scratchy
10-05-2007, 04:22 PM
Well it's been a while, but it's advocacy folks so don't expect it to happen quickly! A weighty read, but a good read. I feel the same generation of rider to Oppy, which may explain why I found myself nodding several times during the post. So read on. But before you do, here's the disclaimer:
The comments and opinions contained in this article are solely those of the writer. They do not reflect those of the Brisbane City Council or anybody else for that matter.
Name: Oppy
Age: 31 and rising…..
Location: Brisbane, Queensland.
Background: I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say I’m an old school mountain biker. When I first started mountain bike riding there were no specific mountain bike trails. In fact mountain bikes riding was not banned from anywhere because no one knew what it was or even that it existed. In the time before “The Banning” you could ride almost anywhere and be viewed as some sort of oddity rather than a threat. It was a naive time where I had the opportunity to ride many trails that are now officially off limits to mountain bikes. You used to receive a look of what the hell are you doing out here on a bicycle from the four-wheel drives, motorbikes, horse riders etc. These days the four-wheel drives and the motorbikes are gone from those areas and in many places so too are the mountain bikes.
I have been riding bicycles in the bush since I could ride a bike. I started off on a BMX riding the four-wheel drive tracks and moto trails directly behind my back fence. Back in the early eighties (gee I sound really old) population density in the South-East Queensland was much lower with a lot more undeveloped private land. These days I drive past many areas where I used to ride and race that are now under concrete and bricks, Forest Lake, Spring Field, Spring Field Lakes, etc etc. Gone are the days of unrestricted and uncontrolled access to large areas of private land. The publicly owned green spaces we have left are now much more highly sought after by more people and of much greater value and importance.
So I have been making tracks and cubby houses in the bush since I was about five or six. This became more involved when I took up mountain biking in 1990. I was introduced to new areas to ride and also to racing. Over the last 15 years or so I built and help to build numerous trails to both ride and race on. I also witnessed the successful sections of trail and the bits that failed or took way to much maintenance.
I was always exposed to the natural environment through living right next to it and also by growing up bushwalking, camping and four-wheel driving. It was this enjoyment of nature that lead me to studying Environmental Engineering at Griffith University. While at university I continued to race competitively doing the Queensland State series in elite level cross country and downhill and also making many journeys south to do the national titles. Through out my degree I also worked as a bicycle mechanic at the Big Bike Shop at Underwood.
After completing my degree I went to work for State Government in the Department of Mines doing environmental monitoring. This was a great experience where I had the opportunity to see inside of many various industries, mines and power stations. I travelled around the state including such ‘highlights’ as Mt Isa, Charleville, Rockhampton, Biloela…. Ok so it was not that glorious a job but I got a lot of experience and education. I left the state government to take up a job in an environmental consultancy where I learnt about billable hours, consultation fees, and negotiating with clients. It was a whole new way of doing things and a real change and challenge after being a public servant.
I am not really sure when I became aware of access issues for mountain bike riding but I do remember when I started doing something about. In 1999 as a member of the Southside R.A.T.S (Racing And Touring Social) Mountain Bike Club I presented a 2-day trail design construction and maintenance workshop for various stakeholders in Southeast Queensland. These stakeholders included; Redland Shire Council, Logan City Council, Daisy Hill State Forrest Rangers, Southside RATS Mountain Bike Club, Gold Coast Mountain Bike Club, Mountain Bike Australia (MTBA or may have been AMBA back then), Queensland Cycling Association, and the Queensland State Government Department of Sport Tourism and Recreation. The workshop covered trail planning, layout, construction, maintenance, and conflict resolution. Key elements of the workshop drew upon the international mountain biking association’s (IMBA) design guidelines for mountain bikes and my own personal experience and research. As part of the workshop I formed part of a team that prepared and installed three constructed rubber water bars and performed trail maintenance in an area of bushland adjoining the Daisy Hill State Forrest. In 2000 I was a member of the Spring Mountain, White Rock Conservation Estate Management Advisory Group (MAG) and the Flinders Peak and Mount Goolman Conservation Estate MAG. These groups were set up by the Ipswich City Council to act as a forum for stakeholders to participate in the management of these conservation areas and have input on track and trail construction and maintenance. I kept following advocacy from this point on writing letters of support and giving feedback when there was the opportunity.
While working in environmental consultancy a friend of mine sent me an advert for this job as a joke. I thought it was an opportunity to combine my work skills and my passion for mountain bikes so I applied. The rest as they say is history.
