Local riders tie-in with Olympic mountain bike venue (From Thurrock Gazette)

Call for borough bike fans to register Olympic site journeys

7:40pm Tuesday 16th February 2010 in Sport

CYCLING: Southend Wheelers Cycling club want to make sure that local cyclists benefit from the Olympic mountain biking event to be held at Hadleigh Country Park in 2012.

And the club’s Graham Pearl is hoping to enlist the help of anyone who has cycled in the area - including riders from Thurrock who may have biked in the area. “Southend Council and the club are working to ensure that the people of Southend benefit from the opportunities the Olympic event will bring. We initially want to ensure it is possible to cycle, off road, to and from the area of Hadleigh Country Park,” he said.

“Where public rights of way are concerned there is a fair amount of red tape to work through. We need to identify anyone who has cycled off-road in the area between Leigh and Benfleet at any time during the past 20 years.

“Assuming we have enough evidence that the area has been used by cyclists we can move on to the next step which is just gathering more detailed information and putting forward our case for a Right of Way for cyclists.”

Contact Graham by email at leisure@southendwheelers.org.