Update on Nerang Trail Status - New Trail
We copped a bit of flak for keeping the new section of Pete's (lower Pete's) closed for a long time due to water and rider damage. Hopefully this will get riders smiling again.
The latest section of Pete's (you could call it "upper lower Pete's") was opened today. If you can't have fun on this bit of trail, you need a new sport. It is a great ride up, but a total ball (and beaver) tearer descending. After riding every bit of Pete's over and over in the last year, it was a complete surprise to us just how fun it was uninterrupted.
To explain what led to this trail, you have to go back to the days when Pete's was the only singletrack in Nerang. Then came the "legal" Casuarina and Three Hills trails, but still the only ways to get to Pete's from the velodrome were via North Street Fire Road, or through "Five Ways" in the middle of the Casuarina Loop, across a skinny bridge to the illegal "Downhill Track" and then seriously uphill to Pete's. QPWS demolished the skinny bridge more than once and flood another time I think, but regardless, QPWS said Downhill Track was unsustainable and had to be closed. Peter Hallinan convinced them to allow a new trail replacing Downhill Track, before it was closed. That replace before closing approach remains the basis of our trailcare agreement with QPWS, thanks to Peter's leverage. It's not called Pete's Trail for nothing.
Now Pete's starts about 400m from the North Street Entrance to the Casuarina Loop (turn right after crossing the fence behind the velodrome and then next left after you cross the creek to get into this bit of Casuarina Loop). The entrance is on your right after a series of rolling grade dips, but is unmarked at this time. It does not cross North Street Fire Road where Pete's used to start, but continues up the spur on the Casuarina side, crossing at a huge, fallen tree after about 900m. As you climb past the fallen tree you will see two rock cairns on the other side of the North Street Fire Road and then another log skinny. The fallen tree is also a skinny, with two entrances when descending. There is no tranny at the downhill end, so be prepared to drop a metre or more.
The following pics from top down show some bits. The trail is not dry and dusty as in the pics, but has some grass growing on it. That will not last long on the riding line, but there will always be a safe buffer zone where we cleared all obstacles, so you can go hard at it with confidence. Hope you like the pics, but we know you will like Pete's with the new addition.
One last thing and I don't want to get into the politics of right of way (even if I believe IMBA got this badly wrong); we request that ascending riders give way to descending on this trail. If you think a descending rider is going to respect your right to the trail when ascending, then you have never tried to pull the syringe out of a junky's arm! Descending riders on Pete's are going to be glaze-eyed, unlikely to string meaningful sounds together and seeing as you should be one of them, lets all agree to get on (with going downhill)............
arty::thumb::biggrin1: