Mt Gravatt

[Cooch]

This week the Southern Star placed a story of the front page. 'Mountain Bikers Flout Ban' which only reinforces negative perceptions of mountain bikers. http://southern-star.whereilive.com.au/news/story/mountain-bikers-flout-ban/ If the link doesn't work, cut and paste it in your browser.

The paper has an online poll - Should MTB be banned at Mt Gravatt Lookout? http://southern-star.whereilive.com.au/

Mountainbiking needs your support to vote against this. And please could you pass this on to your MTB mates?

[dj3]

i voted no!!!

[Cooch]

i voted no!!!

Yeah ha ha ha haaaaaa - me too! :D

[d_j1]

I voted no 3 times!:D Don't these friggen environmentally concerned people realise that there are ways to build tracks that are sustainable and friendly to the 'sensitive land'. For example the myriad of tracks at Gap Creek and Daisy Hill as mentioned. Ignorance makes me so angry.

[GravityGuru]

Sue Jones needs a roundhouse kick to the forehead!

But Mt Gravatt Environment Group secretary Sue Jones said mountain biking caused irreparable damage to sensitive bushland.
“The type of mountain biking they want to perform is the steep active riding which is environmentally damaging in steep, erodable areas,” she said.

[Rhys_]

Cheers for the heads-up. The article seemed fairly positive to me, although yeah flouting a ban as a heading doesn't come across to well. Voting is going well, 78% no when I voted :)

[chuckies_here]

I say we pitch all our money together and get a "hit" on this sue....KIDDINGGG haha.

But seriously. If we had more legal trails none of this would ever happen.
It would help if the council would open up their eyes and realize this.

[johno71]

I say we pitch all our money together and get a "hit" on this sue....KIDDINGGG haha.

But seriously. If we had more legal trails none of this would ever happen.
It would help if the council would open up their eyes and realize this.

i got $5 i will throw in.... that should just about do it..... the big problem is chuckie, its taken a shit load of work to get where we are now, and to get more it takes a shitload of time. you just got to remember its government so theres plenty of red tape to get through, but when something is done thats viewed as being wrong or illegal by them sets us back 6 months everytime.... hell i would love to see national parks open to mtb like they are in nsw, but until then all we can do is be patient and wait and most of all be seen to be playing by there rules and not get caught when you dont

[chuckies_here]

i got $5 i will throw in.... that should just about do it..... the big problem is chuckie, its taken a shit load of work to get where we are now, and to get more it takes a shitload of time. you just got to remember its government so theres plenty of red tape to get through, but when something is done thats viewed as being wrong or illegal by them sets us back 6 months everytime.... hell i would love to see national parks open to mtb like they are in nsw, but until then all we can do is be patient and wait and most of all be seen to be playing by there rules and not get caught when you dont

Yeah i know how much it takes. It shits me off too see this kind of stuff happen.

But what i am saying is. Like if they want us riding only in particular areas and not on other is give us some tracks we can ride. It would keep us out of their hair and out of trouble.

I am pretty sure we would all be able too get enough signtures and everything to endorse some trails around Brisbane. And i would stab at saying that most of us wouldn't mind looking after them.

It isn't much we ask for haha:rolleyes:

[Cruz]

You would be surprised how hard it is to get people to work on trails, just ask Oppy about the Gap Creek trails and how many turn up for trail care.

[big dan]

Check this out.

this is an email that is being circulated by the enviro groups. As you can see they are highly organised and well connected. We need to make sure we dont just vote on the poll but also write emails and letters to either the Lord Mayor or the councillors.

This could be a turning point in Bris MTB access if people actually do something.

email...

