In Autumn of 2025 OX Trails were contacted by Harwell Parish Council (HPC) to assist them with the design and construction of a pump track. The Parish Council had a small pot of money and were keen to build a track that not only had design input from the local community but also their involvement in construction. Indeed, this is a project the whole village are invested in, with one neighbour offering a substantial amount of substrate – great for building the sub base of the track as well as keeping costs down! The design brief was simple – local young people wanted a track that allowed them to practice their jumps, cornering and pumping skills and parents wanted a track that was safe and accessible to all riders within the village. The intended site was to be at the Harwell Recreation ground, in the back corner adjacent to the A417, with the length and width of the site lending itself to a skills track, rather than a traditional pump track. The Harwell Pump Track Plus project was born!

The first few months of the project saw OX Trails and HPC do the necessary paperwork, all boring but entirely necessary to get any project off the ground. In September we got our first look at the site to begin thinking about the design process. The site benefits from a natural slope which lends itself to being the start point for multiple lines of increasing difficulty. A pile of discarded earth from the foundations of a nearby building create the opportunity for additional features. This was very much a scoping visit, to get the creative juices flowing. HPC had initially wanted a blue and a more difficult red trail built but due to the OX Trails team being volunteers and our commitments elsewhere it was agreed a blue trail would be delivered first. Over the coming weeks we began to sketch out some initial plans for the first trail that featured many of the berms and jumps the young people wanted on their track. The initial design uses the natural launch pad to pick up momentum before taking you through a series of berms sculpted in part from the discarded earth, enabling riders to practice their cornering, pumping for momentum and maintaining their flow. From there, two rollers allow new riders to continue practicing their pumping, although more experienced riders may prefer the challenge of manualling them or even gapping them! And if that wasn’t enough, an optional hip to the right hand side allows more experienced riders to get airborne and practice their whips! From there, another series of berms that uses the natural topography to maintain momentum send you towards the fun stuff – two table top jumps! For new riders it’s a safe opportunity to start developing your technique, for experienced riders the chance to start honing your style and your trick repertoire! So despite it being a blue trail, there is something for everyone here.

We returned to site in November to start scoping out the scale of the design. With the necessary paperwork progressing well in the background it was refreshing to get on site and start doing something practical! Flags were used to start marking out the features on the sketch, with some on site trial and error finessing the angles of the berms and the size of the features.

In the days that followed, Chairman Sam began strimming the track down to soil to see what we were dealing with below the grass and leaf litter. As you can see in the pictures, the design is starting to take shape and the vision is becoming reality and we haven’t even got any substrate going down yet! Fellow OX Trails member Nathan, of Cleal’s Wheels, then came in to take some stunning aerial photos with his drone. The only thing left at this stage was to convert our track doodle into a more professional computer design – step up Dan Stone! Dan was able to convert the drawing into a graphic design and overlay it onto Nathan’s drone photo to produce the final design picture for the blue trail (the red line being the future red trail).

With the design of the blue trail complete and the preliminary paperwork beginning to draw to a close, efforts now turn to coordinating the logistics that are required to get the build phase up and running. The Parish Council are ambitious and want the track complete by summer, so the pace of this project has been fast and focussed. The build stages involve the local community and are to be supervised by OX Trails trustees and it’s anticipated, despite the scale of the track and with assistance from Parish grounds workers, that many hands will make light work.

Fast forward to Spring 2026 and a generous donation from a highways contractor saw Haras fencing go up to secure the site and we were gearing up for the HPC grounds team to start moving donated earth for us. It was at this point that Brendon Lacey of local building firm Lacey & Sons got wind of the project through our social media channels. Brendon is an experienced mountain biker in the Didcot area and became interested in the project from a personal perspective, offering to assist with the build of the track. This was a game changer for the plan, as Brendon brought not only additional trail expertise but also the plant and machinery required that would expedite the build – making the build of the red trail now possible. This was a great outcome for HPC and the community of Harwell! A red progressive jump trail was designed that featured a mellow side on the left of the take off and a kickier side on the right, giving riders the option of which side to hit and allowing riders to progress to more air time as their skills develop.

Brendon and the team moved in early April 2026 with the diggers and dumpers to begin the build of the trails. The red trail was reasonably straightforward with the positioning of the dirt quick and easy with the dumpers and the shaping of the lips a breeze with the digger bucket. Brendon and his brother Sam were clearly experts in manoeuvring and operating the diggers in precarious positions! It was difficult to test the jumps with only the sub base down but their size seemed to be right. The blue was trickier to build as the size and curves of the berms had to be just right to maintain the flow of the track – we wanted riders to be able to pump the berms and pump all the way down the track – it is a pump track after all! At this point we had to deviate from the drawings and build in a more iterative manner in order to get things right. A huge amount of work was achieved during the Easter half term break and the two tracks very quickly took shape. Late April, the type 1 substrate was brought in and laid over the track and we began using rollers and whacker plates to begin compacting the track in. It was at this point we began to test the jumps on the red – and wow, you can get some serious air time on these jumps! The kids in Harwell and beyond are in for a treat with these jumps! They required some minor adjustments on the size of the table and the take off but were near enough there, no problem for the digger to do a quick reshape. The blue continued to be tricky but we persisted with testing it and adjusting it until it felt right. Work continued into May until we were ready to lay a binding aggregate down. Granno dust was used over the type 1 to fill the gaps, with subsequent wetting and compacting to bind the track together. The quality and finish of the track was really starting to become evident and it was becoming clear this track was going to become an immensely valuable community asset.

Sadly in May we had vandalism on the track caused by people breaking into the track and riding electric mini moto style bikes. Extensive damage was done and the incidient was reported to Thames Valley Police. A huge educational piece was done via social media explaining why the track was unsafe to ride at this point and how it was not designed for mini motos and a massive thanks go to the online community in Harwell for supporting and reinforcing that work. There was a hope the track could have been opened in time for the Harwell Feast but this was now not possible. The track was reinforced with scaffold poles at the jumps to prevent their use and the social media push, with scare from Thames Valley Police, seemed to do the trick. We had discussed the risk of illegal electric bikes during the planning stages but didn’t expect it to be an issue before we even opened the track! We needed a plan for the longevity of the track so decided to reinforce the lips of the red jumps with concrete dust mixed into the substrate.

Throughout the rest of May we set about doing the repairs and continued to spread and compact the aggregate into early June. After the vandalism we were now keen to get the track open so it was all hands on deck. At this point OX Trails were able to take over more of the heavy work as it was mainly spreading and compacting aggregate, which can be done by hand, although Brendon was still on site fine tuning the red line and Sam was on site doing the final landscaping to make good all the digger tracks etc. With the compacting work drawing to a close an opening date of June 21st was set, with a ribbon cutting cermenoy and opening event planned by OX Trails. The event will have a large jam session, best trick competition, free bike checks from our community partners, free bikes to try on the blue trail and a bike raffle, plus OX Trails will be doing some fundraising with the wheel of fortune – we have some great prizes to be won so make sure you are there!

All of us at OX Trails are immensely proud of this build and what we’ve achieved for the local community. This track is epic and will attrract people from all across south Oxfordhsire and beyond. Off the back of this work we have been approached by more Parish Councils after similar facilities, so watch this space. And we are extremely grateful to Brendon and his team for their time and expertise, without which none of this would have been possible. For now, enjoy the images below of the build coming to a close.

Dan.

Harwell Pump Track+ Blog

OX Trails get Uptonogood!