Glenrock Trail Alliance

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Hey All, we have a found car key in Glenrock this morning, if anyone has lost one please reply here, cheers.

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Unfortunately that time of year is on us again – the wet.
It only started slowly but now the ground is getting saturated.
So if the sun comes out that doesn’t mean it will be OK to ride the single-track, we will need a few days of dry weather before it’s good again.
If you really need to ride there are plenty of management tracks to get a decent loop in and Seismick can handle all but the wettest conditions but please avoid the single-track if it’s wet, especially the clay based areas.

Hi everyone, here’s some more news from the NPWS about upcoming and proposed work within the park. This one a bit more relevant to MTB riders, especially those who travel here by car.

Gun Club Visitor Precinct – Future planning

NPWS is undertaking initial planning for the future of the Gun Club Road precinct, a key entry point to the reserve’s track and trail network.
Planning aims to:
Improve the visitor experience
Increase accessibility
Enhance overall site functionality

Opportunities for community feedback will be provided in the coming months.
Please note this is a planning phase only; construction is currently unfunded.

Further information, including confirmed dates and any temporary access changes, will be shared as details are finalised via the Glenrock SCA alerts page.

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This article has now been updated to reflect the recent developments - Maybe time for another read.

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Newcastle’s Glenrock | From Nuisance to National Treasure in Mountain Biking Over the years Glenrock, and mountain bikers relationship with it, has continued to evolve and it's on the precipice of something big.

Hi All, this is some more of the explanation notes that were posted in November '22 when the MTB Plan was first published as a draft - Before it went on public display and eventually accepted by the NPWS.

Read with part 1 & 2 below plus the Glenrock MTB Plan

MTB Plan Explanation Part 3
When I first started writing this I thought it would be just an explanation of how everything fits together but as it went on I realised questions are already being asked and that this is a justification as much anything else.
I’ve already started writing the trail descriptions and explaining the map but I felt I should just leave that for a bit and explain more about the WHY.
So please excuse me taking a while to get this together.
With the proposed expansion of the MTB trail network the general public and other users are wanting to know why it’s necessary, we need good reasoning to justify building new trail in a National Park.
Well there are .good reasons and I think it will help people to make good, well informed, submissions if we all understand.
Given that the trail network was never really planned in the first place the connectivity, layout and directions have just evolved to suit what we had. We don’t even have a feature trail that everyone wants to ride and that the network is built around.
When we were consulting on the previous PoM we tried to achieve better outcomes but the NPWS wouldn’t allow it at the time.
This has only caused further problems - trails don’t provide what people want, rogue trail building continues, sustainability and conservation values suffer.
Everything is a compromise.
This is not how you built and maintain a world class park - Whether it be a National Park a MTB park or both!
We want to make it better.
The Stacked Loop System
Single-track trails generally can’t be ridden bidirectionally, trails of that nature a are too narrow and often don’t have adequate sight-lines to prevent head on collisions.
Trails need to be ridden in one direction only - So we need to have trails that loop around to bring you back.
At the moment we basically have one big loop with trails of varying standards throughout and we have people of different abilities, expectations and time constraints all riding the same - It’s little wonder people are creating their own alternatives.
Good trails within a park like this need to be able to be ridden as a loop with connections and options.
People park their cars and ride from there, or live in a location where they enter - they need to be able to get back to that spot.
By starting with a ‘Trunk Trail’, a basic loop that everything else branches off we can join all the loops together we then have loops that connect and ‘stack’ onto each other from there to offer those options in a way that achieves our Design Principals, as mentioned before.
To explain – Someone could start at the main trailhead – Gun Club Rd. Gate - start on the trunk trail, turn onto the Northern Loop section, ride some or all of its loops continuously, without back-tracking or crossing over trails, return onto the trunk trail, ride a bit more of it…. Then turn onto the Middle Loop section ride some or all of its loops continuously, without back-tracking or crossing over trails, return onto the trunk trail, ride a bit more of it…. Then turn onto the Southern Loop section and ride some or all of its loops continuously, without back-tracking or crossing over trails, return onto the trunk trail and ride the rest of it back to the carpark. As much or as little as they want and on trails to suit their ability or you can mix it up – Options.
Same for someone living locally or wanting to start from a different location - except they just enter at one of the other entry points (listed in the Draft MTB Plan) continue onto the loop and go around from there, utilising the Trunk Trail when they arrived at it and eventually returning to their entry point.
This also works really well for events that can just use a part of the network leaving the rest free.
Most of the new trail we are asking to build is to tie the loose ends, join the dots and connect it all together.
In this plan all trails ride in the clockwise direction to assist with navigation and to make a more intuitive ride experience.
Brunker road is separate from the main Glenrock Trails but the 2 loops there work the same.
The next big thing is that Glenrock doesn’t have a feature trail, the ‘Jewel in the Crown’ that everyone wants to ride – preferably a descent.
In the plan we have located the longest descent possible that is on pre-disturbed land. This is from near the start of Seismick and runs through the old Baileys orchard, north, to the back of the Treatment Works.
This is not only from one of the highest points to one of the lowest points but is also in a heavily pre-disturbed area mostly overgrown with lantana.
This trail then has options to return to the top or continue on to another loop trail.
As it says in the MTB Plan - This trail and all the Skills Ares are located in the Middle Loop section and in the areas of most previous disturbance.
This was very purposely done. It’s planned that while building and improving the MTB trails we will be doing remediation and rehabilitation work along the way – similar to what has been done in the Seismick area recently. The trail itself providing access to these areas - a win-win situation to improve the park in all ways and enhance conservation efforts.
We want to ride in real aussie bush – not w**ds!
Now – The demand for features.
Right from the very start riders have wanted features. Technical Trail Features (TTF) are an important part of all MTB trails.
Yes flat and easy is fine when people first learn to ride but the learning curve is so steep - that all seems so bland in no time at all.
The demand for features is so great that all over the world people are building things themselves – jumps, bermed trail, technical rock gardens and even wooden structure.
If we have an area where MTB is allowed but without TTF people will try to build their own. Not to any standard and in any location they see fit. Currently most unauthorised trails in Glenrock are built to meet demand for features.
Luckily the bigger features take so much resources, time and materials, that most people would rather go and ride what’s there.
In the MTB Plan the 3 ‘skills’ areas are set aside for this sort of thing - Dedicated corridors for ‘intensive’ MTB use.
They are all located in areas of previous disturbance and lower conservation value.
We can machine build proper features and trails with erosion control, drainage in a sustainable manner, way better than anyone can do with a shovel.
The idea is that if we provide a good MTB experience people won’t bother to build their own, may even walk away from other areas to come and ride the better stuff.
Then, hopefully these users come to support the park and it’s values, actively discourage any other rogue building.
These areas are also located close together, with easy access for machines, materials, vehicles for events and even an ambulance, if needed.
Adjacent areas of unauthorised trails and features would be closed and rehabilitated.
The MTB Plan does still provide for flat and easy trails as well.
In short this isn’t just a grab for more trails, it’s a plan to make everything work better –
- MTB trails that actually function as loops that people of all abilities want to ride.
- The conservation effort, especially w**d control, the biggest single problem in the park.
- To close and rehabilitate unauthorised trails and discourage the rogue trail building.

