So, The national trust – https://twitter.com/PeakDistrictNT – have conducted some very clumsy repair work to some great, natural trails around the Peak District.

Some work may have been needed, but they’ve ripped out all the natural features before chucking a load of stone chips down – it’s now featureless and crazy fast for MTB and horrible to run or walk on, as it’s loose.

I’m sure something more sympathetic could have been done. After consulting the people who use it maybe.

The coldwell clough work has destroyed a section similar to Jacobs Ladder, which of course could be next.

If you’re on Twitter and have some ideas, maybe join in here… https://twitter.com/pauljbarton/status/440172309806972928

It’s already getting a lot of RT action and mostly agreement with #vandalisingthepeaktrails

There’s a lot of activity surrounding this already. Peak District MTB (http://www.peakdistrictMTB.org.uk) are in fact meeting with Derbyshire County Council tomorrow to discuss some of these trail repairs and the rationale behind them. If you or anyone you know has any comments, let them know.

Yep, hopefully I initiated some of that yesterday after a genuinely upsetting fellrun. The response has been amazing actually. The link above has been RT’d a lot – a few more can only help.

Singletrack have joined in.

And yes, I’ll be emailing my thoughts prior to that meeting

I’m confused – is it the council or the National Trust?

Nation Trust said they did the work. Essential repair work after wash out, needed for emergency services/farms. Wouldn’t say what else was planned though!

Sign on gate says a company called Woods did the work – meeting is with Derbyshire CC I believe.

Too much “maintenance” going on at the moment. Too many great trails have been ruined in The Peak

You are all aware that it’s not a trail centre, right?

Pjbarton. It may help to learn some of the locations first & the first part of the climb to Jacobs Ladder has needed work for a long time now, same with the climb back up to south head from Royce clough.

The Peak District isn’t a trail centre? Really? I had no idea!

peakdistrictmtb facebook group

I don’t go off road in the Peak often, but I struggle to get upset about this.

Not every track in the Peak is being sanitised all at once

They are not designed to be just mountain bike trails, they are there for a variety of users and their needs/wants may be different to ours.

If we get too bolshy about it they may just decide that we are as bad as the motorised off roaders and ban us.

If we avoid the bits we don’t like for a few months, Mother Nature will soon start to get it back how we like it. 😉

They are not designed to be just mountain bike trails, they are there for a variety of users and their needs/wants may be different to ours.

I could not agree more, but it’s the nature of the works that is a concern. Having seen some of the work over near Longstone Edge, for example, it is neither in keeping with the environment nor is it going to last very long; many of the repaired trails are already deeply rutted.

It’s our taxes that are paying for this work so we want to make sure we’re getting value for money rather than getting a sticking plaster job. That’s where groups like Peak District MTB can be a valuable liaison with the authorities.

I don’t go off road in the Peak often, but I struggle to get upset about this.

Not every track in the Peak is being sanitised all at once

They are not designed to be just mountain bike trails, they are there for a variety of users and their needs/wants may be different to ours.

If we get too bolshy about it they may just decide that we are as bad as the motorised off roaders and ban us.

If we avoid the bits we don’t like for a few months, Mother Nature will soon start to get it back how we like it.

What he said, now please stfu and leave it to the proper people…

They are not designed to be just mountain bike trails, they are there for a variety of users and their needs/wants may be different to ours.

I don’t think anyone’s saying that. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask that repairs to a popular track within the boundaries of a National Park, carried out by a charitable body – the National Trust – which exists partly to preserve the landscape should be sympathetic to the landscape, sustainable and show some empathy for the needs of users.

I rode down the stuff the OP refers to at the weekend and it’s just semi-consolidated rubble. Horrible for biking, walking and running alike – don’t know about horses. It smacks of being a badly thought out, knee-jerk, low budget repair that’s going to wash off as soon as the rain really gets at it. Makes no sense.

It also baffles me that so many people on here seem almost anti-mountain biking in the sense that they really don’t care what happens to trails. I think that’s a bit short sighted.

