Tygerberg MTB Club Trails

[Thermophage]

The did that when they built the mahoosive jumpline at bloemendal

That's a sore point.... The one Sean Noble was telling me he hopes i fall hard and hurt myself on it?

[Mamil]

Well that's good news - as a landowner I wouldn't let people loose to build as they see fit outside of a clear and accountable system such as club management. 

 

Payment of a club membership fee does not mean that members get to call the shot - you pay for membership of an existing structure and access to the facilities that structure provides. If you want more or other facilities and want to belong to the club then you have to participate from whithin club structures by positively contributing.

 

Again - I don't know the history of attempts to do this but all I've seen so far, Hairy's optimistic view that proactive plans are afoot in this thread notwithsatnading, is complaint about the trails and the club. Such complaint leads me as a member to view the complainer with skepticism, particularly as I've watched similar processes in other clubs over the years.

 

 

Trust me if give thermophage a tools, he will build the trail himself. Unfortunately, landowners and club bureaucracy wont alow it.

 

 

Yep quite a few of us have helped and built trails. Even at tygerberg! But "landowners and club bureaucracy wont Dont allow it."

[Quagga]

That's a sore point.... The one Sean Noble was telling me he hopes i fall hard and hurt myself on it?

WHAAAAT someone told you that?

[Thermophage]

WHAAAAT someone told you that?

Bra on Facebook somma. He was having a hernia

[Quagga]

Well that's good news - as a landowner I wouldn't let people loose to build as they see fit outside of a clear and accountable system such as club management. 

 

Payment of a club membership fee does not mean that members get to call the shot - you pay for membership of an existing structure and access to the facilities that structure provides. If you want more or other facilities and want to belong to the club then you have to participate from whithin club structures by positively contributing.

 

Again - I don't know the history of attempts to do this but all I've seen so far, Hairy's optimistic view that proactive plans are afoot in this thread notwithsatnading, is complaint about the trails and the club. Such complaint leads me as a member to view the complainer with skepticism, particularly as I've watched similar processes in other clubs over the years.

Are we reading the same thread? I have seen suggestions and requests.

 

I have also seen opinions without background, and then those being corrected. 

 

I am yet to see a complaint about the current trails or their state. 

[Quagga]

Bra on Facebook somma. He was having a hernia

ai ai ai.........

 

I dont really know what that line is all about. I refer to it as the jump line, as I dont see it as Technical stuff. 

 

For me the other side of Lombaards(ON the far right) is technical-ish. Those wooden stepup at the little climbing rock section is a lot of fun

Edited February 21, 2020 by Quagga

[Thermophage]

ai ai ai.........

 

I dont really know what that line is all about. I refer to it as the jump line, as I dont see it as Technical stuff. 

 

For me the other side of Lombaards(ON the far right) is technical-ish. Those wooden stepup at the little climbing rock section is a lot of fun

For sure, jumps are just sort of 1 kind of tech.

That Lombards climb is lekker tech We even got an opportunoty to ride down it with Patrick once or at a night ride, that was great too Nice and different

[Mamil]

Maybe - the only positive thing floated so far is the idea of a well drawn up member survey.

 

The gist of the complaints seems to be

- trails aren't technical enough / there aren't enough tech trails

- trails aren't properly graded

- LAndowners / club management doesn't want to build tech trails

- Club management ignores member requests

 

To be fair - some of the proponents of more gnar (who I don't oppose BTW, despite the annoying whining about how unfair things are) have positively commented on the trails but without rereading the whole thread I can't recall too much that leapt out at me as being a positive idea - with the exception of Jewbacca's post some pages ago which I thought struck the right note. And I think he's not even a member?

 

 

Are we reading the same thread? I have seen suggestions and requests.

 

I have also seen opinions without background, and then those being corrected. 

 

I am yet to see a complaint about the current trails or their state. 

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

Well that's good news - as a landowner I wouldn't let people loose to build as they see fit outside of a clear and accountable system such as club management. 

 

Payment of a club membership fee does not mean that members get to call the shot - you pay for membership of an existing structure and access to the facilities that structure provides. If you want more or other facilities and want to belong to the club then you have to participate from whithin club structures by positively contributing.

 

Again - I don't know the history of attempts to do this but all I've seen so far, Hairy's optimistic view that proactive plans are afoot in this thread notwithsatnading, is complaint about the trails and the club. Such complaint leads me as a member to view the complainer with skepticism, particularly as I've watched similar processes in other clubs over the years.

MAMIL, by your own admission, you don't know much about the history behind asking for more technical trails, and the literal wall that is the response to any and all suggestions like it. 

 

NOBODY has complained about the trails there. They're all lekker. We all enjoy them. BUT. We'd appreciate the inclusion of a few more technical trails so that we, and others like us, as well as those groms who are coming up through the ranks in SA's XCO / Enduro / whatever disciplines can train on the TBMTBC trails instead of going outside them in order to get proper technical skills training in. 

 

Unfortunately, for some ardent supporters of the club, they instantly see people questioning things and go into all out attack mode (like you've done here, in pages past, and in threads past) without actually understanding what it is that those people are asking / questioning. 

