I’ve commented on this on the Gisburn topic but I think it deserves its own discussion. I am often disheartened by the grading of trails at trail centres in the UK (I’ve no experience of abroad). Specifically my experience that black graded trails normally consist of some rock gardens, a rollable drop-off or two or at the most a 1′ ledge, and some small tabletops. The definition of who a black trail is designed for is as follows – ‘Expert mountain bikers who will expect and relish technical challenges. Suitable for offroad quality mountain bikes.’ I think we are doing ourselves a dis-service by labelling the kind of trails mentioned above as ‘black’, all it does is reinforce the egos of many MTB’ers who then go onto think they are expert. I’d expect an “expert” MTB’er to be capable of cleaning technical climbs, rocky rooty off camber descents and vertical drop-offs up to 6′ with gap jumps not tabletops of about 10′, as mentioned the kind of features that are on the Gisburn forst DH track (which unfortunately features signs stating imminent death if you try and ride them without a full face…). The skills of MTB’ers lags behind those in other comparable sports such as motocross or BMX, it feels like we are really a lot closer to the red sock brigade than an adrenalin sport – which makes a lot of the kit sold seem pretty silly. I get that you can be an expert rider with no interest in this side of the sport and who can spend a day doing a massive loop in the mountains and that’s fine, you have my upmost respect. But a black route at a trail centre should test an all round rider who is comfortable with leaving the ground as well as other more traditional riding skills. At the end of the day if the above style of trail continues to be graded as black routes then all it does is cheapen the idea of what an expert rider should be capable of.

You must be teh awsumz…

*Swoons*

Who cares what colour the sign is? If you don’t like it, just ride DH trails or find some natural riding which gives you what you want. Your opinion of what makes someone an “expert” is completely irrelevant.

I’d expect an “expert” MTB’er to be capable of cleaning technical climbs, rocky rooty off camber descents and vertical drop-offs up to 6′ with gap jumps not tabletops of about 10′, as mentioned the kind of features that are on the Gisburn forst DH track

So you want DH tracks?
You need to make a trail maintainable, rooty off camber isn’t
6′ Gaps – yay awesome, just don’t land in the middle of the table top

Mostly what you are talking about can be found all over the place.

I feel all tingly

Sorry about that, binners. Use the cream as per the instructions and it should clear up in a while.

I thought I would get some hate for this.
My intention is not to put myself across as some kind of rad rider, but to call for an increase in the levels of skills being labelled ‘expert’. It shouldn’t (IMO) just be left to the DH courses to include anything that isn’t rollable. Is that all we aspire to?

The skills of MTB’ers lags behind those in other comparable sports such as motocross or BMX, i

Only if you think that to be an expert MTBer means riding groomed tracks with gap jumps, tabletops, etc. That has very little to do with the sort of MTBing a lot of people do. As a friend of mine said with very little tact, if you want to ride tabletops and berms #&$@ off back to the BMX park. 😉

I feel all tingly

You stuffed up a 1′ tabletop and ended up in the stingers, didn’t you..
Who lets stingers grow on an expert mtb track? They’re full on gn-arrgghh!

Joe Bloggs will buy an MTB bike from Halfords and happily ride a trail centre, they need to be kept safe as most dont read signs or dont think they are aimed at them. Joe blogs generally doesnt buy a BMX bike and show up at a skatepark / local DJs / street.

My local trail has tame ‘black’ sections with warning signs, average riders try them, skid the cr4p out of it or take a line around the features causing the trailbuilders many headaches.

Much the same in snowsports. A Black run may be classified as that due to a steep icy section, but the rest of it being fairly benign. And plenty of people would claim they had skiied / boarded a black run, but in reality all they have done is minced down on their edges (or backside).

Trail center grading is most likely done erring on the side of caution – ie. less chance of litigation for the trail owners by badging a trail as ‘black/red’ as opposed to ‘blue’, especially as a trail centre is often where less experienced riders will be riding (who in turn benefit from the warning that they should be aware of a feature that may/will challenge them – better ride aware of a potential hazard than ignorant to what may lay ahead, a 1 ft drop may not seem much to the awsumz, but to a novice could appear a cliff).

It shouldn’t (IMO) just be left to the DH courses to include anything that isn’t rollable.

But they do it really well.
Unrollable features are great, if you know they are, if you see them coming and clock them. If not they are shit.

what grade is your bridge? (question for the OP)

Errr…Orange?

more like this?

because, while my ex was a mountain biker and would happily go to trail centres with me, and could ride all day, she would see “Black” and correctly guess that while there was little danger of death, she could quite easily get out of her depth, and maybe come off, and maybe even hurt herself, not badly perhaps, but enough for her to give a second thought to what she was getting into.

That is what the classifications are for, to give the inexperienced a heads up, not to make nominally “OK” riders to feel “Teh Rad”

call for an increase in the levels of skills being labelled ‘expert’

Really, who cares?
Seems that it would just be those so precious that they want/need to consider themselves as elite…or expert.
This stuff is supposed to be fun.

Every Black graded trail I’ve ridden has been roll-able, which is good because I can’t leave the ground. I class myself as low-end intermediate certainly not expert.

If Black’s were too hard then hardly anyone would be on them due to the skill level required. The way I look at most Black’s is that an intermediate rider can still do them but it takes an expert rider to ride them well.

It is bollocks basically. There’s 4 main issues imo

1) Skillsets- equally experienced riders still find some things harder than other riders do, so it’s hard to benchmark “expert” level
2) Similiarly, lots of different factors make up difficulty- physical severity frinstance is very different from technicality
3) Marketing- nobody wants to “downgrade” a black or similiarly restrict their market.

So you get absurdity like the “nevis red”, which by rights is a pretty hard black, and in the same venue you get the world champs red which is a classic red. Or glentress black which for 9/10ths of it is pretty much exactly as hard as glentress red.

And basically, it’s all undervalued, so many blue routes could be green, a lot of reds would be accessible to blue riders, and not many blacks are really all that black. I’m not calling to regrade all blacks to red there btw, I’d just like better terminology. The spread of trail difficulty is pretty good imo

I don’t think colours work for us frankly, it’s far too crude. I think you need at least 2 graded factors, physicality and technicality. And then maybe keywords.

Glentress red: physicality red, technicality red. Keywords “jumps”, “speed” “bike snobs”

I think individual trail sections could do with more detail too. “jumps” “roots” “steep”. “The only good bit, enjoy it” “Looks like a descent but isn’t” “The rest of the trail is graded black but isn’t really, this bit’s actually black”

But most especially UP, DOWN, FLAT. Srs.

oh and if you want to be considered an Expert you will get invited by BC based on your results…

I think the parallel with ski grading is appropriate, since we’re referring to man-made and well-groomed runs designed to be skied/ridden. Don’t we already have “double diamond” and “orange” grades for the stuff you can properly hurt yourself on?

Orange is absolutely bloomin useless tbf. Imparts absolutely no information. Go to glentress and orange can mean a jump the size of my nose, or it can mean a ladder drop with mandatory air, a crap roll in and a fairly high price of failure. Go to fort william and it’s a world cup downhill, go to learnie and it’s 2 tabletops.

Stevet1 – Member

I thought I would get some hate for this.
My intention is not to put myself across as some kind of rad rider, but to call for an increase in the levels of skills being labelled ‘expert’. It shouldn’t (IMO) just be left to the DH courses to include anything that isn’t rollable.

Why?

Trail centres aren’t sporting centres of excellence, are they? And there is no competitive or timed element to them in normal circumstances.

So, who cares whether it’s red or black, or blue graded, try it, see if you like it, if not, don’t ride it again. I’m a wheels on the ground kinda guy, but at the weekend I rode a loop in the lakes (very slowly in parts) that I’ve seen some describe as far beyond what you’d get on black route at a trail centre. But, all the drops were rollable, no jumps to speak of.

I wouldn’t ride a lot of trail centre black routes because of the jumps/drops/big stuff that I don’t enjoy, and don’t want to progress to riding.

You obviously should have been riding the Red Bull Hardline at Atherton’s this past weekend!

Thing is, all abilities ride trail centres, from kids to pro’s like you, there needs to be some sort of grading to stop novices killing themselves. If you don’t like it, you know what to do.

