At this month’s Council meeting, a young man called Tom Conder waited patiently to speak on a matter being decided by Council that night.
Cutting a lonely figure, Tom stood quietly in the background with the aid of crutches, while others spoke about the bike facilities at Seaforth known as The Grove.
Local residents opposed the illegal clearing of bush for dirt jumps and reported anti-social behaviour, while representatives of mountain biking association Trail Care reminded Council of unfulfilled promises to the riding community.
Due to a procedural decision, 18-year-old Tom Conder was denied a chance to address Council and the voice of young riders at The Grove went unheard. The Northern Beaches Advocate spoke with Tom (main image, right) and his friend Aiden Coates (main image, left) who was also at the meeting, to find out what they intended to say.
“I was going to put forward numerous points about the whole community aspect of it and how incredible it is for all the young kids. I’ve seen 5-year-olds there up to 55-year-olds. There’s a huge variety of ages there. Really it’s an awesome spot for everyone to come together and enjoy bikes and progress on the jumps,” said Tom.
“I’ve watched kids go there and struggle to get over the first jump and then literally every single person there has given them tips and then a few hours later they’ve hit almost the entire line.
“The whole community aspect and the way everyone helps out is awesome, it’s like a big family there. You go down there with one or two mates and you don’t even know 99 percent of the people there. At the end of it you have spoken to almost everyone and you’ve gone out with heaps more friends than you came in with.
“All the kids who live around Balgowlah, Seaforth, North Balgowlah, even Manly Vale, will ride up there after school. They’ll go with their mates for a few hours and ride home.
“It’s a really good location because it’s central to a couple of different schools and there’s so many kids living in the area. They can go there after school or on the weekends, ride until sunset and go home.”
Tom makes the point that the ‘informal line’, as the unauthorised trail is known to the riders, was built because the formal area of The Grove had become dangerous through lack of maintenance.
“Comparing the Council’s Grove to the informal line, to someone who’s not familiar with jumps, the Council’s spot might look safer because there’s nowhere on the trail that has a gap of any sort, where the informal line has lots of gaps.
“Looking at it from an outsiders point of view, it’s easy to see why they would think our area is more dangerous because the jumps are bigger and there’s gaps in them and if you fall the consequences would seem worse.
“If you have a jump full of rocks, soon enough they’ll all be at the surface and you end up with a jump that looks like something out of the Council’s Grove. That is absolutely a recipe for disaster,” said Tom.
“If I was someone who didn’t know how to ride jumps or attack a take-off properly, you could easily get sent over the handlebars, rotated in the air or land flat. That is incredibly dangerous and definitely not what you want, especially for kids. It’s a guaranteed hospital visit.
“From a safety point of view, the informal line is way safer. It’s got case pads, so even if you come up remarkably short, there is plenty of forgiveness. You’re not going to land in the middle of a gap or get sent over the handlebars.”
Tom says the informal line began to take shape as word of mouth spread and enthusiasm grew among local kids.
“All these kids went to school and told their mates. Before you know it, halfway through the construction of the trail when there was only a couple of jumps, kids were hitting it all the time after school and having a great time.
“It’s just kids talking to other kids that gets the word out. Same with parents as well.
“We’ve had some parents come in and say, ‘What on earth is this, it’s crazy, there’s massive jumps!’ We explain to them how we make them and the quality compared to the Council’s line. They walk out 20 minutes later with a new view of it.
“This new spot out the back was seen as an upgrade to the Council’s line and a tool to use for progression, and a really good tool at that.
“On the top of the jumps you’ve got what’s called a case pad, basically a big flat spot before the landing. You can come up as short as you want and still land on the top of the jump and roll away from it with zero issues.
“It was awesome for progression because kids could do that, case it a hundred times, then eventually they get it. It’s actually not a dangerous spot despite what people were saying at the meeting,” said Tom.
Responding to the concerns raised by local residents of damage to the bush by ‘an entitled group of young men’ who were responsible for aggressive and anti-social behaviour and drug use, Tom says those claims are not substantiated by the facts.
