ULtrialsguy Posted January 29, 2013 Report Share Posted January 29, 2013 So guys as some of you may know I'm president of a university mtb club over here in Ireland and we've a few trials riders including myself. Now we've been riding on the university campus for years because it has good stuff, without getting into trouble. But just before christmas the buildings department decided they'd had enough and banned us from riding there any more. This is pretty annoying seen as it was our main spot. However they have said that if we put a formal proposal together and came up with plans and estimated costs that we could possibly build a designated area by our pump track that would be just for our use. Now my question is, has anyone who has done something similar got any advice? The one thing they have said is that they don't want it looking tatty so no pallets allowed. This makes it tricky I think as it's going to mean mainly natural sort of stuff like rocks etc I think. We may be able to get away with a couple of concrete walls etc but they want it to fit in with the campus grounds. I think this is pretty silly as the area it's to be located is way off the main part of the campus. Anyway I'm open to any ideas people have but we are on kind of a budget as our club will be covering at least half the cost I think. Of course anyone is welcome to come over once it's done and if your into mtb, we could show you some of our local trails, pretty awesome singletrack. Who knows, we may even be able to hold comps in the future Well one can dream. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete.M Posted January 29, 2013 Report Share Posted January 29, 2013 I once did a "pretend" project for uni that involved building a trials park within the grounds of a local indoor skate-park. I'm not sure my report would be much use to you though. Costs will be high unless a lot of people are really keen to help out. Try meet with a relevent person in the council, they might be able to source some useful objects like pipe sections for example. If the uni don't have a trailer, try find someone local who won't charge too much to trailer some stuff about for you. Do any of your group have experience with MS Project? A good MS Project submission will surely help. I never put any of my trials-park plans into practice, so I might be talking rubbish! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giantwhore Posted January 29, 2013 Report Share Posted January 29, 2013 They stopped people riding on campus, how rude! I used to live in Dublin and came down to ride with Cormac, John, Nathan etc every now and again. Shame that they've stopped the riding but good news that they might entertain building something specific, or at least giving you the space to do it yourself! Trials specific riding areas can be built pretty easily and cheaply if you're willing to put the time in. Myself and 5 others have recently built an indoor setup for the winter months. We committed to it and the whole thing was complete inside of just over a week and a half. A lot of hard work went in but it was well worth it. With yours being an outside setup (i'm assuming, as its next to the pump track) and bearing in mind Irish weather, youre gonna need something that can put up with the weather conditions. Make contact with stone masons, building contractors, builders merchants, rail companies, highways maintenance companies etc and see what they might be willing to pass your way. You'll be suprised how much people are willing to help. We were shocked at the amount of free stuff we got given. With your idea being part of the Uni, you've got a great chance of success. The hardest bit was explaining what it was for! It's great to see the trials community (however small it is in Ireland) is still alive and kicking. Drop me a PM if you need any advice/help coming up with ideas for the setup etc Cheers Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ULtrialsguy Posted January 29, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2013 Yeah thanks guys. A good part of our challenge is to explain what trials is to management and we think we've got that part down, the amount of good vids helps a lot. We're going to try to get permission to ride in certain areas while we put together a long term plan and raise funds for anything we get permission to build. The good thing is that our uni is very pro-clubs so it shouldn't be too hard to convince them. Their concern is all to do with insurance which I'm sure we're all used to in this day and age, even though our club has it's own insurance. With have a guy, Cormac for those that know him, who is a mechanical engineer and is going to do up a design on the ol computer but he's pretty busy with work atm. Anyways we'll keep working at it and I'll keep you updated on how it's going. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
persistant_itch Posted January 30, 2013 Report Share Posted January 30, 2013 What college is this! Pump track on campus!? Have you thought of building with block or brick? Like if you go on sites like adverts.ie you can get people selling pallets of block or brick that were bought for the boom and never used, or cheap scaffolding, you could spray it inoffensive colours like and it means that you can modify the obstacles as time goes on? You've probably already thought of all that, just I'm gonna be building a spot during the summer and that's the sorta stuff I'll use, cable reels, block walls, etc? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isitafox Posted January 30, 2013 Report Share Posted January 30, 2013 If they won't entertain the idea of pallets what about getting some prices from some BMX/skate ramp builders to make some boxes, steps, etc to go along with the other bits? http://www.9c-ramps.com/ http://www.evolutionskateparks.com/ http://www.urbanramps.co.uk/ http://www.rampchild.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ULtrialsguy Posted January 30, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2013 What college is this! Pump track on campus!? Have you thought of building with block or brick? Like if you go on sites like adverts.ie you can get people selling pallets of block or brick that were bought for the boom and never used, or cheap scaffolding, you could spray it inoffensive colours like and it means that you can modify the obstacles as time goes on? You've probably already thought of all that, just I'm gonna be building a spot during the summer and that's the sorta stuff I'll use, cable reels, block walls, etc? This is the university of Limerick and yeah we have a pump track. You wouldn't believe how long it took us to get it though, well over two years as far as I know. We'd love to expand on that and make bigger berms and pumps but again we were limited to a certain height for insurance reasons. All good ideas for materials/obstacles guys and getting quotes from companies would be just the sort of thing we need. I'm going to have to have a big discussion with my committee as to whether or not I should really pursue this as trials riders are really quite a small percentage of our club. So once I know I have the full backing or not of my club I can go ahead and really get cracking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trialsquirt Posted January 1, 2014 Report Share Posted January 1, 2014 So guys as some of you may know I'm president of a university mtb club over here in Ireland and we've a few trials riders including myself. Now we've been riding on the university campus for years because it has good stuff, without getting into trouble. But just before christmas the buildings department decided they'd had enough and banned us from riding there any more. This is pretty annoying seen as it was our main spot. However they have said that if we put a formal proposal together and came up with plans and estimated costs that we could possibly build a designated area by our pump track that would be just for our use. Now my question is, has anyone who has done something similar got any advice? The one thing they have said is that they don't want it looking tatty so no pallets allowed. This makes it tricky I think as it's going to mean mainly natural sort of stuff like rocks etc I think. We may be able to get away with a couple of concrete walls etc but they want it to fit in with the campus grounds. I think this is pretty silly as the area it's to be located is way off the main part of the campus. Anyway I'm open to any ideas people have but we are on kind of a budget as our club will be covering at least half the cost I think. Of course anyone is welcome to come over once it's done and if your into mtb, we could show you some of our local trails, pretty awesome singletrack. Who knows, we may even be able to hold comps in the future Well one can dream. there already is a trials park in Northern Ireland Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ULtrialsguy Posted January 2, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2014 there already is a trials park in Northern Ireland Maybe so but thats about a four to five hour drive away for us. Anyway there hasn't been much progress for us since most of our riders have moved to get jobs and I'm the only regular rider left in the area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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