 

The suggestion of a poll is good, and it's been done in the past if I remember correctly, but I don't ever remember seeing the results of that poll. Whether somethign comes of it is the true test, but I don't hold much hope, based on previous experience. 

 

As for your analogies: Flawed, but only because we're not talking about tennis vs squash. We're talking about having 3 Castle Lite & 1 Windhoek draught point in the pub instead of just 4 Castle Lites. You know, 'cos variety. 

Edited February 21, 2020 by Captain Fastbastard Mayhem

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

Fully agree with you

 

The club has all the contacts and a very simple survey like

"would you mind if we spend RXXX building a double black trail to introduce more variety into our trail network"

Fixed. Yours was a little too self-defeating in its construction...

[Jewbacca]

I mostly agree with what you are saying....but.

 

1. The club would have to send out the survey as they have all the members contact information.

2. There is no need for those asking for a change of sorts to the trails being / to be built to have to get the associated costs. The club would have a budget for trail building and maintenance and seeing as they have a permanently employed team of trail builders, they would then be able to more accurately define a trails costs. They also have more intimate knowledge of where the trails can be built given their interactions with the various land owners.

3. I do not see why the club and members should simply not be working together. I understand that of those who have commented here have tried to approach the club before.

 

So far this thread has mostly been a reasonable debate ... with a few shots at each other which unfortunately detracts from the matter at hand.

 

This thread should be kept clean and to the point.

I completely agree.

 

I'm suggesting that the protagonists create a feasible plan and present it to the club, and to go with the propensity to ask questions and learn from those running the club.

 

Knowledge shared would be a win.

 

You can't have that if 2 parties are just name calling and bad  mouthing each other, which is evidently the case.

 

There are already more than a handful of members on this thread openly backing the idea, so create a google doc, get membership numbers/consent forms to them, ask them to get them to their mates who want the same thing.

 

It's hard work BUT it creates a 'it's not 5% it's 478 members' answer which nullifies the 'facts' put forward by the board.

 

Asking the board to do things they don't want to over and over is flogging a dead horse.

 

I'm suggesting a positive approach that will involve some hard ground work but might create 'new facts and statistics' which would make it difficult for the board to ignore.

 

Failing that, walk away.

Cancer is rubbish and even these threads get people worked up enough to be 10 steps closer to it.

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

Bye now indeed - this is the stock answer of every oke in every one of those sports clubs who has wanted something done but prefers to malign the club structures instead of ponying up and pushing things in the desired direction. It's an inherently dis-empowered position because you're asking an authority to do your bidding instead of taking a positive approach that gather momentum in the direction that is desired.

 

Way easier to say "Agh this club doesn't do [fill in the blank here]" and take potshots from the sidelines.

 

I'd love to see more trails on the network - of all kinds - easy, tough, lethal the lot but on current form, as a club member, I'm unlikely to support a personality who's complaining non-stop about an infrastructure that really works.

 

OK - so bye now Thermo. Or let's see if we can get this thread locked.

Complaining non-stop? Is that how you see it? There's 3 aspects that most people here (and in the past) have requested improvement on. Trail variety. Communication (actions on their FB page were really all you needed to look at, there). Grading. 

 

I suppose that it would sound like non-stop complaining, seeing as people pick up on the negative vibes far more easily than the positive ones, which in TBMTBC's case, are many. 

 

Rider development & sponsorship

Land access

Trail Building (just not enough variety, IMO)

Race sponsorship

Hosting

Community development 

 

Etc etc etc. 

[Mamil]

This isn't all out attack - it's actually saying "put up or shut up" to what I've read to be a barrage of complaint in this and other threads that doesn't reflect well on your cause which, again sounds reasonable to me.

 

I don't know what the wall you mention looks like but I can guarantee that spreading "butthurt" as the heat eater so eruditely retorts when challenged, is not going to make any inroads for your cause.

 

What does work is the provision of concrete and collaborative steps even in the face of opposition. Which means polling members, generating ideas for the trails that are wanted, building positive momentum from whithin the existing structures.

 

Withdrawing and taking potshots at it on social media makes someone like me who called the same club structures that are being criticised here when my mate was sitting with a broken collar bone on that rock slab on cobra and got met with a bakkie ride from the trailhead to the parking lot.

 

Against the backdrop of a well maintained, organised, safe trail network with a friendly face to carry you down the mountain when you run out of skill - the complaints here start to ring a bit thinly in my ears.

 

Again, a new technical trail at Hoogies that I'd never ride but come and watch thermophage and his hurt butt sounds ok to me but all this churlish whining --- nah.

 

 

 

 

 

MAMIL, by your own admission, you don't know much about the history behind asking for more technical trails, and the literal wall that is the response to any and all suggestions like it. 

 

NOBODY has complained about the trails there. They're all lekker. We all enjoy them. BUT. We'd appreciate the inclusion of a few more technical trails so that we, and others like us, as well as those groms who are coming up through the ranks in SA's XCO / Enduro / whatever disciplines can train on the TBMTBC trails instead of going outside them in order to get proper technical skills training in. 