Before COVID Tom says, “We used to have this thing called Freedom Fridays. A group of us who’d go down there every Friday afternoon to ride. There’d be 30 or more of us there.”
“If residents wanted to consult with us and get an understanding of what was going on, they could have come to that and talked with us.
“None of that happened. They went in when there was no-one there and must have seen drainage areas, which can make the place look untidy. Someone who’s concerned about the bush may think we’d cut out random bush.
“There were tools left there, they were collected under a tarp. There was no power tools. That horrific Manly Daily story that came out a couple of months ago saying heavy machinery had been used was infuriating to read. It was shovels and wheelbarrows that were used to make the jumps.
“Another thing that was brought up was dumping. I understand how they could see that, we had carpets on all of the jumps on the take-offs and landings.
“The only reason we put the carpets down is to keep the shape. Carpets do a really good job of holding the jump together. If you have a freshly built jump and start riding it with nothing on it, there’ll be ruts in the landing within the first few runs,” said Tom.
“They spoke about rubbish and bongs and whatnot. If you’ve got a place like that in the suburbs, whether it’s a set of jumps like The Grove or a little reserve in the suburbs, that behaviour is going to happen there either way.
“I know for a fact anti-social behaviour was going on long before the informal line was there, so that point is invalid and has no bearing on the jumps or the riders,” said Tom.
“We always cleaned up after ourselves and regularly brought out bags full of rubbish,” said Aiden.
“Any aggressive behaviour would not have been from any of the riders who are part of the community involved in Freedom Fridays. You could walk in there without a bike, as a total outsider, and everyone there would have welcomed you and told you what was happening,” said Tom.
“To hear that put to Council, and Council taking on the idea that the riders were aggressive and there was anti-social behaviour going on as a reflection of us, was pretty disappointing and saddening to hear.
“That’s not what we are as a riding community, it’s absolutely not what we stand for. We’ve been there when people come in to do some anti-social behaviour and we’ve told them to leave because that’s not what happens here.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s The Grove or any reserve, jumps or no jumps, it’s going to happen. The best way we could go about it was to be as nice and as respectful as possible, and kindly ask them to leave because it’s not the activity we condone or encourage.
“We are against any of that stuff. We are there to ride and have a good time and see kids progress. We try and keep as much of that out as we can,” said Tom.
Tom and Aiden say that the local residents letterboxed 1,000 homes to oppose what they were doing but only got 80 supporters, whereas the riders had a petition supported by over 4,800 people.
“We don’t have the kind of money it takes to letterbox that many homes,” said Aiden.
Northern Beaches Council have issued a media release saying that The Grove Bike Park will be upgraded but have not put a firm timeline on when that will happen.
Tom and Aiden say the Council needs to consult with riders and other stakeholders to ensure that the resulting facility delivers what they need, unlike the existing facility that they say was built without consultation.
“The Council’s jumps should be replaced with ones co-designed with riders to accommodate different skill levels. This would allow for not only an improved facility but also a safer place for all users,” said Tom.
Tom and Aiden believe that The Grove is suitable to build new riding lines for riders from beginner to intermediate skill level. They do not think there is sufficient room to go beyond that unless Council was willing to consider expanding the area of the existing track.
“I think it’s a bit more of a child-oriented place, they can’t fit in the more advanced jumps. There’s just not enough room. In a perfect world, if they could formalise the informal line, it would be a great compromise,” said Aiden.
Matt Ward
One of the people who did address Council was Matt Ward, who represents Trail Care, an incorporated association which does work consulting with National Parks, handles the volunteer maintenance at Manly Dam and is involved with the new Bare Creek Bike Park at Belrose.
Mr Ward says he has been involved with The Grove issue since 2012, when there was a ‘blow up’ between Manly Council and the riders because of unauthorised modifications to the formal track.
“Credit where it’s due, Council is doing a great thing with what’s happening at Belrose. We are about to have one of the top handful of urban bike parks in the world,” said Mr Ward.