It’s easy to forget that most of these centres aren’t just aimed at enthusiasts, they are also marketed as a gateway venues to noobs. Someone with a BSO and some fitness can get down a blue and a red in relative safety by just sitting down and going steady all the way round, but a black, even as easy as they are to experienced riders are both intimidating and represent the real possibility of injury. In this context they are for’experts’.

In the context of a ‘gateway venue’, I think the gradings are about right.

What you’re actually complaining about is the missing top end for grading trails, but also the actual provision of more technical ‘park’ trails.

It’s only a matter of time before there are “Fluorescent Green” trails…. the true colour of Gnar.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QfVWF8QMC4[/video]

The same thing was asked when Swinley “red” opened, the issue is at least to some extent the presence of ‘chicken’ lines. There are some big doubles on some sections, but the reality is that 99.99% will ride them as 2 small tabletops and complain that the jumps are bigger on the blue.

I think the parallel with ski grading is appropriate, since we’re referring to man-made and well-groomed runs designed to be skied/ridden. Don’t we already have “double diamond” and “orange” grades for the stuff you can properly hurt yourself on?

Exactly, and the proper thrill seekers take themselves to the ‘snow park’ (dirt jumps, skate park, bike park) or find/build their own gnar off piste (natural trails, secret jumps/drops etc).

The pistes / trail centers are created to cater for the masses and reflect that.

Clearly mountain biking needs to copy rock-climbing – why have 4 grades when you can have a dozen grading systems, each with about 20 grades, and you can use a combination of them. Provides endless fun down the pub.

At the very least we need different systems for trail centres and trad routes, and then you’ve got the question of whether Scottish Red is the same as Welsh Black. And I’m not convinced that Lady Cannings is really red – possibly just Blue C+.

The grades are for public liability reasons so the landowners can say look we told you so

Anything else about how hard or easy they are or how good you need to be is pure spin

the question of whether Scottish Red is the same as Welsh Black

I’d say that’s a pretty firm “no”.

[video]https://youtu.be/XVbTSz6rS6E[/video]

Had this conversation with a mate the other day.
He’s new to ‘serious’ offroad (anything bigger than canal path). I took him to Bike Park Wales and he had a hoot riding the blue all day. Remarkably fast too for a beginner.

He fancied the red so we took one of the short sections at a slow pace. He was very out of his comfort zone so we stuck to blue for the rest of the day.

Few weeks later I took him to Swinley and I said we’ll do the blue and red loop. He was pretty scared but after riding the loop he commented how the red at Swinley was easier than the blue at BPW.

Odd grading system.

I agree that the black sections in trail centres are usually too easy, however I think this is usually appropriate for a trail centre. If you go to BPW or Antur Stiniog then you are presumably already expecting something a bit more technical.
The exception to this, unless it has changed, is the Kona Dark Side at Mabie – now that is a properly hard black section! First time I tried that I had never seen anything like it!

he grades are for public liability reasons so the landowners can say look we told you so

Anything else about how hard or easy they are or how good you need to be is pure spin

^this

The whole point of the grading is to overstate the potential difficulty and skill level required to reduce the number of numpties like me denting themselves on them.

The comparison with (English) climbing grades is quite appropriate:

Difficult = piss easy
Very Difficult = Very Easy
Severe = Still quite easy
Very Severe = Normally fairly steady

Even quite a few ‘extremely severes’ are far more straightforward than you’d think.

Of course, that grade scale developed mainly because everything felt bloody hard in the 1950s with crap protection/ropes and shoes, but it serves a useful purpose in creating an aura of difficulty for a novice.

There were no trail centres in Northern Ireland till a few years ago, then all of a sudden there were 5. I think a lot of us guffawed at the grading. The black and orange trails are really quite tame. However there were a large number of serious accidents involving people slamming themselves into trees. It seemed to mainly be roadies who had dug their £300 MTB out of the garage and gone far too fast without having any real bike handling skill.

I agree. The ‘black’ section on Whites Level at Afan is more red imo… or pink even 😛 .
I agree it probably makes people think they are better riders than they are. Watering down what an expert rider is.

guffawed

???

michaelmcc – Member

guffawed

???

Guffawed.

Look at ski trail grading, not many black routes are unskiable to those only really comfortable on a red route.

Maybe you are complaining that there aren’t enough routes that should be graded double-black?