Marke here, Auckland MTB Club Pres. There has been a bit of chatter about Arch Hill recently and given that I'm engaged by Auckland City Council to project manage the delivery of the trails I'm in a good position to give an update. Also, we have an MTB open day at the ARC Hamlins Hill Regional Park this Sunday (28th March) and need your support.
Arch Hill:
There are 1.7km of trails at Arch Hill Scenic Reserve. There is a 600m Beginner grade trail called 'Training Wheels' and a 1.1 km Intermediate grade trail called 'Twist and Shout'. The easy trail is more family oriented and the tougher trail is narrow singletrack, twisty and hilly terrain and is pretty cool to be honest. It'll get your heart rate up that's for sure. Both trails are now complete with signage being installed this week. The grand opening is being delayed until May for a number of reasons but mainly the lack of rain means that the trail is not totally consolidated, especially at the edges so if you ride it, stay close to the benched side of the trail until we can get in there and compact it properly. Also, with Easter and then yours truly being away for most of April it has been pushed out to May.
Hamlins Hill
The Auckland MTB Club were involved a long time ago in designing a trail at Hamlins Hill and this Sunday 28th March is an open day to ride the reserve and mark out a trail. It is more of a family-oriented type trail but it is important that we do have riders turn up and show some suport for the increased interest by the ARC in having MTB trails in their Regional Parks.
More details on both Arch Hill and Hamlins Hill can be found on the 'Trails' page of the Auckland MTB Club website: http://aucklandmtb.co.nz/trails/
Also, you may not know how much work we put into advocacy and access issues to help progress MTBing in the Auckland Region, especially as progress on these things seems to go very slowly. Recently we made a submission on the ARC Draft Regional Parks Mgt Plan and were invited to present our submission. The upshot is that we are now involved in the concept designs for two new ARC Parks and they have finally got that there is a difference between off-road cycling and mountain biking. The new Parks will have provision for singletrack and proper trails and in the long term, we also believe the ARC is keen to have MTBing in the Waitakeres but only on purpose-built trails. We are continuing to push this one and are ever-hopeful
This leaves us with an opening on the committee. We need someone that has experience building trails to help input into the ARC concept plans and help co-ordinate the trail building we do. There is a lot of support for this in the club already and from MTBNZ so plenty of scope to make this what you want and call on help from those already involved. Interested? I hope so as this is an exciting time for MTBing in Auckland. Drop me an email if you're keen to join the committee and help out. marke@aucklandmtb.co.nz.
For info on our ARC submission, check out this post on our website. http://aucklandmtb.co.nz/2010/03/15/arc-regional-parks-management-plan-mtb-club-submission/
Cheers
Marke
