Dirt Art wrote the report, but how it gets built is yet to be decided.
Simon (and Dirt Art) has been heavily involved in the Hobart scene over the years, but I don't believe he has anything to do with the club these days, so suggestions that Dirt Art are somehow pushing their own agenda through the club are just flat wrong.
We riders in Hobart have a tendency to expect things to be handed to us on a plate. We want more trails, we want massive amounts of money spent on them, and we want them yesterday. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way in most places.
So yes, more trails will be awesome, but we, as riders, need to get organised, get vocal, get out there and start busting our arses to make it happen.
Some really good information and responses in there. Whilst not wanting to cherry pick certain comments I did want to respond to a couple of things mentioned.
Firstly no, Simon and Dirt Art are no longer involved with the club but have been over the last 10-15 years including several years as president/vice president I believe treasurer and worst of all the specifically appointed "Trail Advocate".
A few years ago a small team of dedicated DH riders (including myself) ran a succesful statewide race series and spent hundreds of hours rebuilding DH tracks in the area/state for the club/clubs on a purely voluntary basis. We were also trying to work with both the club and Scouts Tasmania to get a trail network/park, built at the Lea but just never got the club support we needed despite interest from the Scouts.
The "Trail Advocate" provided absolutely no assistance, despite having all the necessary resources through his company and many, many requests. The club itself also couldn't/wouldn't assist as they simply didn't have the interest, financial or personal resources and was a huge opportunity missed to develop a trail network on private property, doing away with the need for council approval which has always been the biggest roadblock for local MTB.
This saw us walk away from the club/series and is a good example of the many, many missed opportunities which has held back MTB development in the south of state.
As per their modus operandi Dirt Art did fulfill their commitment a year or two later. Running an excavator down the track dozing our hundreds of hours of work and putting in a bunch of bike park style mounds/jumps, changing it from a perfect beginner DH track to an advanced track.
That series was also sponsored by Dirt Art under the guise they would assist with trail building but did not spend a single minute doing so. They were a round sponsor at Glenorchy and were supposed to prep and repair the track and again didn't do a single thing, despite (i believe) having the maintenance contract on it at the time and that round almost never went ahead as it was unsafe. We later met with the club and the GCC about the issue and did a walk over with their parks/rec staff who were surprised at it's condition considering what they were spending.
They subsequently lost the contract and were very vocal in blaming (complaints from) local riders for it. Ironically they were reappointed again later on and ran an excavator down the XC descent again removing years of work done by volunteer trail builders. Again this resulted in the local maintenance crew pulling the pin on the club and moving into their own private enterprise and refusing to work again with the Dirt Devils/Dirt Art.
Funnily enough Luke Chiu? became/was the Glenorchy recreation officer at the time of their reappointement (or similar position) and after a few years of collarboration he left GCC to work with Dirt Art. Nepotism anyone? After that Glenorchy Bike Park has steadily fallen into disrepair with no maintenance or additonal trail, instead relying on traffic from North South riders. Glenorchy is a typically bungling council though full of corruption and incompetence so much of the blame probably falls on them.
So, so many good volunteer trail builders and advocates became disenheartened during those years and quit out of frustration and we instead saw a plethora of black market trail building. Trails began springing up all over the back of the Meehan range, S57 got way out of control and SOHO begain looking like a rabbit warren to name a few. Council and private land owners were forced to crack down putting the cause years behind all whilst sanctioned areas were being neglected. I can only imagine how much new trail could have been built in the time taken to bulldoze and reform other peoples hard work.
The benefit form this initially illegal work was a huge trail network through Parks and Wildlife land on the Meehan range and into Clarence with their council seeming to have the most open mind to Mountain Biking. Through some fantastic advocacy PWS have sanctioned and allowed the trails and work to remain in place and now provides the biggest riding space in Greater Hobart.
But guess who has popped their head up again now everything is built. Yep, Dirt Art with their plan to open a Maydena style Bike Park. Whilst I eagerly anticipate the opportunity to partake in shuttles and use their service. I imagine theres a lot of pissed of people now their thousands of hours of work will service only to allow another to financially profit.
Kingborough council had a crack at building a park at Kingston again paying Dirt Art. The result was a swamp with some walking paths made of imported gravel and a shipping container. I heard through the grapevine that they even paid them for a maintenance package which was never delivered and will never spend a cent on MTB trails again because of the experience. (I think he also got funding for the earlier built dirt jumps at Browns River that got fell to bits and got bulldozed within a year, but I could be wrong).
They also started the work at Clarence Bike Park and were using a lot of volunteer labour to do so, but of course took sole credit for it. The original trails are god awful built into a shale slope and everything good out there was built either by later volunteers and I believe green corp labour but I've covered that.
As discussed he was also the lead on the master plan which again achieved very little other than repairing (again with volunteers) and getting sanctioned a few existing trails. The master plan was supposed to turn the Mountain into a mtb mecca but after 10-12 years and hundreds of thousands of tax payers dollars achieved nothing. Whilst there's blame to be appointed to pretty much everybody involved if you read the plan by Dirt Art it pretty much continously reference "If we" "we would" etc. it's a typical document designed to justify awarding the contract to the author.
I personally believe that a large contributing factor to the lack of trails in Hobart comes down to the interaction with the local councils. They've had nothing but poor experience every time they spend money. Add in the lack of any real advocacy group and a defunct local club and it's no surprise it's taken so long to get anything done.
So as Hobart/Tas riders do we expect everything handed to us on a plate? Well yes and no. The last few years have seen some progression particularly with the SOHO/Cascade land and all involved there needs to be thoroughly applauded and shows what can be done with the right people and attitude.
However the flip side is you look at what we have been given, namely Derby and now Scamander plus Wild Mersey and soon to be the West Coast. Certain forward thinking councils now realise that they can bring millions into their communities by paying good money to quality companies to build trails.
So yes I do think riders should expect trails to be handed to them on a platter. The days are long gone of dozens of people hand cutting trails with mattocks and rakes, which produced mediocre results and short term outcomes. Volunteer labour does not produce quality outcomes despite the best intentions and those types of trails are the ones that need the most maintenance. Eventually the interest drops aways and the trails fall into disrepair and become a liability issue for the land owner.
Mount Wellington is an icon and has always had massive potential to attract tens of millions dollars in tourism money from MTB. Riders travelling to the state enter through Launceston mostly and head straight to the East Coast and will soon divert via the North West and or the West Coast speding their money their.
The sooner the state Goverment and local council realise that a proper investment is needed to reap the rewards and leverage off our other venues the better we will all be. This is not something that a few local riders or a trail building company can ever really achieve as the only thing loud enough to change minds at the correct level is money.