MTB Mournes Project Moves Ahead.
Things seem to be finally moving ahead on plans to put purpose built trails into both Rostrevor and Castlewellan Forest Parks. Route flagging has begun in Rostrevor and it is hoped both this work and the flagging in Castlewellan will be completed by September, with a view to project being completed in 2011.
Checkout the Mountain Biking section of the Projects are on the CAAN website.
In Rostrevor there are plans for two specific DH tracks and a big XC loop. 25km of single track in total, being nearly entirely red or black grade. One DH track will be pumpy and fun, jumps etc, the other will be as technical as they can make it, as close to the style of the existing champs track as possible. Both will have starts and finishes that are very conducive to using the forest drive for uplifts. The XC loop is big and goes up near the top of Slieve Martin. They will be much steeper than conventional trail centre trails, lots of rock sections, cool bits etc. They will cross the existing DH runs. No deliberate effort will be made to interfere with the DH runs, other than crossing them. Glynn O’Brien (the DH legend) is being involved in the plan for the two DH runs.
At this point we have no details on the specifics of the Castlewellan trails, other than that they will be more XC focused.
There have been some reports of trails flags going missing. Please see message below from CAAN & please forward to anyone you think may help:
Dafydd Davies is over at present doing the micro design for Rostrevor and Castlewellan mountain bikes trails. Sometime over the weekend someone went into Rostrevor and pulled out the canes, that are used to flag the trail, over a 300m stretch. This may not sound a lot but it is half a day of Dafydd’s time and if this continues – it’s just another obstacle that is jeopardizing the project. There is no additional funding for the micro design of the trails – so you can imagine if we lose more of the flagging – it’s going to be a major concern. Can you please ask all riders to keep an eye out when they are riding in the forest in case they see anyone removing the canes and report back to Clare at CAAN – clare@countryrsiderecreation.com.