So here’s some more from November 2022 when the Draft MTB Plan first went on display.

And don’t forget to call in at 1pm today – All welcome

Explanation post – Part 2.
Not everyone loves MTB’s …… There will be opposition
Most of the existing trails in Glenrock were never planned, designed and built properly or to any standard, as a result many suffer from ongoing erosion and sustainability issues. The trail network itself was mostly formed from a bunch of ad-hoc trail remnants of past use – moto’s and vehicle access joined up by segments of hand-built single-track.
During the negotiations for the previous… (still current) Plan of Management we really struggled to put it all together as workable and connected loops. There was much debate and some disagreements about directions and junctions….etc
Also at that time the only concession to some ‘features’ was rebuilding Six Shooter. The NPWS simply wouldn’t support any more than that in the way of gravity or features in their Cycling Policy and under ‘Duty of Care’
All other ‘technical’ featured trails have remained unsanctioned by the NPWS and so have been built by so called ‘rogue’ trail-builders – built by hand, not to any standard and generally not maintained in the longer term.
Considerable erosion and environmental damage caused by these trails has led to much criticism of MTB users in general and a push for greater restrictions.
This is an opportunity for us to rectify all that and build something more like a true MTB park with stacked loops, alternative options, trails of varying difficulty and features to suit different ability standards.
And the NPWS/Government are going to pay to have it built and maintained properly!
In order to achieve this we need to give something back…….
This MTB Plan and the Plan Of Management (PoM) are open to public consultation until Feb 6
Not everyone will think it’s a great idea for us to just build more trail.
The MTB Plan states that we want to –
- Build 21km of new trail…. and
- Upgrade 7.6km of currently unauthorised trail
To bring the total to 43.6km – this includes 5km of management trail and 10km of existing trail
The MTB Plan also states that we will be –
- Closing and rehabilitating 30km of trail.
This is probably the most important bit.
It has already been used to leverage support within the agency (NPWS) and will go a long way to converting any feeling that we – as a user group – don’t care about the environment.
We are saying we want to close and rehabilitate more old trail than we want new!
Now this includes a lot of ad-hoc, dead end, useless walking trails as well as some short cut duplicated network stuff…….
But this also includes a lot of the rogue built ‘featured’ MTB trails.
One of the main areas impacted is the South of Gun Club area of ‘Log’ and ‘Creek’ jumps etc.
Unfortunately this area is also regarded by the NPWS as being of higher conservation value, containing much ‘Pre-European’ vegetation and ecosystems.
Now the good bit –
Within the new MTB Plan there are areas set aside as ‘Skills Areas’
These trail corridors don’t have a specific plan for a specific trail but rather an area that can be used for more intensive use even gravity powered trails – trails that could be sessioned.
Within these areas we should be able to build better and more sustainable trails than the currently unsanctioned rogue trails.
Simply put - We are hoping to get more and better trails than what we are giving up
More on this to come.

