We recently stayed at the beautiful Caravan Club site at Clumber Park. It really is the most wonderful place for bike riding, walking etc. The 5 mile ride around the lake is lovely.
However, and here is the rub, the club provide bike racks beside each pitch. Very nice of them, but they are NOT safe to use.
My husband awoke at 4 am on the morning we were due to leave to find that someone was tampering with our bikes which were laced with a lock to the rack and the caravan. They must have heard him get up because by the time he got out of the caravan his bike had been totally stripped to the frame. Everything had been taken off. They had attempted to cut the lock - in which case both our bikes would have been gone in seconds - but had not been able to get through it so they were in the process of taking every available bit. Fortunately my bike was still in one piece.
The wardens say this very rarely happens, yet when we moved across to the Peak District (Grin Low - another fantastic site) we met others who had had similar experiences at Clumber Park. One caravanet arrived only a few days after us and they had had 5 bikes stole whilst locked to the back of their van at Clumber Park. There were many other stories of theft from this site and the "rarely" that we were told by the wardens appears to mean "weekly" or more often.
I realize that there is a limited amount that can be done, though I would think that some sort of security could be found to suit. My main complaint is that IF we had been warned that it was unsafe to leave bikes locked up at the racks provided, we would most certainly have brought them into the awning and laced the locks around all the parts. The annoying thing is that we had an alarm lock with us, but because it all seemed so peaceful and everybody else had bikes locked up to the racks, we didn't put that one on!
Clumber Park, whilst being an unusually beautiful park, is in the centre of a highly populated area. It is close to Worksop and Nottingham and the moment you leave the park you are in a different world. Access through the park to the CC site is as easy as parking in a layby and walking through the woods. The thieves who stole our bike bits probably came in through the dog walking gate which was just a few yards to the right of our pitch.
This is just a warning for anyone who is considering going to Clumber. By all means go, have a wonderful time and do take your bikes, but be aware that bike theft is a serious problem on this site.
Frances
However, and here is the rub, the club provide bike racks beside each pitch. Very nice of them, but they are NOT safe to use.
My husband awoke at 4 am on the morning we were due to leave to find that someone was tampering with our bikes which were laced with a lock to the rack and the caravan. They must have heard him get up because by the time he got out of the caravan his bike had been totally stripped to the frame. Everything had been taken off. They had attempted to cut the lock - in which case both our bikes would have been gone in seconds - but had not been able to get through it so they were in the process of taking every available bit. Fortunately my bike was still in one piece.
The wardens say this very rarely happens, yet when we moved across to the Peak District (Grin Low - another fantastic site) we met others who had had similar experiences at Clumber Park. One caravanet arrived only a few days after us and they had had 5 bikes stole whilst locked to the back of their van at Clumber Park. There were many other stories of theft from this site and the "rarely" that we were told by the wardens appears to mean "weekly" or more often.
I realize that there is a limited amount that can be done, though I would think that some sort of security could be found to suit. My main complaint is that IF we had been warned that it was unsafe to leave bikes locked up at the racks provided, we would most certainly have brought them into the awning and laced the locks around all the parts. The annoying thing is that we had an alarm lock with us, but because it all seemed so peaceful and everybody else had bikes locked up to the racks, we didn't put that one on!
Clumber Park, whilst being an unusually beautiful park, is in the centre of a highly populated area. It is close to Worksop and Nottingham and the moment you leave the park you are in a different world. Access through the park to the CC site is as easy as parking in a layby and walking through the woods. The thieves who stole our bike bits probably came in through the dog walking gate which was just a few yards to the right of our pitch.
This is just a warning for anyone who is considering going to Clumber. By all means go, have a wonderful time and do take your bikes, but be aware that bike theft is a serious problem on this site.
Frances
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