the ground and concreting in blocks is acceptable in a nature reserve where there is already conflict between mountainbikers and other users?

Have you seen the pictures of what he has done?

You admit you do not know the area. I do. I have ridden there for 20 years

First point, quite possibly not BUT I only really have your word for that and I have little faith in your objectivity or ability to present a situation which accurately captures the subtle nuances of reality. All trail building is disruptive and leaves unpleasant scars in the immediate aftermath. Nature recovers and soon encroaches again in the majority of situations. I can picture you screaming “CONCRETE” but honestly, who cares? Most hardcore surfacing is intended to “go off” to some degree using its inherenet cement-like properties. A bit of judicious and sympathetic use of proper concrete, whilst the knee-jerk is “no way” is likely to be fine.

BUT ……

Pictures blocked at work.

Your last comment – and again, you miss the gist, my point is about how you engage (or in less PC speak) talk to people. It’s not about the technical merits for or against the idea BT puts forward. I was straight up about not knowing the site so as not to misrepresent what I was saying. I’m talking around the general issue without knowing the specifics.

Where I am dealing in specifics it’s about how you talk to people. You’re crap at it, IMO and far too soon go off into the equivaqlent of internet shouting IT’S ILLEGAL and I KNOW BEST. It’s irritating and unconstructive.

I only hope in reality that you’re not the same as you are on the internet. Some people have said you’re not. But as you seem unprepared to meet up in person with the bloke you’re merrily lambasting then I guess he’ll never get to know, eh?

and here come the sanctimonious histrionics ……..

pfft!

Red Light Jumping

TJ hates people doing anything illegal. Unless it’s him. And he knows best ;-)

BT – you may or may not be right, your plans may or may not be doomed. Heavenforbid in TJ’s posts there might actually be the occassional gem of useful stuff. Whatever, good luck, I hope you achieve something, somewhere 8-)

Personally, I always try to end up on the legit route as it makes it much less likely anything you invest time and effort in will get pulled out.

If you ever want to check out what we’ve done (internet or real world) see: http://www.singletraction.org.uk

Good luck with IMBA and Roz. On the occassions that I’ve met her she’s seemed like one of the good ones.

a) The fella says he’s talking to the Rangers. Good oh, first rule of trailbuilding – get the land owner / managers permission.

b) Yes, I know what you’re thinking, BUT HE’S SAID HE’S ALREADY BUILDING TRAILS, but he’s invited you out to see what he’s talking about as there’s “BUILDING TRAILS” and “building trails”. Take some time with that one, eh, it demands some subtle perception.

c) A feasability study has been mentioned, which I would have though you would have Googled the arse off by now and selectively quoted to high heaven.

d) If that really was your attempt to engage than might I suggest you reconsider how you go about it? Just because you say it isn’t so and then he doesn’t immediately falll into step you then bang on and on and on that it’s ILLEGAL.

Please note I’ve not mentioned RLJing yet.

Ooops!

Hey ho

Is the feasability study publicly available BT? Who commissioned it?

Who are you to say that? If the fella’s talking to Rangers then it’s for them to assess and decide, which’ll have more clout in the circles that matter than your opinion on this thread. Your opinion and the comments stemming form it are just going to antagonise and irritate.

Honestly, there’s so very little in this world that is ever “absolute”, though I doubt you can accept that.

You’ve entirely missed my points regarding engagement and communication with people, which is the issue. The fact I don’t know the hill is mostly irrelevant. Can’t you see that trying to brow beat someone about one issue won’t then convince them to engage with works elsewhere (as you asked him to become involved in earlier in this thread)?

You’re not talking you’re just shouting down with your internet fingers in your ears (a good trick when typing).

Christ TJ, you really are crap at engaging with people. The bloke’s offered to take it off an internet forum and show you what he’s talking about but all you can do is bang on in your absolutist way about illegality etc etc.

TJ’s black-and-white-do-as-I-say-world. Man alive!

For the record, I’m not local and don’t know squat about the area in question but I have been involved in this sort of thing for ages. Take it off the forum (or at least the beration), go out, meet, put faces to names and have a look at it together without a keyboard. No one ever built a trail from behind one.

Im not the best at dealing with awkward people either

IME, if you’re going to try and make a success of it, then you’d better get good at it PDQ 8-)

TJ – it might help if you explained why you think the hill is unsuitable as although I’ve got your opinion load and clear, the reasons behind it aren’t apparent. By explaining why it’ll often help others to understand or enable a solution to be found.

8-)

Didn’t you bitch and whine about your Pikes as well? Something about how they needed a PUSH upgrade from new just to be vaguely rideable :rollseyes:

Honestly, if it’s not one thing it’s another. As they say “a bad workman …….”

Do a search, I think it’s come up before and people have come back with some useful comments. Me, Mr Agreeable, Mugboo and various others all have experience of doing just that.

Oh shit. Forgot this.