I have been building legal trails now for 2.5 years with the Brisbane City Council and the trails are getting better and better. There are now two trail care groups working in the forest building and maintain the mountain bike trails. We have even got some professionals into do some big jobs beyond that which volunteers can do. The best thing about it is that these trails are here to stay. We just keep building on the hard work that was done to get them to make them better and better.
Mistakes made Think of a mistake chances are I had a go at making it! Making a mistake once is OK failing to learn from your mistakes is not. It’s even better if learn from other peoples mistakes it saves you from the effort.
Mistakes I’ve made:
Not catering for the lowest common denominator ie the beginner factor. Beginners will always ride or try to ride things they shouldn’t. Public trails therefore need to be idiot proofed.
If you are going to use rock armour it still has to be the easiest path otherwise people will go around it. Same goes for any technical feature actually.
You need to have B lines (and some times C lines!)
Turn the trail up hill before a 180 degree berm to shed some speed.
Berms stop squids from blowing out trail edges.
Put lots of stuff logs, rocks, trees, etc in the middle of berms to stop short cutting.
It won’t happen overnight, unless it’s a F-up in which case they can pretty much happen instantaneously.
Favourite Tool: The human brain. Failing to use it will ensure your trail fails. Ok seriously a favourite hand tool would have to be the rakhoe, you just can’t go past it for versatility. I have had some recent excellent experiences with a powered wheelbarrow.
Free Fairy or Pro Fairy: You know I have always preferred the term Trail Gnome or even Trail Troll than Trail Fairy. So call me a Professional Trail Gnome.
Online Resources:
http://www.leelikesbikes.com/build-your-own-pump-track.html
http://www.mmba.org/gallery/freeride_design_studio
http://www.outdoorstructures.com.au/pdf/boardwalk_design_guide.pdf
http://www.trailbuilders.org/
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/rectrails/index.htm
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/rectrails/publications.htm#Trail
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/fspubs/index.htm
http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/naturalresources/DD6371.html
http://www.fs.fed.us/database/acad/dev/trails/trails.htm
http://www.traildynamics.com/index.asp
http://www.nemba.org/
http://www.nsmba.bc.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=38&Itemid=47
http://www.nsmba.bc.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=23&Itemid=36
I am sure I could scrounge some more links but if you get through all that and you’ve been to http://www.imba.com you won’t need any more info.
Your Topic Education, if you are going to make statements to the public, government or community groups know what you are talking about otherwise you look stupid. It’s the very definition of ignorance.
Do your homework. Ignorant statements like “It’s of no value there’s nothing there but a few gum trees” invalidate everything you have to say whether it’s reasonable or not. Nearly ever conservation area of park will be managed under a plan or guidelines. Try to obtain a copy of it and read it. Then you can make some informed statements.
Lobbying for legitimate access is a very hard and time consuming, but it pays off in the long run. If you build illegally it will get found and pulled down. Yes you can rebuild it and yes it will get pulled down again. This can go on and on but wouldn’t you just rather ride your bike? Get behind those that are doing it the right way. The more support they get the more they can get done and the faster it can happen. Do at least one volunteer trail day each year. If you can make the time to ride you can make the time to look after the trails as well, no excuses.
General Rant Bureaucracies and other ways to flog a dead horse……
Bureaucracies are ungainly beasts that lumber towards their goals in a geologic time frame. Which has led me to the following observation of the 3 steps of bureaucratic management.
Step 1 Ignore it: Land managers are usually overwhelmed with what they already have to do and are also normally under resourced to boot. It is extremely difficult to pro-actively manage issues before they become ‘problems’. A typical example would go something like this:
Hmm looks like X is increasing and will need to be managed. If we spend Y amount of dollars this financial year on X then we will have X happening appropriately. If we don’t spend Y in 3-5 years time it will cost 5 times Y to fix the issue to get back to where we were if we had spent Y to begin with.
Management response normally is something like this, why should I give you additional Y dollars when there is not a problem. If you want to do this take Y dollars from one of your existing programs. Of course all the existing programs are to fix existing problems so no money gets spent on activity X.
Step 2 Ban it: Land manager: Hey look at that, activity X is growing and impacting as we said it would yet we have no dollars to spend on managing it. Can we have 2 times Y dollars to manage it.
Management response: Why should I give you additional 2 times Y dollars to manage X.
Typical second response include it’s not our problem it’s another department/agency/level of government, or it is illegal or we have made it illegal. Problem solved.
Step 3 Manage it: Land managers X is now a problem we need 5x Y dollars to fix up the problems and manage it like we should have years ago.
Management response: Oh we can’t ignore it, enforcement/banning passing the buck doesn’t seem to be working. OK we have to manage this issue here’s Y dollars…...
