[Members] Trailbuilding Report

[Martin Steele]

Many thanks to those that turned out to help repair last week's storm
damage on Saturday. Temperature was a chilly -5C in the car park when
we started, but a bit of hard graft soon warmed everyone up. We cut up
and shifted a dozen trees to open up a rideable loop. The section of
Pipedream (Tunguska Corner) that suffered badly in the Hogmanay storms
of 2006/07 was again hit hard and the winds brought down twenty or so
trees over a short stretch of trail. Andy, the FC ranger, and a work
crew managed to clear the rest of the fallen trees during the week, so
trails are fully open again.

Things have been a bit quiet on the trailbuilding front recently -
mainly thanks to the way that trails have been built but, sadly, also
due to the fact that CVDGs trail maintenance agreement was not renewed
by the Forestry Commission. Despite our best efforts and the fact that
other trail building groups in the forest district have been granted
general trail maintenance permissions, we have had to submit requests
to carry out maintenance on a case-by-case basis, which made the
process very cumbersome. We are again seeking a general permission to
allow us to carry out a bit of TLC over coming months – we'll email
out in the usual way to let you know of upcoming sessions.

You might have seen the article on volunteer trail builders in The
Herald at the weekend – all over Scotland, volunteer builders are
really making a difference building and maintain mountain bike trails
for everyone to use free of charge. When we come to expand the trails
at Carron Valley, you folks will be key in helping build the fantastic
trail centre that central Scotland deserves. Carron Valley Development
Group would like to thank you for past and future endeavours.

Cheers

Marty
Carron Valley Development Group
www.carronvalley.org.uk