It’s crazy how quickly things can change. I was busy planning this year’s Christmas DeVo for 20th December when I received an email from the Greensands Trust (GST) saying the Downhill Zone (Bike Park) would close for forestry operations on Monday 8 December, talk about best‑laid plans. Then to add insult to injury a week later I received another e-mail saying that GST has decided not to reopen the Downhill Zone once the works are finished!
There’s a lot to unpack here, of course it’s devastating news for everyone involved with the park. It seems crazy that the Greensands Trust (GST) really don’t have a clue what they have here and how amazing the community at the Park is!
I’d suspected GST didn’t want the hassle of managing the bike park for a while now, but I had no idea this was their plan and of the crazy timelines involved until just over a week ago.
That has left me with very little time to decide how to move forward, but my first step was to co-ordinate a campaign to try to change GST’s mind and let them know the value of what they are about to destroy. Thank you to everyone who has supported that campaign so far. Of course there’s still time (not a lot, but enough) to support the campaign:
If you haven’t written to GST yet then you can find a standard letter on my Facebook page here>>>
There’s also a petition with over 2200 signatures and if you haven’t signed that yet you can sign that here>>>.
Unfortunately GST can’t stop the forestry operations (although they could clearly have informed us sooner), but I hope they will think twice about destroying all the jumps and trails in the bike park whilst they are undertaken. I also hope they will re-consider what the future of the Bike Park could be with the right management, resources and support. Support I might add, I have offered repeatedly over the years I’ve been working there, but GST clearly have their own ideas about the direction of cycling provision at the park.
From a business and coaching perspective it’s devastating especially as the they have given me next to no notice of their plans. So my immediate plans are a follows:
The Christmas DeVo has moved forward to this Saturday (6th December), from 9:30am –12:30pm – book your place here>>>. GST have given me permission to close the Bike Park for the morning (it will re‑open at 1pm), so it will be just the Christmas DeVo on the trails and it will be an amazing send‑off for the park. There are the usual competitions and hopefully we’ll have plenty of prizes to give out on the day!
I will continue to run the DeVo programme at Rushmere Park, but the Downhill Zone and trails in that area will be inaccessible. This isn’t as bad as it sounds though as I ran sessions the same way during Covid and there are some great alternative trails around the park, so I’m confident we can still deliver excellent DeVo sessions over the winter months. The next one of those will be on Saturday 20th December – Book your place here>>>
For my skills courses I’ll continue to run those at Rushmere Park but I’ll be running a promotion on 2‑hour skills courses at the introductory price of £80 (normally £100). Again these courses will make the most of the trails around the park. I am confident that the riders looking to improve their skills will still get a lot from these courses as there are some great trails around the park for skills development and progression.
Hopefully the above makes sense. It’s all still very raw! If you have any questions, suggestions or would like any additional information feel free to contact me.