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Sh1t Shifted

Good turn out,but I have to agree with Hannibal and a few other's...the park was lacking something!! but was still enjoyable

As this was 1st uplift day cant compare to anywhere else ! How does ukbike park compare to another bike park ???

I thought the uplift was good apart from the drivers being moody,but saying that who wouldnt be grumpy when your stuck driving up and down a hill all day on a hot day in an old army truck.

They seem to of spent all their efforts on building the start ramps,bridge and uplift road. the trails need lots of work and imagination. im no expert but give Aston hill an uplift and it will piss all over that place. (hope your reading this mr Aston hill)

Ok got time for my full tupence worth now....first up nice one Andy on getting such a big crew together,didnt know or meet everyone but def a great bunch.wiggly woo was a great trail in its own right,havnt had that much air time in ages real good fun.my issue was the lack of a really good dh of the same calibre.devils dyke was a good challenge loose and off camber but nothing to get into.i think theres 5 trails listed on the website when theres really only three with slight variations.Well this is just my opinion but I think a few people agree.I know for sure I wasnt left with a desire to go back like I have had with places like triscombe.To all those that loved it and didnt see the negative side,fair play!!ps hope its not a long healing time dazzer!!

oh yeah what about the weather though!!!result!

Agreed was just not feeling right the ladder trail was cool , devils dyke was ok fun but bitty,think with a bit of more professional help and planning it will be superb as it has all the steepness to be a cracking dh venue cant help but think if the people who help plan aston and porc and bull track got hands on it it will be a winner!

I wonder if the place is suffering from a lack of visitors, if we hadn't turned up 20+ deep they would have struggled with the rest of the riders to make ends meet.

the uplift was regular and didn't damage any bikes, was nice to see them spacing bikes out where needed to avoid pedal strikes, on that score i would say the uplift was good. yes it was bumpy but it wasn't exactly smooth tarmac on the way down lol.

The tracks were good fun but need some grooming and some tweaking, i found it quite disconcerting to come out of a jump slightly off line and to find myself balls deep in a load of fist sized stones, i'm very glad i didn't come off on any of that.

The dh lines were quite hard to follow in places and a bit of tape or laying some branches in a line would have helped a lot to plan your line rather than tackling each obstacle individually as seemed to be how most people dealt with their descents, especially on tsubo.

Overall i came away with a big grin, it took a bit of getting used to but once i'd warmed to it i found it a nice fun place.
I would go back but i have a big list of places to visit this year so they will take precedence over ukbp.

Was really good to ride with so many friends and familiar faces and to see everyone progressing so well.
I know that a number of the group are very new to gravity and DH riding so fair play to them for getting stuck in.

I also thought the camaraderie was excellent with everyone pitching in to sort punctures, loose headsets, stuck through axles and even lending a bike!

Looking forward to more rides with everyone.
I'll pop some group pics in the photo's section shortly.

I would of much rather had a day in the sun shine topping up my tan than being able to borrow Dazers bike... but i might as well make the best of a bad situation. Get well soon mate! New chanks ordered as well as look at bike racks...more money

Top day of rideing though!

Heal up Dazzer!

Some interesting comments on UKBP... very similar to the views we had last time we went.

Northern -

that was after 3 trips in 6 months however.

For those that are interested - UKBP used to be a lot more varied. There were lots more tracks and tons of shore features. Darkside, Big Grin and HSE were all sweet tracks and they have all gone! For whatever reason Paul decided to remodel it and put in the new uplift track which killed a lot of the old trails. That was well over a year ago and it looks like not a lot of progress has been made. Word on the 'street' is that the guys that run like to keep a tight control on stuff which means not a lot gets done.

Hopefully they can open up and begin to leverage the local riding scene to help build the trails out, and get back the variety of runs and shore that used to be there... a few pics to show UKBPs retro days and to show what could be done there

Original Map


The uplift was insane














[img]http://gp1.pinkbike.org/p4pb2097621/p4pb2097621.jpg][/img]



Past glories however... just throwing it out there to show that it could be great again!

