Lordship Loop BMX and Mountain Bike Pump Track
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The Lordship Loop mountain bike and BMX track is in Lordship Recreation Grounds in Tottenham, London. It is designed for both BMX and mountain bike frames and wheels. The pump track style makes it progressive so beginners, intermediate and advanced riders can move their skills forward as they learn to pump, manual and jump. It is created within open areas of woodland giving an out of london feel yet within an urban setting making it accesible to London riders.
It's design consists of a singletrack experience made up of rollers, berms, roller doubles and step-up jumps and is rollable by all abilities but with more challenging jumps for experienced riders. It is know as a 'pump track' style trail that is very skills and feature intensive. It covers a looped distance of 391metres made from re-used earth bunds from recycled earth and surfaced with aggregates to provide a fun year round riding facility.
Commissioned by Haringey council the Lordship Loop construction was led by Rowan Sorrell a Welsh Downhill Mountain Biking Champion and his Back on Track team who have a wealth of experience in designing and building bike tracks. The design has had significant input from Rowan himself as well as the different local community groups including Lordship Recs local off road cycling club The Trax. The Trax run a vibrant mountain bike and BMX club utilising the the Loop infrastructure and manage the maintenance of the track on behalf of the community. If you haven't ridden the track go check it out and if you have please share your experiences.
(features photo credit Pete Bowcock, Video credit Tom Dowie)
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Average user rating from: 1 user(s)
Reviewed by stumpy_dan December 04, 2011
Last updated: January 30, 2012
#1 Reviewer - View all my reviews
Build it and they will come
She is built as a progressive pump track. First you learn to pump around the track, then you learn to manual and finally to jump. This is why she is full of rollers and doubles rather than tabletops which allow for less progression of the core skills here in pumping.
The first jump is a toughie to clear and requires all your skill as you dont have much of a run in and you need to use the first roller to pump up and get the height or else as a safety bumo she slows you down. The first quarter of the track flows nicely with jump after jump and then you hit a flat section with a triple that slows you. The return is slightly harder than way out but good for pratising manuals.
The half way point gives a well earned rest.
Overall great for pump and building skills and fitness as you session over and over again. The design challenge building on the flat will mean she is designed purposefully to be hard to master so there are hours of learnings to be covered offering an addictive and progressive training track.
She is built in a flat woodland Spinney adding to her character. As implied this track pushes you physically even though short. She is hard work but she gives back what you put in. Tottenham and North London are going to have super fit kids and I sense some world class riders.
User Review
Great for manualing
Great workout
Local in London
Limited facilities
http://vimeo.com/26801650
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R Drew
said:
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... OK maybe not quite the first to ride it, but as the fence was down tonight I was not going to ignore the opportunity to bounce my way around it under lights... Firstly it must be said that the course is not a loop, in itself this is not a major issue, but such an obvious misnomer must be noted. Now I have had a personal connection with the park going back nearly 30 years and have ridden most of the major centres in the UK, while the idea of a major investment in off road cycling in the overall upgrading of the park was an amazing prospect, I have to say that in my opinion that the opportunity has been wasted for a number of reasons. The most obvious problem was siting the course in a totally flat area of a park that has number of slopes that are the prerequisite of almost every form of mountain biking and BMX tracks. As for the course itself I wonder who it is designed for, while elite riders might be able to jump the double and treble humps, I am worried that riders developing their skills are likely to mistime their attempt to clear them will hit the up slope with the obvious consequence, the solution to this may be to fill in some sections as table tops where you can land on the flat with some degree of safety while developing the ability to land on the down slope. The course really could do with a greater variety of features, while wood may rot and rock is unforgiving, the continual rollers made me wondered if I would develop seasickness. The humps will of course lose definition over time, but at present some are quite brutal to ride through in sections where speed can be carried through, how young children will be able to even roll through the course is a mystery. What the design really lacks is sections with progressive difficulty where riders can either build up their technical competence, maybe with alternative lines through similar obstacles. Ideally there would have been more raised 'starter' sections that led into skill building sections which would have offset the problems of building on the flat and could have allowed riders and coaching to focus on repeating short areas, As the old track in the park seems likely to disappear imminently I will be riding this 'loop' most days or nights, I just can't help but regret that as one of the main stated aims of building this track is developing the skills of young people it seems that so many opportunities have been missed. |
Daniel Mintz
said:
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... Here is a great video of local hero (and someone I'm priviledged ot call my friend) Ken Floyde who petitioned for a BMX track in Lordship recreation grounds for many years before The Trax oappeared and was pivotal for this being in the regeneration plans) http://vimeo.com/26801650 |
Daniel Mintz
said:
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... Spotted this neat review of the trail http://fourmilesfightingtraffi...-loop.html |