As far as the cost goes. As I understand it, it’s not Derbyshire County Council (council tax funded, so I get to pay for that element of trail destruction) or the Peak District National Park (funded by government grants, ie: all of us) but the National Trust (funded by membership fees and cake and coffee sales, plus donations etc).

It can be done well, check out Cut Gate some time, but the stuff below Edale Cross is just a mess for everyone, not just mountain bikers.

Well, I’m prepared to be corrected but I thought the resurfacing work was being carried out by DCC as Highways Agent.

I think I’m particularly narked by the (lack of) quality of the work and just how far out of keeping with the local environment much of it is. E.g. Longstone Edge/Black Harry – black tarmac road planings on a bridleway/byway in limestone country. Ugh.

I just have a faint suspicion that someone has the idea that if trails are smoothed over, the “problem” of MTBers will go away.

what slowoldman said
The quality or complete and utter lack of of the ‘repair’ work (dumping of road planings) is a disgrace imo
Across from frogatt past stoney middleton, eyam and across that hillside most of the bridleways seem to have been subjected to the same fate. Dump a load of same grade plannings down the steep sloped track and hope for the best it would seem. Result ends up as the rain gauging a deep zig zagging rut down the path, the rest of the surface gets more lose as you descend. Then right at the bottom all that the rain has washed down gets swept on further down the road below

Loose rutted and dangerous for all users. Great job

ruts like this zig zagging its way through all the loose piling up of planings:

Where was that pic of the rut taken?

Also there are a number of bodies maintaining the trails DCC, NT, farmers etc and the quality and appropriateness varies massively.

There is a real increase in the level of anger about these works now too I’d say. Paul, what did the horse riders say when you spoke with them about it?

I saw a comment on twitter about being prosecuted for putting upvc windows in a listed building but that there’s no regulation of suitable materials for repairing paths in National Parks (the landscape equivalent of a listed building).

It’s a shame when innapropriate materials and techniques are used and the landscape becomes less natural looking and sustainability is lost. It seems to condemn them to transporting new surfaces up there each spring to repair damaged caused in the winter.

We might moan about it making trails less ‘interesting’ for mtb but I think that’s not the line to take with the ‘authorities’ who might see it as a positive side effect of the works.

I just have a faint suspicion that someone has the idea that if trails are smoothed over, the “problem” of MTBers will go away.

Me too, although it is not such a faint suspicion in my case.

Face it, most other users or even non-users don’t want us there. A very good argument for cheeky in my opinion.

Face it, most other users or even non-users don’t want us there. A very good argument for cheeky in my opinion.

This thing where people have decided that other people hate mountain bikers, where has it come from? What makes you think that’s the case?

If a trail is maintained in this way then surely they have a duty of care for its upkeep. Therefore, if that duty of care exsists and someone or group of someone’s fell over and hurt themselves because if rutting etc I.e because the condition of the trail was not maintained and then said group of people sued the ass off them then perhaps they would stop sanitising everything in sight.

The only thing this works does is make people seek out cheeky trails IMHO.

roger/paul (on eyam 3) the descent from old rd out of eyam to the grindleford road

Thanks for your thoughts, pretty bemused by the negative stuff coming from MTBers, perhaps you’d need to see the quality of the work up close first – pretty heart breaking I can assure you!

The natural, solid features, the slabs and steps, these are trashed by a digger first – then the rubble is chucked down – that’s about it. It’s pretty hard to walk on, very hard to run on and boring (too fast) for MTB.

I’m NOT against maintenance. Just needs to be considerate, in keeping with the area etc.

Pook, I rarely see horse riders in the area so haven’t spoken to any.

Never had any issues chatting to horsey people, fell runners or MTBers in the past – all getting along pretty well, enjoying the same environment. Occasional grumpiness from red socks ramblers when on a bike.

The area needs all these people to feel welcome and keep visiting, NT must know this.

pjbarton – can you drop me an email please – robjackson@hotmail.co.uk

I rode up Coldwell Clough on Saturday and I have to say that I didn’t see a big problem with the work done. First of all the have used gritstone rather than the tarmac scalpings we’ve seen elsewhere in the peak. It was okay to ride up, but yes I can imagine that running down it wouldn’t be too pleasant. It was about the same time last year when I last rode up it, so I can’t comment on whether the repairs were really necessary or not. Although I do remember it was good, remarkably dry and rideable – a lungbuster rather than a technical challenge. The tough bits come higher up and haven’t been touched (yet?). I don’t think any rock steps have been destroyed.