I do remember seeing a lot more wood work in past videos and pictures.

the hse trail was used by a couple of people but it was a closed run

be a shame if they don't develop it more

It's strange how it look like the guys there have managed to change the park for the whose when everywhere else in the country is growing and changing with what the riders want.
Hope it doesn't back fire for them

I've messaged them on fb telling them to check out the thread from a feedback point of view.

One of the regulars I was chatting to said a lot of the shore was pulled down due to injuries, which is odd, as most of the common trail after the footbridge was like riding through a landslide:



....true.

Hi Guys it's Paul from Ukbikepark to hopefully answer some of your concerns.

Big thanks to you all for coming down on Sat, great to meet you all and have a bit of banter and see you enjoying the park. Reading through your comments I do totally agree with most of what you highlighted as concerns (even me being a bit grumpy! ) but what the park is now, what is was like and how will be in the future all need to be put in context.

Old park - (Up to 2010)
Uplift - limited uplift max 14 uplifts a day, scary uplift track paying a £100 a day to use to the farmer (and we had to maintain), no one wanted to drive the lorries because of the uplift track & lorries (pretty much leaving all the driving to me)
Trails - good fun back in day but a real liability, to much north shore - very expensive to build & maintain, dangerous in the wet, rots quickly in the woods, forever spending out on replacing & maintaince (all those north shore features in the pics above are all totally rotted out now only after a few years)
Facilities - all in the farmers field (more money to him to rent) no car-park, small cabin, portaloos - no planning permission

Current park -
Uplift - new track halving the distance over the old track, safer & anyone can drive it, don't pay the farmer and get twice as many runs in, grumpy driver who has done far to many uplifts over 6 years and who's back is ruined from lifting bikes.
Trails - currently in the process of reinstating the old tracks (H.S.E, Darkside, Rumbles Revenge) and rebuilding what we have, use more soil to create features as it safer to ride and be rebuilt & reshaped plus won't rot.
Facilities - Bigger cabin, increased capacity kitchen, outside seating, car-park, portaloos - full planning permission

Future park (this and next year)
Uplift - track gravelled top to bottom with stone making it smooth and weather proof, new 4x4 sprinter mini buses and new design trailers, drivers who wont get as grumpy
Trails - A range of new trails which will be started after this weekend - big A line jump trail from the top to the bottom, 1 mile blue run to the bottom, a red run called 'Old School' off the big bridge (features including tight fast berms, drops, pump doubles etc), remodel the 4 toss track, ladder ally (with some real north shore(!) to the bottom a double black full commitment free-ride trail, loads of new drops and jumps in the bowl plus several xc/enduro loops out into the wider forest.
Facilities - cabin with Wifi, TV's, coffee & cafe, log burner with sofa's, decking and glass looking out to the start ramp, mini bike shop, hot room at the side for warming up & drying out kit on cold days, permanent bike wash, proper toilet block with flushing loo's & hand wash.

From a personal stand point things have been very testing over the years (might help explain the grumps) with really only just myself keeping the park alive by treating it as a full time job but not getting paid. This time last year I was ready to close park and return it back to woodlands - the guy who I was running it with wanted out, my mum was diagnosed with breast cancer, I was getting married (biggest stress!) and then found out after I decided to carry on with the park that the guy who was running the park with had been embezzling money out of the park for years! All that is behind me now and really it's like starting all over again as from October last year - I hope the park with be basically finished this year with further work continuing over the years.

Totally accept that things aren't as great as they should be but we're working on it. Remember that we don't charge for a day pass to ride the park it totally free to ride - we do all the work ourselves with no grants or hand outs on every aspect of the park (uplift, cabin, kitchen, water/electric, toilets, trail building, access road, car park etc) on a very tight budget with borrowed money, we haven't just turned up at an existing trail centre/riding spot and just run an uplift like so many of the other venues around the UK

We do keep a tight control on what gets built and by who because we've had many times in the past where we've given people materials and time to build a track/feature with it ending either being unridable, unsafe or unfinished.

Hope I haven't bored you all with post and thanks again for coming down - hope see you all again at some point when we've got some building done and will make an effort to be happy all day