Dear Committee Members,
URGENT RESPONSE ASKED:

Dear committee: There is a concerted campaign to overturn protection
of conservation of the Mt Gravatt Outlook Reserve. In the Southern Star
newspaper a front page story promoting mountain bike take over of the
reserve is promoted. There is an on-line respons and the Mountain bikers are
ahead in a head count and response at this time. We are behind the 8 ball.
This is the thin edge of the wedge. They want every nature hill reserve in
Brisbane and this was clearly shown in the "Future Holders" presentation by
Council in 2003. I am asking for your vote on line and your comments also if
possible. Also to spread the word to your members and friends. We have to
fight this battle or we lose our reserves' environmental values and
biodiversity. This is not just an issue for the Bulimba Creek Catchment.
The reserve near you will eventually come under the same pressure from a
highly organised and support lobby group of users. I hope you can consider a
response Please!

Kind regards
XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Go to website below to register your vote - should mountain bikes be banned
- yes.
http://southern-star.whereilive.com.au/

You can also write simple comment
http://southern-star.whereilive.com.au/news/comments/mountain-bikers-flout-b
an/[/i]

[frenchman]

You would be surprised how hard it is to get people to work on trails, just ask Oppy about the Gap Creek trails and how many turn up for trail care.

I can understand why. Most downhill riders aren't that interested in helping out with trails that they are not going to ride. It's f-in painful.... That goes for most riders as well. If you are a local it obviously makes sense to maintain the trails, but when they are 1-1.5 hours away it really is quite hard to justify driving / riding out there just to dig.

A lot of them however, have at some stage helped out on a trail care day and race days when they come around. A while back there was quite a few out at trail care days (talking 3 years ago here)

[JaRedy]

I really would write a letter, but, i'm not sure what to say...I dont have many constructive sentences floating around up there.

"They want every nature hill reserve in
Brisbane and this was clearly shown in the "Future Holders" presentation by
Council in 2003."

What the heck. There's only 2 or 3 Legal reserves in brisbane...hardly all of them. and none of them are leaning towards the "race track standard" DH type tracks. No wonder there's so much demand.


Chuckie: I aggree with what you said 110%
It would be good to have a legal DH track in our backyard.

P.S. I'm very tired...and I may have contradicted myself somewhere up there...tell me if i did.

Goodnight.

[Doggy]

Check this out.

this is an email that is being circulated by the enviro groups. As you can see they are highly organised and well connected. We need to make sure we dont just vote on the poll but also write emails and letters to either the Lord Mayor or the councillors.

This could be a turning point in Bris MTB access if people actually do something.

email...

Dear Committee Members,
URGENT RESPONSE ASKED:

Dear committee: There is a concerted campaign to overturn protection
of conservation of the Mt Gravatt Outlook Reserve. In the Southern Star
newspaper a front page story promoting mountain bike take over of the
reserve is promoted. There is an on-line respons and the Mountain bikers are
ahead in a head count and response at this time. We are behind the 8 ball.
This is the thin edge of the wedge. They want every nature hill reserve in
Brisbane and this was clearly shown in the "Future Holders" presentation by
Council in 2003. I am asking for your vote on line and your comments also if
possible. Also to spread the word to your members and friends. We have to
fight this battle or we lose our reserves' environmental values and
biodiversity. This is not just an issue for the Bulimba Creek Catchment.
The reserve near you will eventually come under the same pressure from a
highly organised and support lobby group of users. I hope you can consider a
response Please!

Kind regards
XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Go to website below to register your vote - should mountain bikes be banned
- yes.
http://southern-star.whereilive.com.au/

You can also write simple comment
http://southern-star.whereilive.com.au/news/comments/mountain-bikers-flout-b
an/[/i]

Dan.....the inside link to enviro groups. You can be our ninja spy Dan....be the ninja, focus, wax on...wax off


I love the Bulimba Creek Catchment group.:rolleyes:

[Viv92]

I really would write a letter, but, i'm not sure what to say...I dont have many constructive sentences floating around up there.

"They want every nature hill reserve in
Brisbane and this was clearly shown in the "Future Holders" presentation by
Council in 2003."

What the heck. There's only 2 or 3 Legal reserves in brisbane...hardly all of them. and none of them are leaning towards the "race track standard" DH type tracks. No wonder there's so much demand.


