22 June 2007

Mt Stromlo Downhill Bridge

| Kramer
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The Mt Stromlo downhill mountain bike track is nearly ready to be reopened for public use, following the installation of a new bridge this week. Shortly after opening, the track was closed due to concerns from the local horse riding community (I didn’t realise there was one before now) about being hit by an airborne mountain bike at mach 10. So the solution was to drop a ton of cash on building a huge bridge for the mountain bikes, with enough clearance for maintenance vehicles and fire trucks (and horses) to drive underneath.

[image stolen and resized from Farkin]

There’s more photos of the bridge being installed this week on the Australian mountain bike forum Farkin.

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Nemo, that’s actually a good idea! Beautiful roads around Tharwa for cycling, especially if there’s fewer cars due to the lack of decent bridge.

By the way, if you live in Banks, you can ride your pushbike to Tharwa General Store just as quick as driving your car to the Hyperdome.

Regardless of where the money comes from it was actually equestrians that requested the bridge. So while it seems that it’s a mountain biking feature, it’s actually an equestrian feature (to stop bikes spooking horses).

hmmm so thats what the residents of Tharwa need to do….if they get on their bikes, a bridge is assured.

Yep, it was nice to be able to get up close to birds and animals on horseback – they don’t consider humans as threatening when you’re connected to a horse. Less trees = less wildlife.

Probably great for mountain biking though, with all that dirt and fewer trees to hit.

A lot of the horse agistment paddocks around Stromlo were burnt out in the fires, which meant not as many horses in the area. But I expect they’ve all come back again. I’ve seen a few in the area near the Parkway recently.

I’ve ridden horses at Stromlo too – I wondered if anyone still did after it burned.

I was just concerned that valuble taxpayers money was being spent on this, money which could be spent on the Hargreaves-sponsored Harold Holt statue instead. 😉

Anyway, don’t worry about painting it – the local taggers will do that for you!

The money comes from CORC, through membership dues, race fees and proceeds from events like the Nationals and the Scott 24hr. Funds also come in the form of grants from the ACT Government. Possibly the most recent grant for th 2nd stage of development in the park.

The bridge is a left-over from when we tried to hold the V8’s.

Definitely should paint it, or maybe remove the sign panels?

Where’d the money come from for this?

I used to ride horses in Stromlo back when it still had trees and was a nice place for a ride. I was more concerned about dirt bikes than mountain bikes back then. Things like this that make it easier to share community resources are a good thing. Now if we could just get it to rain so the trees would grow back faster…

Looks good, i agree with the guys on the farkin forums that we should get down there with some paint to help it blend in a bit 😉

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