You are Captain Chaos and I claim my £5 ;-)

Roll on April 2012. Film is awesome (apart from the twonk talking over the riding ;-)

nothing on that sort of scale in terms of subsidy. No staff needed to run th trails, no massive capitol investment, no large ongoing maintenance bill

Hang on, have you seen the finances for GT or the like. Or FC(S) and the Borders trails? Ought to be careful about such a sweeping statement.

There has been significant capital investment to develop the Stanes (European funding), there are staff (and all the associate expenses of kit, existence etc) and there’s always (AFAIK) been a bone of contention that the trails were put in and there wasn’t a sufficient or appropriate allowance for ongoing maintenance. Also, how do you think the numerous rebuilds etc have been achieved and new additions.

Might not be same scale as imagined for an uplift at Inners but if we’re criticising the proposal for a lack of reality lets not get too caught up in the fact that although comparitively cheap (to £5M) it hasn’t been “free” to develop the rest of the Stanes.

If you spend £5M on getting a lift in then I suspect it’ll be an even bigger struggle to get yet more cash to build even more trails. If the economics are already stretched trying to justify the installation itself, there’s unlikley to be “spare” revenue to pay for more trail development, nevermind basic upkeep / wear & tear due to increased numbers.

So you’re talking £5M + however much to achieve something that appeals to the widest cross section of riders. As others have said DH’s a pretty small niche, of sport overall and even, some might argue, of MTBing (if you accept it is part of that wider group, call it what you like, folks on bikes ;-)

It is tricky balancing mass appeal, accessibility and stuff that provides challenge or opportunity for progression. I still fall on the side of building loads of quality stuff accessible for lots of people compared to one chairlift. You’d certainly want to see some far reaching commitments form the land manager / owners to the future maintenance and development / expansion of the location. Is that in place or is it an assumption it’ll happen.

You’ve got to bear in mind FC’ll have to be dealt with.

What Mr A says gives a pretty good view on it. Personally, I would have asked on here first before the blanket email to all ;-)

If you have a specific area in mind for the trail then I would try and identify the land manager / owner (they maybe the same but sometimes organisations are contracted to manage sites, like FC, on behlf of other owners). If you can get the land manager on side that’s a big, big part of the process.

For instance, where the FC beat forester responsible for a particular area hasn’t been on board all our efforts came to nothing.

If you can’t get the manager on side then you’ll have to convince people they either answer to or that can persuade them. This is more challenging but still possible.

Be prepared for a long slog, be prepared to compromise, don’t get all uppity and carried away about it, stay cool, find the buttons you need to hit for the other people (land manager, owner, “stakeholders” etc) and try to meet them.

Good luck 8-)

i still think that local bikeshops / BnB’s / pubs / cafes / skills instructors would get more out of a £500,000 innerleithen blue route, than a £5,000,000 chairlift…

Generally I agree. Better 10 new trails / investments of £50,000 than one chairlift for £5M.

Best of luck to them but I’d rather see a load more trails in multiple locations rather than a single uplift at one spot.

There is a slight supporting argument about creating an exemplar facility and not dragging trails down to the lowest common denominator. However, it’s also the kind of rhetoric that has lead to some stupendous white elephants ;-)

Whilst I also agree about the commercial sector not having done it before so it clearly can’t be viable I’d just add that it’s not your typical commercial venture when you have Forestry Commission involved. Not trying to be nasty, just an observation like ;-)

Ironic that CV reserach is being quoted given what happened there.

The “other” thread:

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/anyone-have-a-hope-vision-r4-light

IIRC the connectors are different, but I might be making that up ;-)

There you go.

If you look at the size of the head unit (18Bikes other pics) then that battery is pretty diddy.

There has been a thread on here and Buttscratcher (IIRC) had received and made comments on an R4.

As I understand the lights are brighter but Hope are just trying to put some “real world relevance” into the figures. As 18bikes say, I think the “max” setting is intended as a brief boost function, not to be run all the time. 1hr15 is also, IIRC, based on the single, tiny battery that comes in the standard / cheapest set (and at just below Max it has a pretty impressive / sufficient run time so they’re not selling it with an under-spec’ed battery). There are Endurance and Epic versions with more battery capacity and increased run times.

This might prove illuminating ;-)

http://www.hopetech.com/webtop/modules/_repository/documents/HOPE-VISION-Email.pdf

Ask STW nicely and get it up on the front page, or get this sticky otherwise it’ll just disappear down the forum list.

Send details to secretary@singletraction.org.uk and PMBA.org.uk (Jon should have some contact details on his site) and I’m sure we’ll both put it on our websites / Facebook / Google+ pages. Doubt it’ll be decisive but always happy to promote fellow volunteers. I reckon Chasetrails would return the favour as well after all the support they’ve had with the Lottery application.

Tried IMBA, CTC and BC?

If you haven’t done all this already ;-)

Good luck.

More trails is great 8-)

Some really good points there and a really balance view from bajsyckel, stuff like that reminds me why STW forums can be worth trawling through.

