Think you know the trails at Queen Elizabeth Country Park near Petersfield in Hampshire? Think again! Massive changes are under way to turn the current orange “advanced” trail into something more comparable with red graded trails around the UK. But all these changes are being done by volunteers with nothing bigger than a mattock and shovel.
Since June 2011 this motley crew of volunteers has added 1.5 km of new trail and will be working hard to add another 1.5km while tidying up and improving the existing trail before relaunching the trail as a red graded trail in the summer of 2012. So far there are lots of berms, which are riding well, a couple of table tops and a few drops and jumps all of which are a long way from the original trail built nearly 20 years ago.
The trail may be short, currently around 7.5 km long, but it will give you smiles for miles and 2 laps of the trail will give you the chance to hit your favourite bits again. The trail building committee (4 men in a pub) have come up with a plan for the next year and a half and long term plans include a green and blue trail, along with skills areas for everyone to use as well as making further extensions to the red trail. If you want to get involved then e-mail qecptrailbuilding@yahoo.co.uk, tweet @eldiablobrewery or get on the QECP trail builders facebook page. If you are riding the trail and want to share you thoughts then please get in touch. If you haven’t been to QE park before or haven’t been for a while then now is the time to see the changes that have been made. The park is situated on the A3 and is only a 35-40 minute drive from the M25 now that the Hindhead tunnel is open.
So here’s a chance to give something back to the local MTB community if you have some time to spare, the next dig weekend is this weekend coming and they would be really happy to get a few volunteers to help with the job in hand.
Facebook event here