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Hi Everyone,
Lot going on at the moment and many questions coming up but this really is a time for celebration.

Ill be calling in at the Gun Club Rd. Gate tomorrow – Sat May 2nd, from about 1pm onwards.
If anyone has any questions, wants to discuss the future, just say g’day or maybe have a celebratory beer with me then please call in – I’ll bring the beer!

Hope to see you all there. Cheers, Mick.

See explanation post from November 2022 – Part 1

Now that the MTB Plan is published the first thing we’d like to do is provide some explanation for the user group – The MTB riders.
The MTB Plan is quite lengthy and includes a lot of information from the NPWS on their reasoning behind the proposal but it’s not that easy to understand from the riders’ point of view.
Hopefully this can help.
I’m going to post this in sections to make it easier to read.
1. Design Principals
Firstly we do have to note that a lot of the reasoning behind things is based on preserving the conservation values of the park. Glenrock is one of the very few remaining areas of natural bushland in the Newcastle area and something we are very lucky to have access to. The NPWS manage this park for all users and conservation is their primary agenda.
Access to natural bushland is surely a very desirable bonus for riders to have when they get out on their bikes so preservation of nature is surely in our interest as well.
Those of you have followed along on this very lengthy process may remember that this latest chapter began in 2016 when World Trail, MTB trail building company developed the “Glenrock SCA Mountain Bike Trail Concept Plan”.
That plan was subsequently rejected due to not meeting a multitude of NPWS requirements. Since then the GTA have worked to address those problems and come up with a plan that provides for better trails as well as meeting all those NPWS requirements…. It’s not all been easy.
Below is an excerpt from the GTA submission to the Draft Plan, this mostly reflects the original World Trail document as the principals were sound.
This was submitted prior to the inclusion of the Brunker Loop section which is disconnected from the rest of the network, otherwise it meets the criteria.
“Design
The network is comprised of 3 separate stacked loop sections; North, Middle and South that are connected together by the trunk trail, Trail 1.
Each one of these sections contains a ‘stack’ of individual trails that connect together and return onto each other.
The main design principals are that;
- The entire network can be ridden in one continuous loop without crossing over, backtracking or repeating any section and without missing any large sections of trail.
- All trails are unidirectional and ride in a clockwise direction, with the exception of some MVO tracks which can be used bidirectionally.
- The network caters to a variety of styles of riding and ability levels
- The easiest trails are located closest to the trailhead in order to be the most accessible
- The difficulty, generally, increases with the distance ridden into the stacked loop system.
The network is designed to best utilise the existing trails wherever possible but not at the expense of the overall result.
Excessively problematic areas have been excluded from the plan. They should be closed and rehabilitated.
The design is intended to avoid and protect areas of higher conservation value while every effort has been made to make use of pre-disturbed areas.
The existing areas of ‘Intensive’ MTB use such as the Skills Areas of - Six Shooter, Pump Action and Cliff Jumps along with the proposed ‘Gravity’ areas are all located in the current Northern Zone and in pre-disturbed areas.
Design of Trailhead, Trunk Trail and the network is consistent with the NPWS proposed new Trailhead and car park design.
Inclusion of MTB intensive and gravity areas is crucial to the overall success of this plan.”

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With the bike plan finally dropping it’s probably time to revisit and explain why it’s such a big deal.

After taking so long to achieve – more than 20 years! It probably raises more questions than answers after all this time many have forgotten, or have never really known, what this is all about and why.
Firstly it’s important to know that everything that’s done in the Park – Or any National park, is governed by their Plan of Management (PoM). The current PoM was published in Jan ’25.
The Glenrock Mountain Biking Plan which sits beside and is referenced by the PoM went on public display in Nov ’22. The MTB plan has been held up by any number of issues but has finally been accepted pretty much as it was first presented in the draft state.
So thanks to everyone who made submissions and supported the whole process, we really have achieved a lot.

Back when the MTB plan first went on public display I made a number of posts explaining it all so I think it’s easier if I just repost all of those for people to read and refresh the memory – it explains a lot.
I’ll just post one-at-a-time ‘cause it can be a pretty hefty read and just in the same order that they came out in 2022.

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