 

Unfortunately, for some ardent supporters of the club, they instantly see people questioning things and go into all out attack mode (like you've done here, in pages past, and in threads past) without actually understanding what it is that those people are asking / questioning. 

 

The suggestion of a poll is good, and it's been done in the past if I remember correctly, but I don't ever remember seeing the results of that poll. Whether somethign comes of it is the true test, but I don't hold much hope, based on previous experience. 

 

As for your analogies: Flawed, but only because we're not talking about tennis vs squash. We're talking about having 3 Castle Lite & 1 Windhoek draught point in the pub instead of just 4 Castle Lites. You know, 'cos variety. 

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

This isn't all out attack - it's actually saying "put up or shut up" to what I've read to be a barrage of complaint in this and other threads that doesn't reflect well on your cause which, again sounds reasonable to me.

 

I don't know what the wall you mention looks like but I can guarantee that spreading "butthurt" as the heat eater so eruditely retorts when challenged, is not going to make any inroads for your cause.

 

What does work is the provision of concrete and collaborative steps even in the face of opposition. Which means polling members, generating ideas for the trails that are wanted, building positive momentum from whithin the existing structures.

 

Withdrawing and taking potshots at it on social media makes someone like me who called the same club structures that are being criticised here when my mate was sitting with a broken collar bone on that rock slab on cobra and got met with a bakkie ride from the trailhead to the parking lot.

 

Against the backdrop of a well maintained, organised, safe trail network with a friendly face to carry you down the mountain when you run out of skill - the complaints here start to ring a bit thinly in my ears.

 

Again, a new technical trail at Hoogies that I'd never ride but come and watch thermophage and his hurt butt sounds ok to me but all this churlish whining --- nah.

How does the wish for better communication skills, more trail variety and better trail grading equate to dissing the club as a whole or saying they don't do things to help their members? Just how? They simply don't. Drawing that parallel is idiotic, frankly. A request for slightly more trail variety doens't mean they don't do other things very well. 

 

It's this binary attitude which I find increasingly popular with "supporters" when these questions / concerns are raised, and it's confounding!

[Mamil]

I'm no supporter - I just love the trails and consider my membership fee a bargain and one of the few annual fees I pay that I do with a glad heart.

 

It's not the requests that prompted my replies in this thread - your requests all sound perfectly reasonable - what got me going in this thread was the tone of "the club is doing this wrong", snide references to lawyers letters, etcetera that just makes me think, again as a 5 year member and strictly intermediate rider with no real ambitions to get more technically proficient (cricket not golf in case the stereotype it tempted) that made me lose my **** with thermophage just a little.

 

Also I smiled a little at your framing of "club supporter". This implies the binary you bemoan - supporters and non-supporters and by default you make me a club supporter and imply that you are not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

How does the wish for better communication skills, more trail variety and better trail grading equate to dissing the club as a whole or saying they don't do things to help their members? Just how? They simply don't. Drawing that parallel is idiotic, frankly. A request for slightly more trail variety doens't mean they don't do other things very well. 

 

It's this binary attitude which I find increasingly popular with "supporters" when these questions / concerns are raised, and it's confounding!

[Matchstix]

This isn't all out attack - it's actually saying "put up or shut up" to what I've read to be a barrage of complaint in this and other threads that doesn't reflect well on your cause which, again sounds reasonable to me.

 

I don't know what the wall you mention looks like but I can guarantee that spreading "butthurt" as the heat eater so eruditely retorts when challenged, is not going to make any inroads for your cause.

 

What does work is the provision of concrete and collaborative steps even in the face of opposition. Which means polling members, generating ideas for the trails that are wanted, building positive momentum from whithin the existing structures.

 

Withdrawing and taking potshots at it on social media makes someone like me who called the same club structures that are being criticised here when my mate was sitting with a broken collar bone on that rock slab on cobra and got met with a bakkie ride from the trailhead to the parking lot.

 

Against the backdrop of a well maintained, organised, safe trail network with a friendly face to carry you down the mountain when you run out of skill - the complaints here start to ring a bit thinly in my ears.

 

Again, a new technical trail at Hoogies that I'd never ride but come and watch thermophage and his hurt butt sounds ok to me but all this churlish whining ---

To an extend  the labeling the one person that is vocal and his been vocal for a while is also unfair. 

the attitude you mention is also part of the issue since their is no unity among members due to perceived differences. We  all want trails we can enjoy since we all pay to ride them.

considering the Club is also on the forefront of endorsing Enduro racing along with giant, it will also be nice to see trails that are open year round, not just for the event. I do realise that some of this constraint is due to land owners.

unfortunately the churlish whining you are talking about . .  you are also contributing to.

 

on another note

the club has a trail list it would seem however i cant say I know the some of the trails, or i might know them by a different name, this maybe also a slight obstacle when creating a survey.

 

any suggestions on how to simplify a list like on the site for a survey?

 

https://www.tygerbergmtb.co.za/trails/