Port to Port MTB organisers believe this year's course will be one of the best yet, and with a hard day's work put in by volunteers and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service to make the Glenrock stage more challenging, it may well be.
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On Saturday, May 4, members of the Glenrock Trail Alliance (GTA) and NPWS held a build day in Glenrock State Conservation Area to create the popular but challenging snakes and ladders section of the Port to Port course, reinstate drainage and grade reversals, prune overgrown vegetation and undertake a general clean-up.
"NPWS was excited to host the inaugural Port to Port build day," Glenrock State Conservation Area ranger Kate Harrison said.
"This was a partnership initiative with the event organiser and the GTA.
"It was great to see committed volunteers help to maintain and prepare the track network and in the process work towards the conservation outcomes for the reserve."
The GTA is a volunteer-driven group that was formed in November 2004 to give the mountain bike community of Glenrock a voice.
GTA and NPWS have partnered with Port to Port, which forms part of the Epic Series, a global best-in-class mountain bike stage race, to help make the annual Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and Hunter Valley-based stage race a success.
Port to Port 2019 will kick off at Pokolbin in the Hunter Valley on May 23, pick up at Lake Macquarie's Killingworth on May 24, move into the Awaba state and Watagans national forests at Cooranbong on May 25 and finish up in Newcastle's Glenrock State Conservation Area on May 26.
The Glenrock section is the final stage of the four-day race.
It begins at Belmont Golf Course and ends, after travelling through Glenrock State Conservation Area, at Dixon Park in Merwether - a distance of about 40km.
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