Here in Ireland, there are issues with trail access and the state forestry body have issued a policy document outlining where they see the future of mountain biking in ‘their’ forests. It talks about developing more purpose built trails and the like but then states that it does not want to go the way of Scotland which is over provisioned with such facilities. Anything I have read to date seems to say that the trail centres have been a huge success and are generally busy. Are some some struggling for visitors?

Some are busy, some quiet.

If you go to GT at 11am on a saturday – the darparks nearly full. Go to GOLSPIE on a tuesday in August, you have the trail to yourself.

But they serve different purposes.

A forrest can be commercial with or without recreation. Who owns the Forrests ? here, it’s mainly the FC so are ‘publicly’ owned.

Also I suppose there’s the argument that Scotland’s trails aren’t intended for locals, they’re a tourist attraction, that GT is accessible form Edinbrough is a side effect.

Infuriationg when you’re in England and there seems to be little/no money for the trails. OK so Surrey doesn’t need any more money so Swinley etc are hardly likely to attract funding, but Redcar/Middlesborough could do with investment in somewhere like Stilton or Guisbrough far more than a lot of Scottish forrests.

GT on a wet thursday evening, only me 🙂

But ‘over-provisioned’ is a bit like saying a motorway doesn’t need 3 lanes as sometimes its empty.

In Ireland what you really need is access, rather than spending money on trails.

The state owns the land but the forestry body manages it. Just crappy Sitka spruce everywhere. I think the general thrust is to create reservations for mtbers and restrict access to those with cycling body type licences

The success of the Scottish trail centres seems like a hard thing to quantify – what they bring to the region gets debated a lot. Even something as seemingly straightforward as how many people are riding them is the subject of argument. Over-provisioned would not be how I’d look at it, but it’s probably right from the POV of the fantastic access that exists in Scotland nationwide.

I don’t know where land access legislature in Ireland is currently at, just that it seems terrible whenever I’ve been there (not been over so much in the last 5 years). Hillwalkers have loads of aggravation with farmers / landowners so you’d think MTBers have a long way to go. This arsehole here is a good example of the belligerent end of the farmers view on access.

Kirroughtree was full to the brim on 2 nd june Bank holiday ,it seened from the voices you could hear ,almost all from ulster

But why? Scotland has hundreds of thousands of miles of natural trails running through stunning countryside. Why ride round in circles in a sterile commercial forest?

For the fun of it perhaps?

From the land owner point of view, we are over provisioned due to the expense of managing and maintaining them.
From the tourist point of view, probably close to right.
From the local rider point of view, depends what is local.
For those services feeding off the trails, they are a benefit.

Which category does the Irish Forestry fall into?

Why ride round in circles in a sterile commercial forest?

I’m so glad attitudes like this are in the minority.

But why? Scotland has hundreds of thousands of miles of natural trails running through stunning countryside. Why ride round in circles in a sterile commercial forest?

it’s a good question.

without local knowledge, it’s impossible to distinguish a peachy singletrack from a tragic bogfest, simply using a map.

whenever i’ve gone looking for these so called ‘natural trails’ – i’ve mostly just found gravel roads and mud. i’m not denying the existance of divine ‘natural’ singletrack, but it’s not exactly easy to find.

to suggest that a lap of kirroughtree (for example) is the same as ‘riding around in circles’ is perhaps just a little harsh.

As far as I’m concerned, Ireland both North and South has little or nothing to offer in terms of off road cycling.

Unless there’s a rights of way network I don’t know about.

I really liked the trail centre they used for sswc

ahwiles – Member

without local knowledge, it’s impossible to distinguish a peachy singletrack from a tragic bogfest, simply using a map.

whenever i’ve gone looking for these so called ‘natural trails’ – i’ve mostly just found gravel roads and mud. i’m not denying the existance of divine ‘natural’ singletrack, but it’s not exactly easy to find.

Isn’t that part of the fun? Some of my best rides have been miserable cross country trudges until you find a tiny ribbon of singletrack not on any map that makes the day worth it.

Why ride round in circles in a sterile commercial forest?

A sterile commercial forest:

(b r‘s pic from this thread)

That’s the top of the Glentress Black if I’m not mistaken. Just cos it is commercial doesn’t mean it isn’t surprisingly pretty (and bags of fun to ride).

@Dave- Thats the thing, you would have to hook up with a club ride to get to see the best trails. You will never see them published unless someone posts a GPS route.

The Ballyhoura trails where the SSWCs were have been very successful, it just looks like that we are not goingto get general access anytime soon. The sport here has exploded in popularity esp. with the over 25s.
For anyone who would like to see some of what Wicklow has to offer I would recommend doing the XC champs in Djouce wood next month.

As far as I’m concerned, Ireland both North and South has little or nothing to offer in terms of off road cycling.

