Which would you suggest is the best All Mountain Trail Centre?

I was asked this very question yesterday,i think CYB is a good candidate.

Isn’t that question a contradiction in itself?

*sniggers*

I once asked for “the new Oasis single on L.P”.

What do you mean by ‘all mountain’? To me it’s a marketeers term with little actual meaning.

Whinlatter is in the mountains but I wouldn’t class the riding as ‘All Mountain’ unless you go off-piste

Scotland

all mountain = mountain biking(trail centres etc ) on all mountain bikes??

Chip supper anyone?

From my limited experience I would say CyB is the most AM like trail centre.

Hit most UK trail centres on your Rig and you’ll normally find some Extreme XC trails.

at do you mean by ‘all mountain’? To me it’s a marketeers term with little actual meaning.

I think it’s supposed to sit somewhere between ‘trail’ and ‘freeride’. Where freeride bikes are downhill bikes that can just about be pedaled up a hill, and a trail bike is an XC bike that doesn’t need the skills of a WC racer to get it down a hill at a reasnoble pace.

Had an ‘interesting’ converstation with a guy the other day while out riding, refering to my Pitch as being a bit overbiked for the yorkshire moors (I agreed, but my ridgid SS had cracked it’s rear hub and I didn’t fancy 6 hours on a rigid SS anyway) he said he could ride any of the decents on his hardtail, which is true, so can I. The point he couldn’t grasp was that the Pitch was so much quicker on the downs, he seemed to think of them as trials sections he had to clear without dabbing, rather than getting down quickly. In his narrow minded defence, it wan’t untill I bought an ‘all-mountain’ full suspension bike that I realised quite how much fun they’d be.

Fort William…
Its on a mountain, has a downhill track, an XC route and a 4x track… ergo, all-mountain. 🙂

From my limited experience I would say CyB is the most AM like trail centre.

But what about cannocks braking bumps?

Whinlatter is in the mountains but I wouldn’t class the riding as ‘All Mountain’ unless you go off-piste

Drink driving is never advised.

thisisnotaspoon – Member
But what about cannocks braking bumps?

Now you’ve got me…

Oh and BTW I think spoon has pretty much hit the nail on the head when it comes to describing what I see as AM.

<bites tongue> MUST NOT FLAME

This to me says AM.
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRVBTu8K6L0[/video]

Yes you will be able to ride it on your xc race bike, you will most likely be faster than them when going up the hill and along the flat. But I very much doubt you will be faster than those guys coming back down the hill. And your Epic frame wont last very long doing jumps like the one at the end.

Use of All Mountain ?
Interesting apostrophe ?

Not biting 8)

I Ache, rode with a National level downhiller a few years ago, he was on an Epic and was clearing 15/20ft gap jumps and leaving for dead down Cwmcarn DH track, I was riding an AM bike 😳 😉

I bet it didn’t last very long. If you had swapped bikes you would have been slower than your previous speed and him faster than his previous. That is an example of skill.

that video looks like ‘riding bikes in the woods’ to me, right up until the bonkers jump 🙂

prior to that its just woodsy riding on some nice trails, not really big mountain terrain or huge rock gardens or anything, the same stuff we’ve all been riding since the 90s just a bit quicker and smoother with todays bikes.

Have to say the bike lasted a couple of years as a company ‘pool’ bike, saying that I flinched everytime someone landed a big jump on it 😀

Yes, he is alot quicker than me, and is currently racing World Cups so he should be really.

quicker and smoother with todays AM bikes.

FIFY

I prefer my Trail Centres to be “Three Quarters Mountain™” with the rest to be made up of a mixture of bracken, bilberry bushes, pine trees and badger dens, with perhaps an old dear or two thrown in.

quicker and smoother with todays AM bikes.
FIFY

maybe, but you say ‘All Mountain’, I say ‘general purpose mountain bike’, which I generally shorten to ‘bike’

you’d still be riding those trails quicker on a modern 3 – 4 inch XC bike than you would have been on a rigid or 63mm forked hardtail of yesteryear, which I guess was my point, they’re the same trails, we’re just riding them on more capable bikes, whatever category your bike fits into.

