Catawba 4x?

i'm pretty sure its closed until they finish the park, which could be awhile considering the locals just put a gate over the road and won't let construction vehicles in.

its a dual cross course not a dual slalom or fourcross, and its overgrown in some areas and wil need work

Doesn't need any work and it's not overgrown. I rode it today. The only time you can legally ride there is when they are having a charlotte mountain bike xc race series event like they did today. You can check on tarheeltrailblazers.com to see when the next XC race is and go out around 5pm that day and that day only. I think the next one is in 3 or 4 weeks??? To be honest though, I would not waste your time. This used to be a good slalom course, but now there are two many turns and they are pretty tight for the most part. Yeah, the berms are fun but the jumps are small and it's hard to hold a lot of speed because of how tight they made the course. It was rather disappointing. Go to hornets nest to get your fix. Like they said the construction has been halted and we can expect delays until they open the trails for good.

how were the dh trails? the thtb said the dual course needed work and they were gonna loosen some of the turn angles, and fill in that hole after one of the turns.

The bottom could use 2 minutes from a weed wacker to make it race ready, other then that it's not in bad shape. They need to start the course from the top of the hill and not the side like it is now. If the first berm could be re-angled and the start up top like it used to be it would open up the top section and you could carry plenty of speed. If that gets fixed it would really improve the flow of the entire course. There is a small drainage ditch after the last berm which could get filled in some more, but it's not a big problem. Hopefully they will finish this park soon so we can ride out there again.

Locals tossed a gate across the road? They find a legal way to block access?

The construction traffic was going down a dead end road and this was to be the entrance into the whitewater park eventually. The residents on that street found a loop hole whereby the Park was going to need their permission to use the street as an entrance into the park. They requested a lot of money and the owners of the park declined and decided they would find another way in(it must have been a big sum of dough, because I know what it costs to put in curb, gutter, and ashphalt not to mention clearing and grading). The residents decided they would put in a metal gate and since they wern't getting paid they would stop construction for the time being. This is just for spite basically. One of the residents is a goat farmer - I didn't know there were goat farmers in Charlottte, economically speaking I don't think it is the most feasible market for them!! This will slow down the finishing of the park and cost tax payers money in all surrounding counties. The developers may not be able to repay their Bank loans with a delay of the Park opening and the burden will fall on us. Pisses me off that some goat farmer who probably doesn't pay any taxes is going to cost people money who actually get up and go to work everyday, but I'm sure Mecklenburg County and the great State of North Carolina would find another way to spend our tax dollars anyway.

Maybe they moved there to be on a private, quiet dead end road to get away from development, traffic and other people telling them what to do....

In the end it comes down to the development company not doing there homework and gaining legal access, and yes I'm sure the residents were getting tired of the dust and noise. You really can't blame them, but it's just the nature of our economy right now: sure you may live next to a woods or a farm today, but with the growth of residential real estate and commercial real estate behind it once the roof tops support it, usually it is only a matter of time before your quiet area gets turned upside down. Crosland Inc., Crowder Construction, and Crescent Resources(an entity of Duke Power) have partnered to build a residential subdivision adjacent to the whitewater center, so the growth is moving that way.

bizutch said:

Maybe they moved there to be on a private, quiet dead end road to get away from development, traffic and other people telling them what to do....

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Yeah and if they really cared about it they would have done something about it 15 months ago. They are out to get paid plain and simple and waited until their little "quality of life" protest would have the biggest impact on the project.

DRB said:

Yeah and if they really cared about it they would have done something about it 15 months ago. They are out to get paid plain and simple and waited until their little "quality of life" protest would have the biggest impact on the project.

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Timing is everything.


Can't blame them for being smart about it.

MTB_Rob_NC said:

Timing is everything.


Can't blame them for being smart about it.

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Ditto.
Plus...I doubt a goat farmer is going to have a concept of scale in regards to whitewater center. Once they saw the massiveness of the thing, it was probably too late to consider.

I mean...if you've ever whitewatered on a tourist basis, it's at the Ocoee, Nantahala, etc...and they are rural, yet still pretty low key and dispersed, not urbanized and on a massive scale. If the locals had been shown any of the above as examples of whitewater centers, they might not protest much about it coming. But, man...I saw the scale and overlay of how huge that thing is gonna be. Can't imagine that cluster fokk landing in my back yard...

bizutch said:

Ditto.
Plus...I doubt a goat farmer is going to have a concept of scale in regards to whitewater center. Once they saw the massiveness of the thing, it was probably too late to consider.

I mean...if you've ever whitewatered on a tourist basis, it's at the Ocoee, Nantahala, etc...and they are rural, yet still pretty low key and dispersed, not urbanized and on a massive scale. If the locals had been shown any of the above as examples of whitewater centers, they might not protest much about it coming. But, man...I saw the scale and overlay of how huge that thing is gonna be. Can't imagine that cluster fokk landing in my back yard...

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They are not dumb nor uninformed. They have known the scope of this thing from the very beginning. The Whitewater facts dumped tons of details on to them so they would be informed including the amount of construction traffic.

And let me clear up somethings. Hawfield Road was never to be the main entrance to the park only the construction entrance. And as a construction and maintenance entrance the City does have right of way on their private road (hence the fact that the gate is now gone). The main entrance is supposed to eventually go thru a new developement that is being built just a little bit up the road from there.

Recently, that road construction was held up because of some technicality in zoning or permitting, which led City to suggest using Hawfield Rd temporarily. Now the City can't use Hawfield Rd. for public traffic without the homeowner's agreement. And up went the gate along with a monetary request for use of the road. I'm all for them getting compenstated for the use of that road and all the crap that is going with it. Especially now that the need for it as a temporary access for the public.

However the problem arises for mountain bikers if Hawfield Rd. doesn't get uses as the temporary enterance. There becomes a very good chance that Whitewater might use Heavy Equipment School Rd (the entrance most of you have used in the times you have riden there) as the entrance. That would entail a paved road from that entrance all the way to the center. I wouldn't even hazard a guess at the impact such a road would have on the mountain bike trails but catastrophic might be a word I would use.

While I'm sympathetic with the plight the homeowners are in (I know most of those folks and have for a long time), I'm more worried about those trails.

DRB said:

..

While I'm sympathetic with the plight the homeowners are in (I know most of those folks and have for a long time), I'm more worried about those trails.

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wow...didn't know you were capable of paragraphs. Only thought you were able to do 1 liners about former racer types...:love:

You buying me a beer at Sugar or what?

I was informed the ww park is on the other side of the park opposite from HES road....

stubby said:

I was informed the ww park is on the other side of the park opposite from HES road....

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It is on the other end of the park, hence the problem with creating an access road from Heavy Equipment School Rd. to the facility. There is already a fireroad that in essence connects the two already but to make it suitable for traffic would be a huge and disruptive endeavor.

that is just the xc trail that got some of it taken away.
go to the tarheel trailblazers forum for more help.