Lower Blue Mountains Jumps

[NCR600]

And by Lower Blue Mountains, I mean the very Lower BM's, behind a footy oval and some Netball courts (not wanting to give anything away)

The missus plays a club game there with her State League team (as an extra training sesh) and I decided to go for an explore.

I found some very old and not terribly well maintained jumps and a very non tech XC loop. (complete with pallets placed on the only tech sections to remove any enjoyment from it at all)

Now, these jumps are pretty obvious, and haven't been bulldozed by BMCC, so is anyone lobbying the BMCC to legitamize them? It'd be a pretty ideal location for some legal jumps. There's easy parking, it's far enough away from houses not to annoy the neighbours, and has a fairly good scope for more building. The jumps looked fairly unused in recent times although there was some evidence of a motorcycle being in the area recently, but not on the jumps themselves.

And are there any better ones nearby that get used more regularly? Watching some people DJ would break up an arvo of watching the 14yrs rep team she coaches playing and then watching her state league team decimate some club teams.

[go to bed jessica]

Those jumps have been there for years, but haven't been used for regularly for ages (5 years?)

Those trails are part of what is now know as the tramways. There is a couple of short DH runs and a big gap/ stepdown over the old tramway, which is all fairly recent, as well as the xc loop which has been used for 10 years+.

Anyway, a Plan of Management was recently applied to this area in question. It was mainly concerned with the oval/ netball courts, but not much was said about the trails other than the freeride stuff/ jumps would be removed.

There are a few jump sites in the area, only one or so are actually any good, and they are "hidden". Lennox jumps over the other side of Glenbrook are legal, but that's it. I think BMCC's thought process is that if they can get 1000+ soccer players per oval, why legalise 10 jump sites for 100 dirt jumpers?

I think that we're our own worst enemy when it comes to getting some more legal sites, the response I often get is "Why would we legalize more sites when you guys can't look after a site as it is, and when it gets trashed you just build another one" As negative as it sounds, in the lower mountains at least I think they're right! It's pretty bad when there are more trails/ jumps sitting there not being used (like the ones you've mentioned) than one's that are actually being used.

[NCR600]

Someone (presumably the BMCC) has been using part of the lower carpark area as a stockpile site for shredded/chipped vegetation. I don't know if that's got something to do with their Plan of Management.

The thing that got me thinking about this site was the group of kids on MTB's trying to get air off the drops in between the terraced grass netball courts, when their was a set of jumps 200 metres away that had a beginners line, if only someone would fix it up (and take away the rusty 44 gallon drums and star pickets)

I might take a bike up next week and do some further exploring. I'd like to take a look at the ZigZag (I assume this is what you mean by the tramway... it used to be the main rail line up the mountains like The Great ZigZag at Clarence was the way down)

[go to bed jessica]

I might take a bike up next week and do some further exploring. I'd like to take a look at the ZigZag (I assume this is what you mean by the tramway... it used to be the main rail line up the mountains like The Great ZigZag at Clarence was the way down)

Nah, ZigZag and the Tramway are two different things. The ZigZag is indeed the original rail route up Lapstone hill, there is a big issue with a bunch of new trails that got put in over the last few months, but they are still there and rideable (although I reckon you'd be suicidal to ride the north shore, the build quality is truly shithouse)

The Tramway is just up the hill from the jumps you saw. It was built to carry materials down to the new railway tunnel when they made the railway through Glenbrook gorge. There is some stuff around the Northern end of the tramway.

I think the stockpiles of vegetation you saw are the weed's removed in the last few months by the regen guys, but I could be wrong.

[NCR600]

Ok. Didn't know about the tramway. You learn the oddest stuff on this site!

I'll do some more exploring next week. Not really interested in riding any jumps or sketchy north shore, but a MTB mounted railway history tour sounds a reasonable way to kill an hour or two!

[christop]

There are some good jumps around my area.(SpringWood)
There is a realy good lot of them but no one uses them they are to big and people stuffed them all up.
They are down into the bush there big but there is alot of water biulding up there.
The people that biult them sucked put no drainage in:mad:
There is water everywhere so there is no clean run it for the jumps.

[freestyle1410]

how do you get to the tramway?

[freestyle1410]

hey guys been to the tramway, reccomend it to anyone who is really good at dj or big gaps.

there are some djs on the corner of syncarpia and hawkesbury rd (excuse my spelling) in winmalee. also some down paterson rd, all of them are pretty small, but ive seen backflips on the bigger ones, so not too small for tricks.

[dezza10]

hey guys, i was reading this thread and thought i would have a look on youtube to see if i could find 'Tramways', so i did a search and found this http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=zx07SxmYGIg&feature=related is this the right track or is it just another track called 'Tramways' with a big step down over a huge gap.

[freestyle1410]

yeah thats the one, if you search lapstone in phat vids youll get that video.

[mty10@]

Yeah,
I just got the original "Drift - A new race" and that tram gap is in it :D