Double Greno news this week after a bit of a break. All the details are below but in short there is some felling to be done in the woods between now and Christmas, it’s pretty much all away from the bike tracks apart from a little around the bomb hole and edge of pub run where some of the trees susceptible to damage in high winds are being removed or protected.
The major felling works are at the north end of the woods away from the bike trails. The map below shows the areas in question.
Ride Sheffield is asking riders near and far to support our project for better trail maintenance in and around Sheffield, as part of the Aviva Community Fund.
Our application has made it through the first round and now relies on your votes to increase our chance of winning £25,000 to put our maintenance plan into place.
We’re aiming to establish working groups around Sheffield, with volunteers and Ride Sheffield committee members working alongside each other to improve both purpose built trails and existing rights of way. We’d like to do this with proper systems in place, with training, tooling, materials all taken care of.
To give your support to Ride Sheffield, please click on the link below. You can read the details of our maintenance and then vote to give your support!
Ride Sheffield project for the Aviva Community Fund
Please spread the word – the more votes we get, the more chance we have to get through to the final selection!
Make sure you’ve got plenty of midge-repellent they said. Don’t worry, I said, I’ll be covered from head to foot, barely an inch of skin showing. Show’s how much I know. (more…)
Following my funding web piece back in May to highlight the need for ongoing funding for Ride Sheffield (Linked here for those that missed it – https://ridesheffield.org.uk/2017/05/money-moola-wonga-wedge/ ) we’ve had a couple of sessions at the Norfolk Arms next to Lady C’s to discuss with individuals and various local businesses how we can all work together to develop a reliable income stream for Ride Sheffield to keep the trails running sweet and further develop mountain bike good times in South Yorkshire and the Peak District. We’ll have one part of it ready to unveil to everyone at the Christmas social meeting in November and the details of that will be rolled out to everyone who can’t make it shortly after. (more…)
As a result, we’ve not only managed to construct hard-wearing, fun trails in Greno Woods and Lady Canning’s Plantation but also maintain them in spite of an astronomical level of use. We’ve also wielded shovels on Blackamoor, the Eastern Moors and Rivelin Valley in order to help land managers such as the Sheffield Wildlife Trust keep their bridleways in top condition. Much of this has been done with volunteer labour but, on occasion, we have had to rely on the professional skills of BikeTrack to cope with bigger projects. This has necessitated some expenditure and recently, Alpkit covered the cost of plant needed to complete a project on Blackamoor while BikeTrack provided a digger driver. This kind of support is invaluable to Ride Sheffield and a public relations bonanza for the company involved.
Ride Sheffield and Peak District MTB have been lucky enough to be included in a really exciting nationwide project organised by the BMC – Mend our Mountains. The BMC (British Mountaineering Council) traditionally represented climbers and hill walkers, but are expanding their reach to include other moorland and mountain users, including us mountain bikers! The BMC have achieved so much as a representative body for the outdoors, fighting for the rights of their huge membership base. We’re really rather pleased to be involved in their latest project, we as mountain bike advocacy groups have much to learn from them.
Si headed over to Manchester for a meeting with the BMC, along with Chris from Peak District MTB and representatives from across the UK’s National Parks. Each Park updated the room on their respective projects and we all shared ideas on how best to move forward together. Together being the key word here, as the BMC pull everyone in the same direction. (more…)
To practice what we preach, we’re making sure that the 2 trails at Lady Canning’s get the TLC they need to last well through the Autumn and Winter. With that in mind, we’ll have another trail day on Saturday 16th September.
We’ll be trimming back some brambles along with a general tidy and check of both trails. All help is welcome, with no experience necessary in this case.
We’ll be meeting at the car park off Sheephill Road at 9.30am, with an aim to finish in time for lunch. Please bring rakes and secateurs/trimmers if you can!
If you’re out for a ride around Canning’s on that Saturday, please watch out for those of us working. We’ll not be closing the trails, so you may find us on either Cooking on Gas or Blue Steel.
You may have seen a few things around town about Cycle September that is being organised by Love to Ride? You may be wondering why you should take part? More info is below…. But basically one of the biggest problems when lobbying for better infrastructure and facilities for cyclists is a lack of data that can be used. By taking part, not only do you get a chance to take part in a fun event, you can also generate useful data that makes things better for cyclists in Sheffield. register your workplace and you will also have the bonus of being able to show your employers the number of cyclists, which is useful in sorting better facilities for those that ride, such as storage and shower. So what are you waiting for?….. (more…)
This article explains why it’s often essential to call Mountain Rescue if a casualty needs to be recovered from a remote area…. (more…)
Hopefully you’ve seen our post inviting everyone to our RadTax discussions on Wednesday 2nd August. If not, then you can see full details here.
Simply put, we’re after everyone’s ideas and opinions on how we encourage steady contributions to Ride Sheffield, to cover maintenance – not just new trails. If we can prove that we can look after the existing purpose built trails, then who knows what may come in the future…
As a little sweetener to encourage everyone to come along and join in, we’ll be handing out free tombola tickets to anybody who shares their idea with us. Prizes will be drawn randomly and will include;
We hope that the chance to have some input will be enough to encourage you along, but the chance to win something is always great too. See you there?