Bike trails ‘dangerous’
TOWNSVILLE Rockwheelers are preparing for months of repair work after flooding damaged their trails at the Douglas Mountain Bike Reserve.
Club officials are waiting for a break in the wet weather so they can fully inspect the damage as Rockwheelers land access co-ordinator Travis Bailey said it was still too dangerous to access much of the area.
Bailey described multiple landslips along with a twotonne boulder that was resting precariously above one of the trails, but he said the worst of the damage may not be visible.
“We’re hoping maybe on Saturday we’ll get a team together and try and inspect the rest of the park, but it’s bad. I don’t know how else to put it,” he said.
“Some of the older trails on the less steep side of the park are all right, but a lot of the stuff that’s machine-built on the steeper areas of the park has suffered a lot of damage.
“There’s one section of the mountain coming up from the main car park that’s just impassable.
“The most important thing is it’s just dangerous for people to be there at the moment.”
Bailey said it was too soon to give an estimated cost of the repairs, but he anticipated it would take significant work from contractors to get all the trails open and safe.
The Rockwheelers are set to host some major events in the coming months highlighted by the Townsville Mountain Bike Festival in May which includes the MTBA Marathon National Championships.
Bailey was optimistic that the Mountain Bike Festival would go ahead as planned, but he said it would likely be a few months before all the repair work was completed.
“I’d say regardless of anything we’ll have it up and running by then (May) just because we’ll put the work in, but we’re definitely months away from the park being fully open,” he said.
“That’s also weather dependent as well. We’ve still got two or three months of wet season as well and we don’t know what’s around the corner.
“There’s damage up there that we just can’t physically stabilise the ground enough by hand.
“We’ll need machines up there to get the work done and contractors in.”
Much of the maintenance work for the trails is left up to club volunteers and Bailey said they would also put the call out to the wider Townsville community to help with repairing the rain damage.