Did that loop above the lake north of Galway, which was OK. the Western Way may not be legal in the english sense (footpath), but it looks grand to me 😉

I cant help thinking all biking is good biking
I rode Mabie last night it was just straight good fun far from sterile
, the last 5 rides out we have ridden natural trails on 3 of these we have used some of Kirr and dalbeattie as access .
Are far I as can recall all of us riding got into regular mountain biking because of the 7 stanes .Now we are looking further afield to find natural stuff ,so the net result of the stanes in Galloway is that there are more trails being found and ridden

Anything I have read to date seems to say that the trail centres have been a huge success and are generally busy. Are some some struggling for visitors?

Carron valley is often quiet, but I assume that’s because it’s a bit poor rather than over-provisioned. The good centres are generally RAMMED most evenings and weekends.

What seemed to happen, was that lots of funding was made available to build trails. And that combined with the logic of putting them places that people don’t usually go, to draw them in. So that’s led to a slightly odd situation now that there’s a lack of resourcing to maintain all those existing trails, which is restricting development of the succesful ones, but also there’s a few ones which aren’t doing so well, like Learnie- in the middle of nowhere, and now largely forgotten and pretty neglected.

Carron Valley is as far from Edinburgh as Glentress and Innerleithen, and much less good, which is a shame as it’s not bad at all, just overshadowed.

But too many trails? Not in general. Thing is, one great trail is a good thing but look at the golspie area, people travel there to do golspie, balblair, carbisdale, fit in a lap of laggan on the way up, maybe fort bill on the way back down, maybe even a wee trip to learnie. But not many people would go all that way just for golspie.

But why? Scotland has hundreds of thousands of miles of natural trails running through stunning countryside. Why ride round in circles in a sterile commercial forest?

Not this shit again……

That GT pic is lovely.

Surely if it was sterile there would be no trees?

If anything Scotland could do with some more, particularly one that is more accessible from Glasgow.

Carron Valley is the closest but if you are in the southside of the city (or Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, Inverclyde, etc) then it can be a bit of a trek to get there and it is difficult to access without a car. So if you are going to be driving for an hour then you feel you may as well just take another 30 minutes and go down to Peebles instead where the trails are considerably better. Not expecting another Glentress built here but something comparable to Carron Valley either at Cathkin Braes, Glennifer Braes, Clyde Muirshiel would be pretty awesome and make things much more accessible for a fairly sizeable chunk of population.

Would also be quite handy for me 😛

[/quote]Some of my best rides have been miserable cross country trudges until you find a tiny ribbon of singletrack not on any map that makes the day worth it. [/quote]

Hmm you are really selling that idea to me. Whatever floats your boat. But perhaps people like the idea of going for a ride and knowing that they will be spending most of it on singletrack.

AlasdairMc – Member
ahwiles – Member
without local knowledge, it’s impossible to distinguish a peachy singletrack from a tragic bogfest, simply using a map.

whenever i’ve gone looking for these so called ‘natural trails’ – i’ve mostly just found gravel roads and mud. i’m not denying the existance of divine ‘natural’ singletrack, but it’s not exactly easy to find.
Isn’t that part of the fun? Some of my best rides have been miserable cross country trudges until you find a tiny ribbon of singletrack not on any map that makes the day worth it.

POSTED 4 HOURS AGO # REPORT-POST
Yes and no!
I started biking when bikes were refferred to as “all terrain” bikes. Having started using OS maps in my teens when involved with rallying when I hooked up with my original biking buddie we set about exploring the hills both locally and in the Lakes. In those days we would never consider taking our young kids on some of the “trails/tracks” that we attempted to “ride” ❗

Fast forward to the explosion of trail centres which are mostly very family friendly which in imo is probably one of the best things to come out of all this and needs developing more 😆

I suspect a lot of trail centre haters are not family people 👿

I am now looking forward to riding with my 4 grandchildren 😆

I totally agree wathching my 11 year old daughter and her friend ride the Kirr red route is brilliant .

There seems to be a lot of pants talked about in this thread.

Another plus for trail centres for the family rider is being able to say ‘I’ll be x hours give or take’ and there are things for the family to do while you ride. 20 miles of unknown trail can be a ‘how long is a piece of string’ guesstimate on ride time.

Is Scotland over provisioned? Ok so they have more than England and NI but so what? Is England over provisioned with the twee villages tourists like so much?

Glasgow

The Commonwealth Games in 2014 has decided to use Cathkin Braes I think.

It could be an amazing centre if Pete Laing or someone with his vision builds the trails.

Arrochar has the perfect combination of good road A82, lots of parking – Cobbler carpark, vast amounts of terrain that’s hilly/undulating and some trails already built for easy access.

Loch Ard has some trails but lacks good parking and the road is pants in. But it has vast undulating forrests towards Ben Lomond and Drymen.

Cathkin Braes, lovely, just dont expect your car to be in 1 piece when you get back from your ride. Or to actually make it round the full course without getting mugged at knife point for your £3k bike.