We have finally been let back in but what we saw when we arrived was far beyond anything we expected. It's like a warzone and in some areas it looks like the tornadoes of New Plymouth with whole areas of trees being completely ripped from the ground. The forest has been completely ravaged and almost every trail is blocked in some way.

Photos here: http://www.bikepark.co.nz/webapps/site/ ... wsid=85464

The worst hit trails are on the Eastern side and they will most likely remain closed for the entire weekend as we are not even allowed to go in to them as they are so bad. The professional forestry crew will start tomorrow but they don't expect to clear most of the damage in time for the weekend. We have had a large trail crew going through the other trails today but as most of the trees that are down are massive 20 year old + trees it is pretty slow going. We have managed to identify the dangerous trees and they have been marked for felling tomorrow.

The major threat is a forestry term called Widowmakers. They are the tops of trees (about 6 metres long and anywhere between 30 and 100 kilos) that have broken and are being held by nothing more than a few high up branches no thicker than a persons arm or leg. It is only a matter of time until they fall and there is far too many over bike trails to be open at this stage.

The second threat is hanging trees. They are fully grown trees that are leaning against others. You will see the remains of the domino effect they have when they go taking out up to to 20 trees at a time.

Ironhorse has been a victim of this with a big pile at the start and up to 10 more waiting to drop at any time. As a result the trail will be completey different at the start..Heres to new beginnings (haha sorry)

In summary its a mess up there but we will be opening some trails in time for the weekend. Here are the trails that will be closed at this stage.

RACEFACE, SPCA, SPAGHETTI, AFTERGLOW, PASTA EXPRESS, CHARLIES ANGEL, FATACINI, TORTELLINI, SLIPPERIES DELIGHT, ED RUSH RAVINE.

As I mentioned ths may change for the better but we cant make any promises.

Please respect the dangers of the forest this weekend and do enter areas that have been blocked off. We will get it back on track as soon as we can.

Check out this link for some pictures of the damage
http://www.bikepark.co.nz/webapps/site/ ... wsid=85464

Whoar!
carnage

Holy shit! Total carnage

I've split this off and put it on the homepage of Vorb. I hope the clean up isn't too much of a mission

well we can all go riding at riverhead mean!

t8500 wrote: well we can all go riding at riverhead mean!

Any word on whether Riverhead survived?

Some tree's down in places but not to the same degree as the Woodhill pics show. I only rode Patterson's and part of the XC trail behind the MX club though. There's always the clearfelled trails....

But take your mud's! Waterfall trail from the trig must be a greasey slide to the bottom

Bugger that storm!

I guess Ill have to wait to try my new bike down SPCA!

mob: Try it down ironhorse. Thats fun too.

Nordy wrote: mob: Try it down ironhorse. Thats fun too.

Looks like Ironhorse took the full brunt of the storm according to the post on Bikeparks website

You could go structure crazy on Big Mumma I guess.

This was goign to be first ride for months and I was aiming for an Ironhorse loop.

still be good to be on the bike, though rather slow.

Hopefully, with enough people out there on the weekend, all the little stuff that has fallen on the trails will be moved by riders, leaving Bikeparks staff to deal with the stuff that requires a chainsaw. 100km of trails is a lot to clear!

Any word if it's going to be open tomorrow, and what trails are going to be closed if so?

radiusq wrote: Any word if it's going to be open tomorrow, and what trails are going to be closed if so?

All details on the link above