Chuckie: I aggree with what you said 110%
It would be good to have a legal DH track in our backyard.

P.S. I'm very tired...and I may have contradicted myself somewhere up there...tell me if i did.

Goodnight.

Jared, any letter is a good letter.

Just declaring your support for it is all we need. Say we had 40-50 letters of support for mountain biking, that would be a great help.


I'm drafting up a letter at the moment, I'll post it up soon so I can get you thinking about what to talk about.

[chuckies_here]

Yeah i reckon we should all show our support in this matter.
viv92. It would be sweet if you ould post up what you are going to write because i wouldm't mind seeing how you are writing yours before i send oone off aswell.

[Viv92]

Yeah i reckon we should all show our support in this matter.
viv92. It would be sweet if you ould post up what you are going to write because i wouldm't mind seeing how you are writing yours before i send oone off aswell.

Good on you Charlie.

To give you a brief outline of what my letter does/will contain:


why more mountain biking areas are neccessary in SEQ
examples of well managed MTB areas
suitability for a DH track
responses to some reasons 'green' groups give against mountain biking

[JaRedy]

Good on you Charlie.

To give you a brief outline of what my letter does/will contain:


why more mountain biking areas are neccessary in SEQ
examples of well managed MTB areas
suitability for a DH track
responses to some reasons 'green' groups give against mountain biking


Good on you Viv, and Chuckie.

I'll whip one up with bits and pices and quotes from around the place too.
Who is the key person(s) we are sending this too?

[Viv92]

Good facts in here:

2008 Letter to Lord Mayor (http://www.gcta.asn.au/documents/2008LettertoLordMayor.pdf)

Also remember that Mt Gravatt is a recreation reserve, not a conservation area like Coot-tha.

[JaRedy]

Good facts in here:

2008 Letter to Lord Mayor (http://www.gcta.asn.au/documents/2008LettertoLordMayor.pdf)

Also remember that Mt Gravatt is a recreation reserve, not a conservation area like Coot-tha.

Hah, then why am I reading everywhere that it has to be left untouched to conserve it? There are obvious reasons I know...but really:rolleyes:

[Viv92]

I've finished a draft copy of my letter.

I urge anyone else who supports the cause the write in or email as well.

It doesn't have to be as long as mine, merely declaring your support is a great help!

I'll include some other useful information in another post if you are interested in sending a detailed letter.

Mine is attached.

[Viv92]

Here are some useful snippets you can use to add some facts to your article:

The recent call for community responses to the management plan for Mt Gravatt Outlook
Reserve resulted in 94% of responses referring to recreation. 50% of these supported
mountain biking. 14% opposed mountain biking.

Council commissioned TNS to conduct market research on mountain biking at Mt Coottha
Forest. 77% of residents agreed that ‘mountain bike riding should be permitted on
designated tracks in the park’. 13% disagreed. 21% of the surveyed residents mountain
bike regularly.

Percentage of residents participating in outdoor bicycle riding in 2007: 29%

Only activities conducted in natural settings were counted. Residents were asked if they
participate in outdoor recreation in somewhat natural, very natural or totally natural
settings. Data from studies in 1997, 2001 and 2007 has revealed trends toward
increasing participation in and demand for bicycle riding in very natural settings.

If 29% of SEQ residents cycle in natural settings (mountain bike), then presumably any
move by the Liberal Council to provide for this demand will lead to more popularity.

There is a chronic under supply of legal venues for this recreational activity which is demonstrated
through the many illegal and unauthorised
venues as well as limited number private, race only
venues. The only legal venue in Southern Queensland is located in Toowoomba at Jubilee Park.

Australia is the number 1 ranked nation in the International Cycling Union (UCI) World Downhill
Mountain Bike Series. At the recent 2007 UCI World Championships held in Rotorua New Zealand,
Australians dominated with two World Champions, Sam Hill (Senior Men) and Queensland's Tracey
Hannah (Junior Women) with a long list in the top ten, many of them also from Queensland.


