Fort William is on the verge of gaining another feather in its cap as a Crowdfund has been set up to access fund to a pumptrack.
Pete had a chat with Gregor Muir, the man at the head of a group looking to get the funds together to build a pumptrack in the Outdoor Capital of the UK, Fort William.
Who is Gregor Muir?
I am the local dentist.
What’s your background in cycling?
I moved up to the Fort over 20 years ago from Glasgow as I spent most of my spare time driving up and down the A82 either to ski, kayak, or climb with a bit of mountain biking thrown in.
After an excessive number of near death experiences I realised I was not quite as good at kayaking as I first thought and needed to find a safer sport.
That’s when I really got the mountain bike bug. We were one of the first to ride (and break) the original Orange Sub 5s. There was about four of us with these phenomenal (at the time) full suspension mountain bikes of which I think we managed to destroy three of them.
It was great fun. We were riding really challenging tracks on these things. I now ride these ‘amazing’ tracks on a modern mountain bike and realise how much we have moved forward in mountain biking in the last 15 years. Either that or I have just improved phenomenally.
As the years progressed biking really took over as the sport.
Photo courtesy of Red Bull Content Pool.
My son is now 13 and better at biking than me. We have a group of junior riders locally who are named the Dudes of Disaster. They are the next generation of MTB riders nipping at the heels of the likes of Joe, Liam, Lachlan and James, the Dudes of Hazzard.
I have now resigned myself to following them up and down hills these days.
How did the idea for a pumptrack in Fort William come about?
This is more than just a pump track. We are aiming to provide a World Class Pump track, BMX and Skate Park and Trails Bike park.
We have world class mountain biking in the area we need this facility to complement the current infrastructure.
A couple of years ago the family were heading to Inverness to go shopping and my son Cory asked if he could throw his BMX in the back and go to the BMX park while the rest of the family were shopping.
I went along with him and was overwhelmed with what I saw at Inverness skatepark and pumptrack.
What a place! There were hundreds of kids and young adults on all different forms of bike, skate, scooter.
There is a real sense of community up there. They made Cory feel really welcome while he was there. He spent hours on the park and rode with some really talented riders.
Fort William is the Outdoor Capital of the UK with world class mountain bike facilities. What it lacks is a good BMX and Pump track.
When the World Cup was on in June, Claudio Caluori (who is worldwide head of Velosolutions) agreed to come and see our proposed sites for the track. He was overwhelmed. He even mentioned that if we can build what we are proposing he would bring the Pump track world series to Fort William.
Who is involved in this idea and what do they do?
We have a really active committee with some real talent and experience. Our most active members of the committee are:
Iain Pooleman ,our treasurer is a local GP and mountain-biker, Anna Trafford was the first director of Outdoor Capital UK, Foss owns and runs Off beat Bikes in Fort William, Mark Clark is a local bike guide, Fiona Beattie active schools coordinator and UCI Masters World Champion 2017, Jamie Currie skater and surfer and English teacher, Miles Mallison, photographer and top trials bike rider.
What other groups are you working with to push this idea forward?
We managed to win Dragons’ Glen. This is a Fort William variant of Dragons Den where you make a business proposal and compete for the prize of £10 000 and help from the Dragons. The Dragons this year were Angus MacDonald who was Spears Entrepreneur of the year 2017, Emma Parton who owns and runs the Highland Soap Company, Andy Meldrum who is owner and MD of Glencoe Mountain Resort and Ali MacLeod who is head of fundraising at National Trust for Scotland.
We were really up against it. The other pitches were very impressive from an electric car hire firm to a micro brewery.
We are working closely with West Highland Wheelers who have given us a substantial donation and have offered help and experience as we progress.
Also local businesses have been great. We have had offers of help and we have even been offered an old barn to keep the park dry in the rain.
What stage are you at in the process of getting the pumptrack idea moving?
Feasibility study is underway and we are really in the progress of raising as much money as we can. The cost of a World Class pump track is over £350,000 to build. If we can raise funding from grants we still need to raise over £35 000 to match fund the grant applications.
We are putting the proposal out to tender over the coming weeks. We are looking at Velosolutions, Clark and Kent and a few other specialist groups to tender for the project.
How does a pumptrack improve the local area?
There is a lovely article in the Daily Record (a local Glasgow Paper) which was published following the construction of Wishaw Pump track in Glasgow. The local Police and Fire Service saw a 50% reduction in minor youth crime following the opening of the Wishaw Pump track. They attributed this reduction to the opening of the pump track.
We have a hash tag #KeepAidanOutOfJail
This is explained in our video:
The joy of a pump track and BMX Park how inexpensive the sport can be compared to mountainbiking. We are aiming to provide hire bikes to use. This provides a healthy environment where young adults can congregate and have fun.
A real central hub allowing everyone to develop their skills and love for biking.
What’s involved in getting a pumptrack on the ground beyond the actual construction?
The construction of the track is the easy part. The difficulty is raising the funds to do it. We cannot access grant funding unless we match fund it with local fundraising.
We need to raise over £35 000 to access the £300 000 grant funding.
We also need to keep the facility maintained and running once we have built it.
Once it is constructed we plan to run coaching sessions for adults and juniors. A real success in Inverness is their lady-only coaching sessions.
Do you have a site in mind for the pumptrack?
Our first choice is just off the main road as you head north towards Nevis Range. It sits right across the road from Lochaber High School. It is a massive site with real potential to expand. A proposal is to build a BMX race track here as well.
The site that we are looking at is on the Sustrans bike track and is easily accessible from both Fort William and Corpach.
What’s the next step in the process?
Send us your money. A world class facility open to all. It will be free but we need money to build it and maintain it.
This will not happen without the financial help of the biking community.
Lets build a World Class Pump Track BMX/Skate park and trials bike park in Fort Bill.
