Cannock’s just had a few sections remodelled by Clixby’s and by all accounts they’ve made it smoother and safer for all. Not ideal (for me)as I don’t want Cannock turning into a BMX track but heyho it is what it is. Plenty of non trail stuff to ride round here.

Anyway, just seen a picture of one of the said trails and already its become a boggy mess. Now am I being over critical in thinking that if a trail centre has spent tens of thousands with a recognised ‘Trail Constructor’ then there should have been some study of the land before laying down the new trail?
My main concern is the drainage! Or severe lack of, surely someone at Clixbys/Forestry should have picked up on this as I cant see that part of the trail lasting very long if this has happened already.

Its been laid down and in less than a few weeks and little traffic(the trail was crashed off and was open for a couple days this week only) this has happened and I’ll quote the explanation from Cannock Forestry as to the cause:

[/quote]“We regretful to inform that we have had to close Son of Chainslapper. Yesterday the trail surfacing seemed 100% solid, but a couple of soft spots have appeared and rutted up. It seems a large amount of water is trapped under the new surface. Clixbys have remedied the situation by breaking up the ruts and re-whackered the surface. We have brashed off the trail and re-instated the diversion. It is going to be a while before we can re-open it, sorry for any inconvenience.”

Hmmm

Trail looks lower than the surrounding area, wonder where the water will go?

Speaking as someone who’s new local trails were closed all last winter.

Still with cannock any excuse to ride somewhere better.

Looks like it will be a pig for drainage in future as well, looking at that.

At least the problems have ‘surfaced’ and can be remedied before too much traffic has passed through. A contractor-built section at my local centre has developed some big puddle holes where it isn’t draining properly, and was looking a bit trashed within a couple of months of it opening.

didn’t ride that part of the Dog on Saturday but I was very surprised that a similar surface had been used just after Stegosaurus.

I thought that the bike trails were supposed to be surfaced in keeping with the local environment, not smoothed to within an inch of their lives with whatever limestone hardcore is available.

I know that improving the lifespan of trails between maintenance sessions is important but it looks hideous.

I just think it begs belief that so called ‘Trail Contractors’ would allow this type of work to go on without understanding the long term nature of the ground they are working on.

Boggy mess will become interesting trail feature?

I thought that the[b]all[/b] bike trails were smoothed to within an inch of their lives with whatever limestone hardcore is available and never knew that they were supposed to be surfaced in keeping with the local environment

Boggy mess will become interesting trail feature?

Only if your idea of an interesting trail feature is a boggy mess.

Looks really boring

I think they should have left this well alone…it was fun as it was. Yes it was a bit bumpy, but it was still a laugh on a hardtail because off-road riding includes duff like bumps. It’s a bit worrying that it’s in that state after a few days and s bit if rain…long term it looks like it’ll end up as it was. I’d rather they sorted the erosion on the last bit of Upper Cliff which was been totaled by the rain over the winter.

Even Hora could have ridden this section because there were no pebbles.

Looks really boring

don’t go there then?

the trails at Cannock are ace, some sections of trails are quite nicely eroded worn in, some sections are new and smooth, some sections are frankly knackered. the trail fairies do a great job of building/maintaining one of the busiest trail centres in Britain.

Looks like a braking bump…

What was Clixby’s brief? Were they just told to come in and re-surface certain sections of existing trail within a particular budget? I don’t know but there’s more to a trail and its longevity than is usually within the total control of a contractor.

I don’t know the details though I do know Huw and several mates have worked for him.

Having built a bit of trail, on a volunteer basis, and having worked on earthworks contracts it can be tricky to predict all conditions and factors that might have an affect. It’s especially difficult to do so without years of study and detailied assessment. This usually isn’t cost effective.

Sometimes you build it, it looks fine and then goes to crap. Sometimes the reverse. Sometimes it lasts months and then a seasonal watercourse starts up and it’s buggered. You usually find these things out in particular spots and try to fix them or re-route locally.

Good trail design and site assessment will help avoid a lot of these situations but I think you’ll always have some. You’re not building A roads with piped drainage networks.

As for the surface, pffft! I expect in a few months it’ll look much like any other section of local trail although being a limestone construction it might be a bit more durable in the longterm. I also expect it’ll weather and ride / erode a bit and lose a degree of “smoothness” it has at the mo. It’s a bit awkward to build instantaneuos “texture” into a trail with just hardcore.

don’t go there then?

Erm, I’ll probably still go every now and again if that’s alright. Simply pointing out that it now looks like a canal tow path.

Yes you are being over critical.

Hard to really tell from the photo… Looks like it has lowside drains and a bit of camber on? (slight guess but that looks like it’s probably a drain exit on the left just before the corner) And who knows what’s upslope from it, they might not think there’ll be a load of soak from above. That looks like a perfectly good build for a dryish section, we’d usually do full drains for a wetter section. Water can come from allsorts of places though, could be a seep from underneath, or maybe they’ve not dug deep enough and left a soggy substrate or something. Or might just be from on top onto a weak surface.

Not sure how fair it is to make comparisons, we’re volunteers so we really take time and sweat the detail, there’s not much in way of deadlines etc. If a bit of trail we’d done ended up like that, we’d not be happy, but it’s never happened. Occasionally we’ve put off finishing because of wet weather, you can’t get a good whack with soaking material. But probably a contractor has less luxury of time etc and the weather doesn’t respect schedules.

Sorry not just drainage but bad materials.

It looks like concrete **** dust mix. The contractor needs to sort it at their cost. Loads of trail centres use pretty good materials. Why does this look similar to concrete material?

Cannock deserves better especially if serious money has been spent.

Ridden before it was ready!

Trail needed some time to settle before being ridden on, seen it loads at Swinley where people tore down the tape and started riding trails within 24 hours of them being laid – resulting in exactly what you see there!

hora – Member

It looks like concrete **** dust mix.

Just looks pretty standard mixed crushed stone tbh, again hard to tell with all the moisture but if you’re building a hardcore surface you generally use a mix of material and you do want fines and even whindust in there especially up top to bind it and fill it. The better the mix, the denser and the harder the surface.

“Ridden before ready” is more an extension of “surface wasn’t very good”- when we work on main trails, it’ll often have riders on it literally within minutes of us turning the wacker plate off. If you’ve got a good finish, it doesn’t make that much difference (though it still drives you nuts when the first knob through the section skids). But again, not a criticism, sometimes you just can’t get that quality of surface especially when building in all weathers and then yep, a little time before riding really pays off. Or when it’s wet, sometimes even let it settle and dry a bit then re-whack it.

(ironically, it’s also hard to get a good finish when it’s dry, some of the fannying around we’ve done to try and moisten the stone has been ridiculous…)