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Cycling may not be the new golf - but a golf course in Leeds is getting turned into an Urban Bike Park

Mountain bike trail, pump track, skills zone and clubhouse including cafe and workshop coming to Middleton Park

“Cycling is the new golf” is a headline we’ve seen regularly repeated in the mainstream media for more than a decade now but here’s a new spin on it, with a golf course in Leeds set to be turned into an ‘Urban Bike Park.’

The former Middleton Park golf course, closed in 2014, will be turned into a cycling facility that will include a competition-standard mountain bike trail of almost 6.5 kilometres in length, reports Insider Media.

It will be designed by Cumbria-based Bike Track, the people behind facilities such as the Lady Cannings mountain bike trail in Sheffield, opened last year.

There will also be a pump track and jump and skills zones, as well as a clubhouse with a cycling café and bike workshop according to plans published by Leeds City Council and supported by British Cycling.

The park, located four miles south of Leeds city centre, is owned by Wade’s Charity but leased by the council on a 999-year lease.

The municipal golf course that is currently there was shut by the council in 2014 because it lost money.

The Urban Bike Park that will replace it aims to build on the legacy of that year’s Tour de France Grand Depart, and aims to have a cycling destination with “regional and national pull" is now envisaged to replace it.

Full details of the planning application can be found on the Leeds City Council website.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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Yorkshire wallet | 7 years ago
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Hopefully it won't be as dangerous as Middleton woods. There's some right unsavoury buggers around there and some guys on MTBs claim they'd been shot at with air rifles. I only ever went at the crack of dawn before that sort can be bothered to get up. 

Good news though if they can keep it scumbag free. 

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tailwind10 | 7 years ago
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What a fantastic idea. It will save travelling miles by car to a Forestry Commission site in order to find some purpose built trails.
This old golf course area has also been used recently for Cyclocross races which took advantage of the old bunkers to provide some added course features.

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HalfWheeler | 7 years ago
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Oh, what a beautiful irony laugh

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