It all falls back to your definition of ‘insert current buzzword for apparently new style of riding which we probably have been doing for years under a different guise’

I’m obviously not fitting in with the magazines definitions here but I normally refer to any ride where I have to pedal both uphill and downhill in the same ride as ‘Cross Country’ and then just clarify with ‘rocky, rooty, swoopy, muddy, smooth, gravelly, droppy, pumpy, jumpy, draggy, grippy, slippy’ etc depending on where the ride went, if it can incorporate many of the above in one ride then all the better!

general purpose mountain bike

Like an ‘all terrain bike’ (ATB)?

I just call my bikes, bikes aswell. But there are different types of bikes these days meant for different types of riding. DH is different to FR and FR is different to AM and AM is different to trail and trail is different to xc and xc is different to DJ. This isnt to say that you can’t ride xc on a DH bike or DJ on a AM bike but they are all different tools for different jobs.

At the end of the day its all just mountain biking and people shouldn’t get upset when it splits off into small sub types. Its a good thing that riding is getting more diverse.

this exact conversation is why people get into road bikes.

what complete and utter tosh.

the classification of a bikes / trail centre(‘)s into groups pre-defined by marketing is utter bollocks.

I once asked for “the new Oasis single on L.P”.

I once went into a Vodafone shop and asked if they did phones on O2.

tell me more about this Three Quarters Mountain riding.

sounds just up my ally. of course i will have to use my AM-XXXc-miniDH bike so will be a bit overbiked

yeah I do get that, I think the point I’m trying (very poorly I’ll admit) to make is that the trails in that video, and most trail centres do not require a specific type of bike, and that one mans AM is another mans XC, or DH, or freeride, so asking for the most ‘AM-like’ trail centre first requires the OP to explain what their take on AM is.

The manufacturers often can’t even agree on their definitions, its no wonder people have different takes on it!

There could’nt be anywhere as technical CYB etc.Hence trail centres designed for all mountain riding and all mountain bikes.

indeed the best place to give AM bikes the test they deserve.

There could’nt be anywhere as technical CYB etc.Hence trail centres designed for all mountain riding and all mountain bikes.

indeed the best place to give AM bikes the test they deserve

Dammit, I’m going to have to bite.

Just ride the bike on a bl00dy mountain!!!!!
Is that “All-Mountain” enough?!!!!

I once went into a Vodafone shop and asked if they did phones on O2.

My wife asked a waitress which country the Rioja was from

I now have a headache after trying to compehend all that, why do people get so angry? If you want to ride uphills and downhills ona 4″ bike that’s fine, if you want to ride uphill sand downhills on a 6″ bike, that’s fine too, you’ll probably be faster on the down’s so if that’s your thing go for it, if it’s not and you want a high average speed rather than hjust ont he downs then that’s Ok too.

There could’nt be anywhere as technical CYB etc.Hence trail centres designed for all mountain riding and all mountain bikes.

indeed the best place to give AM bikes the test they deserve.

Have you ever actualy ridden outside a trail center? They’re good fun, and have technical bits, but if you want an ‘all-mountain’ challange, youneed to ride up a mountain (or at least several middling sized hills in the Peak district).

The Peak district is a trail centre without signposts; people have even got those gnarly comedy names for their favourite bits, which they drive to, then park up and ride before finishing in the cafe…

ir_bandito – Member

Dammit, I’m going to have to bite.

Just ride the bike on a bl00dy mountain!!!!!
Is that “All-Mountain” enough?!!!!

No need to bite,we are all lovers of two wheels arent we.

i have rode the south downs and some of the peaks,both lovely places.

people have even got those gnarly comedy names for their favourite bits

I’ve refused to ride the Beast since it was downgraded to ‘fluffy kitten’

CYB struck as being rather non mountain the last time I was there – has it grown?