AUGUST 2019

Trail Formalisation Progress

As we're sure you know by now Plenty Gorge Mountain Bike Club has secured State Government ‘Pick My Project’ funding to deliver 21km of formal mountain bike trails within the Plenty Gorge Park. The Club will work in partnership with Parks Victoria to deliver during 2019/20.

Consultants are working along the trails assessing them with regard to sustainability, environmental impact, heritage values, and (of course) fun factor.

Please respect that during this process some trails might be temporarily closed, and staff may be working on site.

You may see flagged trails and we ask that park users support this project by leaving them in place and alerting us of issues so we can have the best chance of achieving a formalised trail network.

If you’re looking to get involved let us know. The club is looking for more volunteers to help with the work, either on the ground or behind the scenes. Get in touch via Facebook or email – plentygorgemtb@gmail.com
 

AGM Coming up

Our AGM is scheduled for September 24th, from 7:00 pm. We'd love to see you there and hear your thoughts and ideas about the trail network. We'd also love to see some people put their hands up for more involved roles as part of the formalisation process, or behind the scenes. The agenda will be announced about 2 weeks prior to the event, if there's something you'd like to see raised let us know.

Hit the attending button on our Facebook event to stay up to date
 

Our Story so far

Plenty Gorge Park is a recreation and conservation reserve along the Plenty River, which stretches from Mernda in the north to Greensborough at its southern end. It has reputedly been in use by mountain bikers for at least 30 years now, using a network of informal trails, fire access roads and animal tracks.

It was early in 2012 that a bridge was built by mountain-bikers across Dry Creek, near what has since become known as ‘The Plank’. In October of that year, this bridge came to the attention of Rangers, and the acting Ranger in Charge at the time (Barry Coombes), posted a sign to advise that it was considered an unacceptable safety risk, and the bridge would be removed on 2^ndNovember. Through that sign, the Ranger invited the local mountain biking community to engage with Parks Victoria (PV) directly. On 31 October 2012 I contacted key local MTB community figures (that I was aware of at the time), to propose a meeting with PV.