As for TJ :rolleyes: I honestly wish there was some way to filter you out as even when you’re quite possibly right (which I don’t believe you are in this case) the way you put it across just grates, to me. Certainly the blind faith in the “people that know” is rather strange to me, but then it is a gambit I’d expect when your argument is based on google ;-)

Personally, if anyone wanted to get involved in stuff I’d look at whatever local trail / advocacy group there might be (doesn’t always have to be formal) and at CTC.

There’s some folks making some strange excuses (IMO) for the bike shops about the service kit and whether it was a desk guy or workshop who you talked to. They’re in business to do stuff with bikes, they’re the “expert”, the onus is on them.

If it were me I’d go back, get the wheel in my hands, check it’s been done then tell them you are unhappy, explain politely why to the appropriate person (shop manager / owner). Avoid getting p1ssy about it, nice calm and clear. Let them put their side and unless it’s good ask them what they’re going to do about it as you aren’t happy. A good gesture would be no charge, a fair compromise might be you pay for parts (not the kit ;-) and they suck it on the labour.

And unless you were particularly happy with them after that I’d not bother going back.

Ta

I find the candour of the CV “saga” website quite refreshing TBH. My comment was lighthearted :-) I’m sure there’s two sides to the story but there’s still plenty to be gleaned from it. Having read it all it sounds unpleasantly familiar at times. Bravo to the folks in CVDG who took the time and effort to put it together and even to write up the whole sorry mess, I hope it was cathartic 8-)

So you also think that all local authority owned sports facilities should be free to all users? What about bodies like Scottish Tennis – free for all at Craiglockhart?

No I don’t think that. I also don’t think trail centre developments on the public Forest Estate are the same as local authority provided recreation facilities.

My comments are also general to the UK’s trail centre developments, rather than just the Scottish ones.

However, the revenues go into the big pot from which the trailbuilding comes back out.

Without detail that’s so vague as to be, without being unpleasant, useless. To understand what the “real” situation is:

I’d love to see what it actually costs to run Glentress or any other centre (broken down so it was relevant) and particularly a breakdown of what the costs comprised. I suspect we never would though.

But you see I don’t feel this same “pressure” as you guys. It’s all publicly owned, on public land and funded through routes that one way or the other has come from public coffers (and by implication our taxes). Why ever would I then want to pay yet more? I have absolutely no objection to putting more in, such as volunteer time.

Trail projects and facilities have to be viewed in the round with all the other costs and benefites and corresponding financial implications. I’d love to see what it actually costs to run Glentress or any other centre (broken down so it was relevant) and particularly a breakdown of what the costs comprised. I suspect we never would though.

Anyhow, I’m banging on ;-)

All we need is Heather Bash and the saga of Carron Valley to rear it’s head ;-)

I admit most of my points relate to developments on FC land. But then I’m assuming that’s where the vast majority of trails are. I accept there are private examples and these are somewhat different but they seem to be a small minority in comparison.

Paul – can you point to anywhere that says, or even proves, that any revenue FC make out of car parking or anything that might be associated with trails gets put into trails, their development or upkeep.

Genuinely interested.

Our lot do it through Cyclescheme and I took the “13th monthly payment to lease for another 3 years at which point it’s yours at no extra (as HMRC will have valued it at bugger all” (to paraphrase). This seems to be the ‘Scheme’s fix for the valuation guidance HMRC issued.

However, I don’t like the fact the bike remains the Scheme’s and so, if HMRC change things again, I could have yet another set of “rules” applied where I might have to pay more.

Personally I’d rather have taken it as a BIK and paid the income tax on that. Not an option through our lot though.

Personally I think price pointing (good phrase) is fine. It lets everyone know they can get the same thing for less money with warranty etc. If there really is some concept of “community” on here that would be soemthing I’d expect.

However, I mean pointing out a legitimate seller, with stock, who’s cheaper. I don’t mean subjective valuation of stuff when folks say “you’re asking too much” in their opinion.

The only folks who get annoyed are the ones trying to sell stuff and frankly, tough titty ;-) Either stick to your price, drop it or pull it. Moaning that someone’s queered your sale is just bunkum.

I struggle to understand why “ridiculously” low offers are a problem either, and the umbrage that some folks can occassionally be take about them. If it’s too low come back with a figure you’d prefer. You either want to sell it our you don’t otherwise everything else is just haggling to get to a mutually agreeable figure.

Too much emotion, expectation, and unwritten “rules” IMO.

I’m going to be putting the finishing touches to a trail network right in the middle of Kirkcaldy next week. It’s cost peanuts compared to any of the FE trail centres and it doesn’t take a car journey to get to from the large and under priviliged estates which surround the woodland it’s built in.

A club has been formed so that there is local ‘ownership’ and also a forward path for maintenance and development.

Bravo, sounds awesome 8-)

There’s too much smoke-and-mirrors about trail building / development. It’s generally pretty simple stuff. I agree the cost of some projects has been bonkers.