Blackwater Park in Navan is set to be transformed into a purpose-built cyclocross and BMX pump track if the local cycling club (Navan Road Club) can raise enough money to make it happen. They have received huge support from the Town Council and are a club really looking to cater for the growing demand for cycling in the area (Photo with thanks to Paul Jones - Meathphotos.com)
By Brian Canty
If ever proof were needed that cycling in Ireland is booming and cyclocross is one of the disciplines benefiting, look no further than Navan Road Club for evidence.
The club has secured permission to open a racing and training cyclocross course at a new local park.
Opened last year, the 66-acre site Blackwater Park in Navan is a massive facility for recreational use; for everything from park runs to the children’s playground area.
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And thanks to hard work by the team at Navan RC, it's now hosting cyclocross races with a view to setting cycling firmly into the centre of the park long term.
The local council has granted the club permission to build the cyclocross track at the park for what club treasurer Michael Mills believes will be a superb outlet for kids in the area.
There has also been a request submitted to the Meath County Council for a pump track and subject to their approval the club will start the process of fundraising for that project.
Mills, along with Iain Smith, are two of the main men behind the new development and said it would be a landmark achievement for the club to see the project carried through to completion.
The park itself is a superb facility and the Navan Road Club are really looking to maximise its potential so cyclists of all abilities and ages can benefit from it.
“Blackwater Park is a new permanent park and the enthusiasm we received from Navan Town Council was fantastic,” said Mills.
“That gave us the encouragement to push on with it to create the track.
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“We had an ambition that we could run the track and the more we looked into it and the more we walked the land the more we realised, this is actually going to be a permanent structure.
“The park will always be here, there’s a lot of waste ground that we felt we could utilise to the best of our advantage..”
Mills, one of several driving forces behind the project, believes it will be a huge asset to the area.
“What we soon saw was that we could have a fairly epic cyclocross course in terms of the features we could add. Cyclocross has really taken off here.
On-board view, by Kevin Keane
“We do a lot of underage cycling and with the good grace of a couple of local schools we’re actually using their car park for that.
“But the long-term view of Blackwater Park is the possibility of it being a BMX pump track as well.
“We’re looking at it as our HQ for cycling, a place where we can safely run a place for our kids in the evening.
“We can run cyclocross in the winter and if we have a BMX pump track we just feel that for the size of the town of Navan it would be a massive addition.
“Our kids club is so over-subscribed that we’re having to turn kids away because we don’t have the space to accommodate them.
“On an average Monday we’d have 80 kids turn up to do core cycling skills!
“Long-term, if we had a cyclocross course and a BMX pump track you could actually split the ages of children a lot easier to do some work, so that’s the overall view.”
Navan Road Club will have to fund-raise for the project themselves but Mills said they “don't have an issue with that if it’s permanent”.
“The budget for it is in our year to year running of the club; the money generated from races goes straight into the construction of the course.
“The last race we did we had €900 of work done on the course so it is an ongoing thing; the money we raise from the events goes straight back in so it’s looking to the future.”
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