Matter

I have organised another 150 cu m of dirt for Princess Vlei. Anyone have any spare machinery lying around we can use to get the track finished??

Looks like Krugersdorp have got it together: http://www.mygeni.org/photoalbum/Cycling_South_Africa/new-venue-for-bmx-nag-series-in-krugersdorp.mygeni?aid=4329

Hi Ryan As I said this is council land, it has been zoned as sport and recreation so we have a green light to get this finished. I worked closely with the last heads of the Princess Vlei management team. Millie has unfortunately moved to Athlone and there is someone else in charge. I met with some of the people who are involved in council but as I said their hands are tied as they have processes and procedures which they have to follow to release funding to get the track completed, and then maintained going forward. I had no idea of the money something like this would cost when I started. Unfortunately this is not sustainable without a steady trickle of funding as it requires constant maintenance. Think of a BMX track as a 350m cricket pitch 8m wide and you start to get the idea. We worked on the premise that once the track was completed we could form a club and get people signed up. If you send me your mail address I will send you all the documentation we have generated over the years.. I like you just want to get it finished, there is no smoking gun of misused funds just a bit of naivety on our part of how much it would take. The site is perfect and has such great potential ...

Hi Guys My name is Matthew Carter and together with Kevin Gaynor, Darren Stow, Nathan Grandi, etc we did a bunch of work trying to get something going in the Southern Suburbs. We eventually settled on trying to develop the Princess Vlei, Elfindale site as it is zoned for Sport and Recreation and we have permission to build there. We enganged with council and PPA and we got a bit of funding from them to get it going back in 2012 when the site was built, check out this video on the Western Cape BMX Facebook page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcipAL0HhXM https://www.facebook.com/groups/305039150267/ Eugene Eggar (BMX SA Track Builder) gave us a design and with the 35k given to us by council we got a digger and helped shape what you see there today. It is overgrown now but about 2/3 of the track was ride able with the last 1/3 still needing a topping of latterite. The underlying surface is just river sand so you need at least 20-30cm of laterite topping to make it a permanently rideable surface. I could go on and give you a blow by blow of the last five years but we have spent many hours trying to get it ridable and I have even spent my own money getting dirt to site which you can see off to the right if you go down there. So what is needed... Council is keen to get it done. PPA is keen to get it done and there is funding available. We tried to get Benette the Stelenbosch based trail builder registered as a council vendor to take over the maintenance of the track but he is not Vat registered and BBE certified to the level they require. Shaun another local trail builder introduced me to Rob Vogel at PPA who I have emailed to try and register as a council vendor to unlock the funding available to maintain the track. As far as I know he is busy trying to get it done. But if you can apply some more pressure I am sure it will not hurt. I am sure you are all keen to help but the reality of the matter is we need machinery. A track like this needs a LOT of maintenance to keep it ridable. The surface gets eroded and there is the constant invasion of weeds. I have a track building document from Elite Tracks in the US which outline what is required to build a BMX track. I would be happy to send it to anyone interested. http://www.elitetraxinc.com/ If any of you know someone with a digger, bobcat and a heavy and light roller and the personnel to drive them we can use your help. Alternatively if we could start a crowd funding campaign on this site to fundraise and then hire the machinery I know Shaun and Benette are happy to put in a few hours initially to get this going. So I am happy to communicate with anyone who has the will to take this forward. Unfortunately I have a job which takes most of my time so have put this on the back burner since Chris got the Uitsig park up and running. However he is producing a steady stream of riders who will want to take their newly cultivated skills and test them against others. So perhaps the time is right.....