Also talking about Stromlo, Awaba, Toowoomba, You Yangs, or any other legal DH venue will be a plus.

I included points about legal trails reducing the amount of erosion, by using modern trail design techniques, as well as a legal trail increasing safety of riders.

A legal trail will also get rid of a large portion of the illegal tracks in the reserve, and the sealed shuttle road is a big plus for DH.

In a nutshell: the demand is there, but the trails aren't. Legal trails will be more sustainable and safer.


Don't forget to actually send it in... haha.


As far as I know we are best off sending letters to mainly Cambell Newman, but also Peter Matic as he is the Chairperson for the Environment, Parks and Sustainability committee, and has overturned attempts to get legal trails in the past.



Also if we all send in a copy of the same letter it is just counted as one letter, or at least that's what the Green groups have made happen in the past. Individual letters have to be individual to some degree, however a rough template may be a good idea.

[Rhys_]

That was very good Viv, I'll get mine in over the next week when I have time. My feeling is that I'd rather leave the area it the way it is (in terms of legality), rather than have the council turn it into another xc trails area like Cootha. The council would use that as proof they are catering for mtb, when really they would be totally leaving out the riders (dhers) who actually used (and fought for) the area in the first place; and there would still be no legal dh in SEQ. That may be selfish of me yeah, but that is my view.

[Viv92]

That was very good Viv, I'll get mine in over the next week when I have time. My feeling is that I'd rather leave the area it the way it is (in terms of legality), rather than have the council turn it into another xc trails area like Cootha. The council would use that as proof they are catering for mtb, when really they would be totally leaving out the riders (dhers) who actually used (and fought for) the area in the first place; and there would still be no legal dh in SEQ. That may be selfish of me yeah, but that is my view.

I suppose, but from what I've been told there is actually a reasonable chance of a DH trail...

[udi]

Yeah you gotta be careful with these things guys, I wrote a submission to the council some time ago and made a big effort to emphasize that DH riders (specifically) needed a track, and that there are plenty of XC locations already.

I'm just going to vote on this one and leave it be, because the way I see it, the less attention the place gets right now, the longer I'll be able to ride it.

[chuckies_here]

Yeah you gotta be careful with these things guys, I wrote a submission to the council some time ago and made a big effort to emphasize that DH riders (specifically) needed a track, and that there are plenty of XC locations already.

I'm just going to vote on this one and leave it be, because the way I see it, the less attention the place gets right now, the longer I'll be able to ride it.

Yeah UDI has a point on the last part of his sentence.
If we don;t give it much attention it could all settle down and we could go back to riding it in private.

But it could also back fire and then get shut down like permantly if we don't do anything to try and save it.

I guess we just have to play this very smart.

EDIT

As Viv said we need to include in our letters/Statements if we write them about the other tracks interstate and how well they are working and some of the ways we will try to reduce erroision and all of that jazz.

[GravityGuru]

try to reduce erroision and all of that jazz.

Probably word that a little differently... making clear that a properly managed trail will cause less erosion then if it was just left as is...

[chuckies_here]

Probably word that a little differently... making clear that a properly managed trail will cause less erosion then if it was just left as is...

Haha yeah thats what i was getting at. Except i had just gotten out of bed and the brain doesn't kick in till about nowish.

So yes exactly what he said.

[frenchman]

*snip*
But it could also back fire and then get shut down like permantly if we don't do anything to try and save it.



That will not happen.

[Viv92]

The Southern Star has run another front page article on the results of the poll.

Lift Bush Bike Ban, says poll.

The paper approached Councillor Krista Adams, for Wishart Ward who said that she'd mainly heard from those opposing MTBs.

So everyone who's written or emailed Councillor Matic or the Lord Mayor, let Krista Adams know what you think.

She's heard only from our opponents who paint a very extreme picture, sometimes without regard for the facts.

