A brand new mountain biking track designed to encourage more young people and women into the sport is to open at Queen Elizabeth Country Park.

Work building ‘lite blue’ cycle course started last year and it will be unveiled at 10am on Saturday (January 21).

The 300m course was designed and built be the country park’s Trail Collective crew, who maintain the mountain bike tracks in the park.

There are ‘red tracks’ for advanced bikers, ‘blue tracks’ for intermediate cyclists, and now the new ‘lite blue’ track for beginners and novices.

Trail Collective volunteer Dan Cooper said: “Trail collective volunteers started work in February last year to create the trail and completely built it.

“It is to get more people involved in mountain biking, especially young children and women who can cut their teeth on a trail this size.”

The Trail Collective working on the mountain bike tracks in December

Building the trail involved designing it, setting it out, then digging it out and creating banking, or berms, on the corners.

Then 90 tonnes of surfacing had to be laid by volunteers using wheelbarrows and compacted.

The volunteers have also created a skills area for novice mountain bikers .

The trail is hoped to get more families outside as well as encouraging them to take up mountain biking.