Which brings me to Dead Horses and how to flog them.
Wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount and walk. However, bureaucracies often try other strategies with dead horses, including the following:
1. Buy a stronger whip.
2. Change riders.
3. Say things like, "This is the way we have always have ridden this horse."
4. Appoint a committee to study the horse.
5. Arrange to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
6. Rewrite the standards for dead horse performance.
7. Appoint a review team to revive the dead horse.
8. Create a training session to increase riding ability.
9. Compare the state of dead horses in today's environment.
10. Change the requirements, declaring that, "This horse is not dead."
11. Hire contractors to ride the dead horse.
12. Harness several dead horses together to increase speed and pulling power.
13. Declare that, "No horse is too dead to beat."
14. Provide additional incentive funding to increase the horse's performance.
15. Do a Commercial Activities Study to see if contractors can ride it cheaper.
16. Purchase a software product to make dead horses run faster.
17. Declare the horse is "better, faster, and cheaper" dead.
18. Form a quality circle to find uses for dead horses.
19. Revisit the performance requirements for horses.
20. Say this horse was procured with cost as an independent variable.
21. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.
22. Shorten the track.
23. Establish benchmarks for industry dead-horse leaders.
24. Put together a spiffy PowerPoint presentation to get planners to double the dead-horse R&D budget.
25 Get the horse a website.
26. Declare that the horse is not in fact dead, but poised for growth.(or just pinin')
27. Sell off its ears to reduce overheads.
28. Re-organize the horse to make it more customer-facing, by cutting off its head and sewing it on backwards.
29. Declare that since horse is dead, we must now ride smarter, not harder.
30. Sell off the horse's legs one by one, until someone will buy it.
31. Declare that riding is not a core competency.
Pictures attached.
end note
Ok here I am at the end of this and I still haven’t really said anything about building trails. If you really want to learn about building trails, maintaining them and lobbying for them go along to your nearest trail working bee. You’ll learn more there by doing than sitting here reading stuff on the Internet. Remember kids actions speak louder than words and posting on the Internet does not actually constitute doing something.
Contact
Christopher Maierhofer B.Eng (Env)
Trail Care Coordinator
Local Asset Services - West
Brisbane City Council
West Regional Business Centre
46 Coonan Street
Indooroopilly Qld 4066
Ph. (07) 3407 0013
Email. christopher.maierhofer@brisbane.qld.gov.au
(more attachments coming).
The comments and opinions contained in this article are solely those of the writer. They do not reflect those of the Brisbane City Council or anybody else for that matter.
Name: Oppy
Age: 31 and rising…..
Location: Brisbane, Queensland.
Background: I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say I’m an old school mountain biker. When I first started mountain bike riding there were no specific mountain bike trails. In fact mountain bikes riding was not banned from anywhere because no one knew what it was or even that it existed. In the time before “The Banning” you could ride almost anywhere and be viewed as some sort of oddity rather than a threat. It was a naive time where I had the opportunity to ride many trails that are now officially off limits to mountain bikes. You used to receive a look of what the hell are you doing out here on a bicycle from the four-wheel drives, motorbikes, horse riders etc. These days the four-wheel drives and the motorbikes are gone from those areas and in many places so too are the mountain bikes.
I have been riding bicycles in the bush since I could ride a bike. I started off on a BMX riding the four-wheel drive tracks and moto trails directly behind my back fence. Back in the early eighties (gee I sound really old) population density in the South-East Queensland was much lower with a lot more undeveloped private land. These days I drive past many areas where I used to ride and race that are now under concrete and bricks, Forest Lake, Spring Field, Spring Field Lakes, etc etc. Gone are the days of unrestricted and uncontrolled access to large areas of private land. The publicly owned green spaces we have left are now much more highly sought after by more people and of much greater value and importance.
So I have been making tracks and cubby houses in the bush since I was about five or six. This became more involved when I took up mountain biking in 1990. I was introduced to new areas to ride and also to racing. Over the last 15 years or so I built and help to build numerous trails to both ride and race on. I also witnessed the successful sections of trail and the bits that failed or took way to much maintenance.
I was always exposed to the natural environment through living right next to it and also by growing up bushwalking, camping and four-wheel driving. It was this enjoyment of nature that lead me to studying Environmental Engineering at Griffith University. While at university I continued to race competitively doing the Queensland State series in elite level cross country and downhill and also making many journeys south to do the national titles. Through out my degree I also worked as a bicycle mechanic at the Big Bike Shop at Underwood.
