Anyone here ride Menai?? Well guess what!

[rebilda]

For those who are not aware, ANSTO and the AFP and effectively shut Menai down, siting ecological and safety conserns

If you ride this trail, or even if you dont, get onto your club, other forums, your local MP, anyone - and shake some trees

This is absolute rubbish!!

[silentbutdeadly]

Do you expect people to do these things simply to complain.....or to offer alternative solutions?

If the former then you get what you deserve.....

If the latter......then you should be aplauded.

Whinging to bureaucrats will get you absolutely nowhere. It makes them unhappy and/or spiteful simply to provide personal entertainment during a typical working day. Offering potential alternative solutions to bureaucrats that will make their working lives pleasant will eventually get results.

Trust me. I'm a bureaucrat. And I have nothing to do with Menai or even the State of NSW

[rebilda]

Use your imagination.

But to sit and do nothing = failure

I like riding at Menai, so Intend making my position heard. There has been a lot of damage done out there by Motor Cycling & 4WD, but that has been going on for as long as I can remember & I've been around for a while. This is also Sydneys largest Tip site, so we are not talking pristine bushland here.
ANSTO own a lot of the land across the road, within the bush area, & this is all fenced off. There is also a pocket of Aboriginal land in there also. I am assuming that there is an agenda here, but i'm not sure what that agenda is yet.
The old Chestnut of "ecological management" & "safety conserns" will be bandied about because it gets the Greenies and the OH&S types on board. But as MTB'ers, we generally respect the trails we ride and accept responsibility for our own actions.

I was astounded to hear the news of this closure as I am working interstate atm, so I am out of the loop a little. I heard about this on another forum.
When I couldnt find anything on this forum about the situation at Menai, I sounded the alarm......Is anyone listening? This issue could be at Your trail, next.

So far The Blue Mtns have lost trails and they did their best to shut down Manly Dam. A lot of lobbying saw Manly re-opened, but then a lot of people ride at Manly Dam. When I ride at Menai, I usually only see a few other riders about. It is a fairly large area though so I expect the riders do disperse reasonably well.
I guess it is up to the MTB community to resist these closures. Its up to you.

[rebilda]

It looks as though Ansto have appointed an advocate to act on their behalf, on this issue .
His name is Gavin Atkins and It appears that he is an Ansto employee - ATKINS, Gavin [gat@ansto.gov.au]
I have sent an email to Gavin explaining my position and expressing my conserns. To his credit he has sent a reply (possibly a standard mail out, but a reply all the same)
I would suggest that if you are at all conserned about loosing access to the Menai trails, a politely worded email to Gavin, asking what the issues are behind Ansto's move to shut down the area, might be a good start.
The issues are still not clear to me - so coming up with a mutually benificial solution is difficult.
Ansto have held a meeting today with members of the MTB community to discuss the conserns and try to come to some sort of solution. If anyone has any further information about the meeting today, I would like to hear about it.
I guess this is a positive start.

[silentbutdeadly]

I guess this is a positive start.

It's an outstanding start actually.

Think about it....ANSTO have gone to the effort of proactively nominating a community contact and there's dialogue.....as opposed to random interweb rage.

Very positive for the Menai MTB user community...

[trailgumby]

I'm part of a mountain bike advocacy group that has just recently formalised itself under the name Trail Care.

Our main focus has been on working with NPWS, Warringah Council and other local land managers, community and green groups on the Northern Beaches to re-introduce volunteer maintenance at Manly Dam and instigate a trail network in our area. The demand is huge, these parties have come to realise that we all have a lot in common and the glacier is starting to thaw out and move towards a resolution, although we are still some distance away yet. We have been working on this for over 3 1/2 years, and have donated more than $600,000 of free consultation.

One of our representatives, a consultant with a PhD in sustainability, has met with ANSTO. This is a Plan of Management issue. Unfortunately the unauthorised building of structures, felling of trees, and other damage by some unknown parties forced their hand, and they have had to exclude all vehicles from the site to meet their PoM responsibilities. Unfortunately the POM classes bicycles as vehicles, so we have been caught by this.

Our representative is very good at dealing with government and other stakeholders and this will be reversed if we play our cards right.

ANSTO are a scientific community, not land managers, and it is encouraging that they have responded so quickly and have opened the door to addressing the issues.

More on this as information comes to hand.

In the meantime, keep an eye on nobmob.com for developments and information. In the meantime, please be discreet and honour the closure.

[Seventeen]

oh no...