Her email is wishart.ward@ecn.net.au

The Southern Star editer prompted us to write to her office at:
Wishart Ward Office, 2072 Logan Rd, Upper Mt Gravatt QLD 4122

By the way, BCC's call for responses to the management plan for Mt Gravatt Lookout resulted in 50% in favour and 14% opposed to MTB access. Very similar to the poll - 77% for and 23% against MTB access. A ratio of 3:1

This was posted on MTB dirt. Look at the 'only'...

[scooter]

I just called my councilor to ask him to lobby for the provision of trails in the reserve. The information in this thread will help me present a better case to him when he calls back. As he's the infrastructure chairman and quite high up in the rungs of council hopefully he can smack some sense into Ms Adams.

[Viv92]

Asked if the flurry of reader feedback would influence the council’s decision, the spokesman said: ``An incredible amount of feedback to a newspaper wouldn’t but an incredible amount of feedback to council would.’’

Read it...

[JaRedy]

Just heard that aparently it got dozed, and not like before either. This time it's like full on knocking down large trees to stop us type dozed.

Probably not a good move if they're knocking down LIVE trees to the riding of a lil rut.

Ill go up tomorrow on my commuter and check it out.

[udi]

Did our lovely Cr. Krista Adams even cast an eye over the "Draft Mt. Gravatt land management plan" public consultation results? If she did, she'd find that the most recent (BCC invoked) feedback from the public coincides with the results that the Southern Star came up with (i.e. people support mountain biking!); not vice-versa as she stupidly suggests.

Regardless, some of the anti-mtb comments published in the 'Star were pretty funny. Thankfully our own comments (at least the published ones) were much more objective, most of them were from downhiller's parents I think. Thumbs up DH mums and dads. :)

Mountain bikes should be banned at Mt. Gravatt. They cause damage to the environmenmt. Heather via SMS
Yeah nice one Heather, how brilliantly in-depth and insightful.

...The outlook mountain reserve is far too valuable to be desecrated by mountain bikes... Barry Miller, Mt. Gravatt
Yeah, never mind the hoons, heroin addicts and knife wielding maniacs.

[zorf]

Just heard that aparently it got dozed, and not like before either. This time it's like full on knocking down large trees to stop us type dozed.

Probably not a good move if they're knocking down LIVE trees to the riding of a lil rut.

Ill go up tomorrow on my commuter and check it out.

it's fine nothing got bulldozed

[MR_HOON]

yea the tracks fine
its good to know that its there for the day we can ride it legaly.

[andrew_o]

Reading this thread so far, nothing is definite I take it? personally I think the bush walkers and local members should take a glance at the top of the mountain, it was in a disgusting state the last time I was there, but I guess it was those deviant downhillers up to their usual mischief . :rolleyes:

[JaRedy]

Reading this thread so far, nothing is definite I take it? personally I think the bush walkers and local members should take a glance at the top of the mountain, it was in a disgusting state the last time I was there, but I guess it was those deviant downhillers up to their usual mischief . :rolleyes:

Or those fat perverts with bandaids...Dont ask them for bandaids!!!

[JaRedy]

Hmm went up today for a visit.
and some idiot has built a big new line off the track down the bottom.
Dumb move:eek:

[ozztrailia]

Mt Gravatt is a small conservation rerserve with parkland at the summit. Historicallly the area attracts active rather than recreational mountain bike riders. Active riding down the steep slopes of the Reserve has caused considerable damage in the past. Bike riding is certainly a healthy pastime, but being driven in a car to the summit to ride down the montainside doesn’t equate to healthy exercise.
Mountain bikers need somewhere to ride but our local Reserve is too small and too fragile to cope with the impacts of this obviously popular and growing sport.

This lady is full of the dirtiest shit that i have even read! Something needs to be done! Im going to be writing my letter into the council tomorow and hope that everyone else is doing it as well.

[Viv92]

This lady is full of the dirtiest shit that i have even read! Something needs to be done! Im going to be writing my letter into the council tomorow and hope that everyone else is doing it as well.

Good idea, but try to refrain from slagging other people off in your letter, it doesn't make us look good.