The big question is how will the surface bed in after a year or two. The stones seem to be bigger than your usual gravel, so might be less likely to get washed away into ruts. What we really need is several tons of mud to be dropped on to it to bond it together (I have a longstanding and well founded phobia about loose gravel!). Hopefully once the farmer has driven his tractor, and cattle, up and down it a few times it will improve.

At the end of the day we can’t expect a landowner to ignore things that are giving them problems just for the sake of our entertainment.

Sorry Paul – wrong Paul! I meant peakmtb Paul – I thought they’d had some talks with the horse riders

Hi Chris – just prepping for the meeting, we have had one meeting and there’s another one in planning. The initial meeting was very good, just need to get a second one sorted. Cheers, Paul.

The big question is how will the surface bed in after a year or two. The stones seem to be bigger than your usual gravel, so might be less likely to get washed away into ruts.

Given that I’ve seen rocks the size of loafs of bread washed off the bottom of tracks into the road in Peak District cloud bursts, I suspect your optimism is slightly misguided.

This is a trail not so far away which had a slightly more bedded-in and not dissimilar surface. It’s now tarmaced btw, with extensive drainage channels, culverts etc :

There seem to be plenty of people out there who take the view that landowners should just do what the hell they like because we have no right to expect otherwise. It’s a peculiarly British thing that we somehow feel that forum for mountain bikers, we shouldn’t speak out in favour of our own sport.

Why am I having to argue that poorly thought-out work by a charity dedicated in part at least to conserving the character of the landscape, which also drastically changes a popular mountain bike route is misguided?

What if the descent on the Edale side were similarly covered in loose rubble, would that be okay too if the landowner thought it was reasonable?

Do we really not want to have any rights?

john – are you still up for our meeting in the not to distant future, we NEED a rep from Hayfield area

How high up does the “repair” to the clough go? All the way to Edale Cross, up as far as Stony Ford, or lower?

Given that I’ve seen rocks the size of loafs of bread washed off the bottom of tracks into the road in Peak District cloud bursts, I suspect your optimism is slightly misguided.

This is a trail not so far away which had a slightly more bedded-in and not dissimilar surface. It’s now tarmaced btw, with extensive drainage channels, culverts etc :

Yep, it might be, and I’ve seen lots of tracks like that pic (and worse) in Derbyshire, but generally where tarmac scalpings have been put down along narrow tracks. This is a much wider track, used by farm vehicles if I’m not mistaken, so it might hold up better.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t have a word with the landowners, but the NT is generally pretty sympathetic to cyclists. Unlike the OP, I don’t think this is part of plan to lay a similar surface all the way to edale.

Also, I don’t think that as it stands, it drastically changes anything. They have done a much better job than say, DCC did on Stanage Causeway.

Hi Rob, yes, sorry, been frantically busy, but let’s sort something out in the next few weeks.

The repair, as it was on Saturday by the way, went up as far as the point where the bridleway junction below Kinder Low is, so just beyond the second gate. The rest of the track is (was I suppose) untouched so far.

can you get some pics please?

How high up does the “repair” to the clough go? All the way to Edale Cross, up as far as Stony Ford, or lower?

A mile or so short of Edale Cross, just past the last gate, and about the point where the bridleway joins from the left. I presume that’s as far as the farmer needs to take his tractor up to drop the feed.

Dan, I’d say about half way up.

There’s actually other work in a more remote, lesser known area that’s more devastating for MTB fun – and isn’t used for land access as far as I know.

I would question whether the works in the photo amount to ‘repair’ or ‘improvement’ – an important difference as improvement is likely to be outside the EN SSSI management agreement, and would leave the landowner open to a sizeable fine (IIRC, this is what Wemmergill moor got done for a few years ago)

Might be worth approaching EN for clarification on whether the works were permitted.