After completing my degree I went to work for State Government in the Department of Mines doing environmental monitoring. This was a great experience where I had the opportunity to see inside of many various industries, mines and power stations. I travelled around the state including such ‘highlights’ as Mt Isa, Charleville, Rockhampton, Biloela…. Ok so it was not that glorious a job but I got a lot of experience and education. I left the state government to take up a job in an environmental consultancy where I learnt about billable hours, consultation fees, and negotiating with clients. It was a whole new way of doing things and a real change and challenge after being a public servant.
I am not really sure when I became aware of access issues for mountain bike riding but I do remember when I started doing something about. In 1999 as a member of the Southside R.A.T.S (Racing And Touring Social) Mountain Bike Club I presented a 2-day trail design construction and maintenance workshop for various stakeholders in Southeast Queensland. These stakeholders included; Redland Shire Council, Logan City Council, Daisy Hill State Forrest Rangers, Southside RATS Mountain Bike Club, Gold Coast Mountain Bike Club, Mountain Bike Australia (MTBA or may have been AMBA back then), Queensland Cycling Association, and the Queensland State Government Department of Sport Tourism and Recreation. The workshop covered trail planning, layout, construction, maintenance, and conflict resolution. Key elements of the workshop drew upon the international mountain biking association’s (IMBA) design guidelines for mountain bikes and my own personal experience and research. As part of the workshop I formed part of a team that prepared and installed three constructed rubber water bars and performed trail maintenance in an area of bushland adjoining the Daisy Hill State Forrest. In 2000 I was a member of the Spring Mountain, White Rock Conservation Estate Management Advisory Group (MAG) and the Flinders Peak and Mount Goolman Conservation Estate MAG. These groups were set up by the Ipswich City Council to act as a forum for stakeholders to participate in the management of these conservation areas and have input on track and trail construction and maintenance. I kept following advocacy from this point on writing letters of support and giving feedback when there was the opportunity.
While working in environmental consultancy a friend of mine sent me an advert for this job as a joke. I thought it was an opportunity to combine my work skills and my passion for mountain bikes so I applied. The rest as they say is history.
I have been building legal trails now for 2.5 years with the Brisbane City Council and the trails are getting better and better. There are now two trail care groups working in the forest building and maintain the mountain bike trails. We have even got some professionals into do some big jobs beyond that which volunteers can do. The best thing about it is that these trails are here to stay. We just keep building on the hard work that was done to get them to make them better and better.
Mistakes made Think of a mistake chances are I had a go at making it! Making a mistake once is OK failing to learn from your mistakes is not. It’s even better if learn from other peoples mistakes it saves you from the effort.
Mistakes I’ve made:
Not catering for the lowest common denominator ie the beginner factor. Beginners will always ride or try to ride things they shouldn’t. Public trails therefore need to be idiot proofed.
If you are going to use rock armour it still has to be the easiest path otherwise people will go around it. Same goes for any technical feature actually.
You need to have B lines (and some times C lines!)
Turn the trail up hill before a 180 degree berm to shed some speed.
Berms stop squids from blowing out trail edges.
Put lots of stuff logs, rocks, trees, etc in the middle of berms to stop short cutting.
It won’t happen overnight, unless it’s a F-up in which case they can pretty much happen instantaneously.
Favourite Tool: The human brain. Failing to use it will ensure your trail fails. Ok seriously a favourite hand tool would have to be the rakhoe, you just can’t go past it for versatility. I have had some recent excellent experiences with a powered wheelbarrow.
Free Fairy or Pro Fairy: You know I have always preferred the term Trail Gnome or even Trail Troll than Trail Fairy. So call me a Professional Trail Gnome.
Online Resources:
http://www.leelikesbikes.com/build-your-own-pump-track.html
http://www.mmba.org/gallery/freeride_design_studio
http://www.outdoorstructures.com.au/pdf/boardwalk_design_guide.pdf
http://www.trailbuilders.org/
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/rectrails/index.htm
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/rectrails/publications.htm#Trail
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/fspubs/index.htm
http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/naturalresources/DD6371.html
http://www.fs.fed.us/database/acad/dev/trails/trails.htm
http://www.traildynamics.com/index.asp
http://www.nemba.org/
http://www.nsmba.bc.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=38&Itemid=47
http://www.nsmba.bc.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=23&Itemid=36
I am sure I could scrounge some more links but if you get through all that and you’ve been to http://www.imba.com you won’t need any more info.
Your Topic Education, if you are going to make statements to the public, government or community groups know what you are talking about otherwise you look stupid. It’s the very definition of ignorance.
