This is my third week of working on the new trail building project at Lee Quarry, Singletrack’s local trail centre. If you’ve never ridden there, it’s an old quarry near Bacup in Lancashire, that’s being given a new lease life as a bike park and when completed it will be one of the best places to ride in the north of England.
All the materials are on hand and the site lends itself to the creation of challenging technical trails. To help riders to enjoy what’s on offer here, a skills area is being developed, which can be ridden in graded stages to progress riding skills. There are different lines which will give riders the chance to get to grips with riding berms, jumps, rocks, drop offs and balance beams as well as plenty of features to practice pumping the trail.
Unfortunately we’ve not had much sunshine on the job so far. Frozen ground and snow have delayed putting the finishing touch to the majority of trails that have been shaped by the diggers.
There have been times when we’ve been scraping snow off the new trails to be able to work on them. Today it has become so bad, with the most recent snowfall and dire weather forecast, that we’ve had to cancel working for the rest of the week. All being well, we’ll be back there on Monday to put in the last of the work.
It’s not all berms and red hot downhill action though. There are two new climbs being built, including the stone causeway that is opening up a whole new area of the quarry, as yet unused by the existing trails. Andy has built the trail out of rock slabs using the digger bucket like someone using their hand with bits of Lego. I’ve been hurling rocks around and filling all the gaps in between the rock slabs with dirt. It takes skill you know.
The must have for every bike playground at the moment is a pump track. Sean built this one with his digger in three days from scratch and pretty much ‘freehand’. Leon and Rowan helped give it the final raking, wacker plating and a good old touch of the back of the shovel to seal the surface. Several dickheads have already ridden on the surface as well as on other trails that we’ve put in, despite them being closed off with warning tape. This just damages the surface and means we have to do repairs and leave the trails to dry again. All of which delays the time when we can all enjoy the trails. If you are up there are see people doing this, please tell them to stop. Tell them I said!
All of this new stuff is going to feature in the Singletrack Classic Weekender (link) on 3-4 July, when you will be able to race your mates and share in the good vibes of Lee Quarry in a uniquely Singletrack style.
Back on Track (link) is the company responsible for the design and build of these trails. All of the team are mountain bikers who ride to a high standard and so have a really good idea of what is going to work on the ground for other mountain bikers to ride.
Click here to find out more about Ed’s “Great Rock” mountain bike skills courses
After speaking to you very briefly on Friday Ed (white Giant, at the new 1st climb) I had a look round and the new stuff looks fantastic, the rate at which the buildings been done despite the weather is seriously impressive. Its hard enough to get your bearings up there somtimes, never mind work out how to build new trails through it all!
Can’t wait to get the ok to start riding. Annoying that some people have already had a go, its obvious that the ground is really soft and cutting up on the established stuff, how do they expect newly laid stuff to cope?!
That looks awesome and really inspiring. I have been meaning to get the council here to green light a scheme like that.
flamejob – Thanks, I’ve fixed the link
Bloody hell that’s looking great. Brilliant work.
I think I’ll be paying a visit when I’m over that way at Easter 🙂
this been local to me is awesome news on what is already a stunning place to ride.
ever need an extra pair of hands on a weekend for some grafting im more than happy to oblige.
knott4m – Send me an email to ed@great-rock.co.uk and I’ll let you know details of when we set up the volunteer trail builders group for Lee Quarry.
knott4me
if you fancy digging before the Lee Quarry group gets set, up send me an email (details in my profile), we’ve got regular dig days happening up at Gisburn Forest. Though I too am waiting for Tony L to get a group setup for Lee Quarry, it’s on my doorstep to. I think somethings likely to happen post construction (think someone might have mentionned a bar-b-que at one point as well).
We’re hoping to launch the volunteer group towards the end of the current building programme. Hopefully with a trail building workshop led by Rowan Sorrell and the rest of the team.
It’s as Ed says! Hoping to launch a group April sometime with input from the trail designers and builders. Would be good to go through the logic behind why things are built the way they are. Also hoping to get Rowan and his guys to show us how it should be riden as well!
Like to make it a bit of a social event and include trail builders from Gisburn and Healey Nab, Singletraction have also offered to lend a hand. There is quite a lot going on in Lancashire at the moment in terms of trail building and more in the pipeline, quite exciting really.
Either Ed or I will post some info up soon as we have some dates sorted out.