But Mr Ward says that Council do not understand the riding community or how to engage with it.
“To the extent Council become involved, it’s always in the capacity of seeking to close down anything they find as opposed to seeking to provide solutions to the problem. In essence, what’s happening is this ongoing cycle of illegal trails being built. We are not getting any closer to a solution.
“The sport of mountain biking, both regular mountain biking and dirt jumping, has a culture problem at the moment. The problem is the user group feels so let down by Council and other land managers that they feel entitled to build their own facilities.
“Neither side is in the right. We can’t condone people clearing bush and doing their own thing. Ultimately, the only way this will be sorted out is by Council taking on their role to deliver the infrastructure needs of the community.
“We’ve got a situation where we’ve seen generation after generation coming into the sport with the expectation that they will need to build their own facilities. That is not sustainable.
“That is going to result in bushland getting destroyed. We are lucky in this situation it’s just happening in some lantana and privet, but it’s only a matter of time before some kids go into a place they are causing some real damage. Nobody wants to see that,” said Mr Ward.
David Darcy
After Council made the decision to remove the unauthorised dirt jumps at The Grove, former Police Commander for the Northern Beaches, David Darcy made a public statement in support of the rider group.
“Northern Beaches Council’s decision to bulldoze the informal jump site known as the Grove sets a nasty precedent that tramples the rights of youth in our area and puts all informal jump sites at risk of the same fate,” said Mr Darcy.
“I know one youth was prevented from speaking, which I find disconcerting. I also know the youth who tried to engage this official process were left disenfranchised. They believe it was stacked against them before they even walked into the Council chambers.”
Mr Darcy said that claims of anti-social and criminal behaviour that likely influenced Council’s decision needs to be considered carefully in light of the self-interest of those claims.
“Personally, over many years, I have not once witnessed this type of behaviour at a jump site,” said Mr Darcy.
In his statement, Mr Darcy then went on to suggest a series of recommendations to help everyone move forward:
- Established informal jump sites need to be viewed by Council as places of cultural significance for youth. Consultation needs to take into consideration the difficulty youth face in presenting their case to Council.
- Bulldozing informal jump sites should be a last resort.
- Should an order for destruction be approved by Council, an alternative site should be provided prior to destruction.
- Council should replace, ‘like with like’. That is in terms of the difficulty of jumps, not turn it into a ‘kiddies park’ because they are easier to manage. A proper jump site is designed to cater for all skill levels – that is the point of jump sites – to grow skills!
- Council provide pockets of disused, unwanted land, that is not environmentally sensitive. These ‘green zones’ are places where kids can build. A strip of land as small as 200m by 5m would be suitable. There are stacks of small parcels of land that would easily fulfil this need.
- Council would recommend/condone the use of ‘green zone’ sites, provided oversight of the jump build was undertaken by local, organised bike groups, in a similar way to the consultation undertaken by Council with mountain bike groups in the design of the Belrose Mountain Bike Park.
- The community, not Council, build and maintain the jump sites. If and when they become abandoned, the sites are remediated.
- Many opponents will bring up the insurance and liability issue. This is a furphy. Injury rates on jump sequences are low. They are low because of how they are designed and the appreciation of the users that they have to gradually build their skills. Mountain Bike injury rates are far, far higher and are covered by Council. Council could absorb these ‘green zones’ into their current insurance premiums. Currently the biggest cost for Council and State Government is uncontrolled displacement of land clearing in environmentally sensitive areas, National Parks and Aboriginal heritage sites.
Council’s decision to rebuild The Grove Bike Park is an encouraging sign for Tom and Aiden but they remain wary because no timeframe has been committed and previous promises have gone unfulfilled.
They are both completing their HSC this year and Tom says he is interested in pursuing studies in education.
“I love being around kids. Being at the jumps, it’s awesome seeing them progress and learn things. A role in education would be awesome, seeing kids learn and grow,” he said.
Images: Northern Beaches Advocate, Tom Conder, Aiden Coates
Video: Aiden Coates