Do your homework. Ignorant statements like “It’s of no value there’s nothing there but a few gum trees” invalidate everything you have to say whether it’s reasonable or not. Nearly ever conservation area of park will be managed under a plan or guidelines. Try to obtain a copy of it and read it. Then you can make some informed statements.
Lobbying for legitimate access is a very hard and time consuming, but it pays off in the long run. If you build illegally it will get found and pulled down. Yes you can rebuild it and yes it will get pulled down again. This can go on and on but wouldn’t you just rather ride your bike? Get behind those that are doing it the right way. The more support they get the more they can get done and the faster it can happen. Do at least one volunteer trail day each year. If you can make the time to ride you can make the time to look after the trails as well, no excuses.
General Rant Bureaucracies and other ways to flog a dead horse……
Bureaucracies are ungainly beasts that lumber towards their goals in a geologic time frame. Which has led me to the following observation of the 3 steps of bureaucratic management.
Step 1 Ignore it: Land managers are usually overwhelmed with what they already have to do and are also normally under resourced to boot. It is extremely difficult to pro-actively manage issues before they become ‘problems’. A typical example would go something like this:
Hmm looks like X is increasing and will need to be managed. If we spend Y amount of dollars this financial year on X then we will have X happening appropriately. If we don’t spend Y in 3-5 years time it will cost 5 times Y to fix the issue to get back to where we were if we had spent Y to begin with.
Management response normally is something like this, why should I give you additional Y dollars when there is not a problem. If you want to do this take Y dollars from one of your existing programs. Of course all the existing programs are to fix existing problems so no money gets spent on activity X.
Step 2 Ban it: Land manager: Hey look at that, activity X is growing and impacting as we said it would yet we have no dollars to spend on managing it. Can we have 2 times Y dollars to manage it.
Management response: Why should I give you additional 2 times Y dollars to manage X.
Typical second response include it’s not our problem it’s another department/agency/level of government, or it is illegal or we have made it illegal. Problem solved.
Step 3 Manage it: Land managers X is now a problem we need 5x Y dollars to fix up the problems and manage it like we should have years ago.
Management response: Oh we can’t ignore it, enforcement/banning passing the buck doesn’t seem to be working. OK we have to manage this issue here’s Y dollars…...
Which brings me to Dead Horses and how to flog them.
Wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount and walk. However, bureaucracies often try other strategies with dead horses, including the following:
1. Buy a stronger whip.
2. Change riders.
3. Say things like, "This is the way we have always have ridden this horse."
4. Appoint a committee to study the horse.
5. Arrange to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
6. Rewrite the standards for dead horse performance.
7. Appoint a review team to revive the dead horse.
8. Create a training session to increase riding ability.
9. Compare the state of dead horses in today's environment.
10. Change the requirements, declaring that, "This horse is not dead."
11. Hire contractors to ride the dead horse.
12. Harness several dead horses together to increase speed and pulling power.
13. Declare that, "No horse is too dead to beat."
14. Provide additional incentive funding to increase the horse's performance.
15. Do a Commercial Activities Study to see if contractors can ride it cheaper.
16. Purchase a software product to make dead horses run faster.
17. Declare the horse is "better, faster, and cheaper" dead.
18. Form a quality circle to find uses for dead horses.
19. Revisit the performance requirements for horses.
20. Say this horse was procured with cost as an independent variable.
21. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.
22. Shorten the track.
23. Establish benchmarks for industry dead-horse leaders.
24. Put together a spiffy PowerPoint presentation to get planners to double the dead-horse R&D budget.
25 Get the horse a website.
26. Declare that the horse is not in fact dead, but poised for growth.(or just pinin')
27. Sell off its ears to reduce overheads.
28. Re-organize the horse to make it more customer-facing, by cutting off its head and sewing it on backwards.
29. Declare that since horse is dead, we must now ride smarter, not harder.
30. Sell off the horse's legs one by one, until someone will buy it.
31. Declare that riding is not a core competency.
Pictures attached.
end note
Ok here I am at the end of this and I still haven’t really said anything about building trails. If you really want to learn about building trails, maintaining them and lobbying for them go along to your nearest trail working bee. You’ll learn more there by doing than sitting here reading stuff on the Internet. Remember kids actions speak louder than words and posting on the Internet does not actually constitute doing something.
Contact
Christopher Maierhofer B.Eng (Env)
Trail Care Coordinator
Local Asset Services - West
Brisbane City Council
West Regional Business Centre
46 Coonan Street
Indooroopilly Qld 4066
Ph. (07) 3407 0013
Email. christopher.maierhofer@brisbane.qld.gov.au
(more attachments coming).