Holla Trails Flood Builder – Sponsorship
Like nature is slowly coming back after a big storm, the riders and runners are also coming back to the trails, or what is left of them. We have captured some of the devastation left behind from the floods, read to the end to see some pictures. We’ve been working very hard to open trails by moving through and making “quick wins” where we can and recover some riding and running trails before tackling the more daunting tasks where bridge crossings that were 5 metres before are now 20 metres.
The Green, Silver, Blue, Purple and Gold cycling routes and the Pink and Blue running routes are open now, albeit with some variations from the old route and some extra ruts and ditches to be aware of.
Next our plan is to tackle one route at a time to get it sorted before moving onto the next. We are starting with Pink, then we will work on Yellow and Red. We know you are keen to ride all the trails again without having to dismount to cross a landslide or walk across a stream but it’s difficult to give a time line.
Our most time consuming and labour-intensive work is on building bridges! We’ve done the math and over the last 12 years we have ended up with just over half a kilometre of bridges on our routes. 548m by our approximation, of which 422 meters needs to be re-built. On average a bridge costs R 7,280, so we are looking at a total cost of R 320,000. That is the value, now time: It takes around two to three days to build when you account for moving the materials to the remote sites. So with 44 bridges to be re-built at 2.5 days per bridge, we are looking at 110 days or 22 weeks for the bridges alone. Then we need to clean the routes that survived and cut the route deviations to areas where new bridges can be located and built. You can imagine that this is a very time consuming task.
To speed it all up we have committed to hire 5 extra crew members for the next 6 weeks who will do new trail cutting and the experienced crew will both supervise them and focus on bridge construction. This will help a lot but we can use all the help we can get.
We, as the Holla Trails Team, have been humbled by the passionate support of our members with the number of riders who have approached us asking if they can contribute towards getting us back up and running faster, either through financial support or through contributing physical labour. It is yet another confirmation of our philosophy that we are simply the custodians of Holla Trails as the trails actually belong to you guys – our Holla Trails community.
The physical labour is harder to organise as the logistics of getting out there and delivering the materials to site is probably the most challenging part. Having said that we are going to try to do a day or two of bridge building and will invite members who wish to have a go at it to come and join us. (How cool to ride over a bridge that you helped build too!)
For those wishing to support financially, we have come up with the following opportunities:
1. Super cool bike board or cap/peak: If you are a cycling member: In return for a R1,000 contribution we will give you a super cool 2022 bike board, in a choice of 2 colours, commemorating the floods and honouring your contribution, so that everyone can see what a legend you are! If you are not a member or a runner you can still contribute and you will receive a cool and unique and personalised cap or peak as a thank you and wherever you go, everyone can see what a legend you are! If you are a cycling member, you can of course also swap the board for a cap or peak.
2. Sponsor a bridge: Ideal for companies (and thanks to Grant Kalil from Origin Aluminium for being the first company to contact us with this offer – you will shortly see their sponsors board on the OMO crossing!) and/or a group of riders. R10,000 contribution gives your company or mates naming rights/sponsorship of your bridge until end of Feb 2023 and a commemorative bike board each too!
3. Muscle: there is a lot of man power that goes into building trails and we know that not everyone is able to donate, so here is a chance help out and see for yourself what effort goes into building trails. Come and assist us, as many hands make light work. Please let us know if you are interested and we will let you know when we have our members building days.
And for the those not inclined (which is absolutely fine) or are not in a position to chip in, chip in by supporting the sponsors – let’s support those who support our trails.
Should you wish to take up one of these options, we have provided a link below for you to simply fill in your details confirming which option you are wishing to be involved in and how we can contact you in this regard.
You can also contact us via email at trailmaster@hollatrails.co.za or on 0837003675 (Jasper) or 0712828328 (Mondli)
CLICK HERE TO BE AN INSTANT HOLLA LEGEND!
Thank you all for your patience and support. We will get our trails back bridge by bridge and we hope they will be better than ever.
Nic, Jasper, Mondli and the team!
