School mountain bike club taking care of trails
Members of the Arran High School mountain bike club will be joining thousands of volunteers on a European-wide trail maintenance initiative next weekend and are appealing for volunteers who wish to get involved.
The International Mountain Bicycling Association ‘take care of your trails’ initiative is a volunteer-based trail maintenance event which started last year and which sees local groups undertaking repairs, maintenance and trail-building.
Co-ordinated by IMBA Europe, all entrants are entered into a competition to see which country hosts the best campaign across Europe.
Last year Slovenia was crowned the best mountain bike community in Europe with 32 groups and 440 volunteers taking part. They were closely followed by Scotland, where the idea originated.
Essential
Arran’s contribution to the Scottish campaign will take place on Saturday April 7, where young club members and volunteers will carry out essential trail maintenance on the multi-user trails linking Brodick with Lamlash.
Volunteers are meeting at the top of the hill between the two villages at the forestry’s Cnoc na Dail viewpoint car park from 10am to 2pm to carry out work which will include a variety of tasks from clearing overhanging foliage to improving drainage and the trail surface, where needed.
Head teacher Barry Smith said: ‘Our mountain bike club has made great progress over the past two years and, along with bike maintenance opportunities and qualifications, are now taking steps to look at the contribution they can make and the responsibilities they have as users of mountain bike trails on Arran.
‘I think this is a fantastic example of young people demonstrating leadership in a real-life context, to the benefit of the whole community.
‘I hope that our community can get behind the young people of Arran High School once again to support them in demonstrating responsibility by caring for and managing these trails.’
For more information or to sign up please contact Robert McNeice on 01770 600341 or gw17mcneicerobert@ea.n-ayrshire.sch.uk