Had a ride round the Ashton Court and Leigh woods trails this evening whilst the balloon fiesta was going on.
Bone dry and only saw 4 other riders.
But why are there so many corners being cut creating new lines?

It’s cost a small fortune and a lot of peoples time to get as far as building the trails, so why, oh why, do inept riders cut corners?
I can only assume it’s Strava creating this.
I can understand people running wide after diving into the corner too fast but cutting corners is cheating if you want to play the Strava game.
It annoyed me so much tonight that I became “The Stick Man” by blocking off the shortcuts with the biggest logs I could find to stop the idiots that can’t ride round corners.

Am I a bad man?

I expect the usual STW flaming by the usual suspects but quite frankly, if you can’t ride round a corner on a nearly billiard ball table smooth trail, you really shouldn’t be riding a mountain bike.

People have always cut corners, nothing to do with strava

I blame the 29er riders myself they dont even know they are doing it 😯

It’s isn’t Strava, it’s cyclists, some of whom may be using Strava, many of whom won’t.

Taylor – has someone blasted your KOM? 😀

It annoyed me so much tonight that I became “The Stick Man” by blocking off the shortcuts with the biggest logs I could find to stop the idiots that can’t ride round corners.

Am I a bad man?

No – sounds like a sensible thing to do to help show people where they should be riding.

No, I was on my flexy bike which was bloody hard work, so much slower than a 29er hardtail.

😯 Do you really think Strava is the culprit ! If… And I doubt it is. Strava is responsible for the riders concerned to be riding in a more competitive manner, they should be held to account ! Thank god it’s not an influence from the Olympics or just the weather.

Thank god it’s not an influence from the Olympics or just the weather.

It was prevalent before the Olympics.

That happens at Afan too. I doubt its Strava but I have no evidence to base that opinion on. I think its just people losing their lines.
Afan has loads of amateur blockages reminding people where the trail is.

it’s been happening for the 18 years I’ve been riding AC so I suspect it’s not strava 😉

Used to bemoan all new new easy (crap) lines cut at QEPark, due to inept riders cutting corners, avoiding off camber bits and generally being crap. Way before Strava.

In all serious – I doubt it’s anything to do with Strava. A large majority of riders up at AC & LW will be families and such like that have never heard of the word, or of they have, have mistakenly thought it was a model of Fiat car.

Cretinous lines have been going on since time immemorial – and I suspect over the years I’ve contributed to a few.

So it’s your fault then?

I remember how wide the likes of both quarry trails and Badger bridge were getting but his was due to mud on unmade trails, now that we’ve had Manmade trails built it still happens.
Why?
Can’t they ride round a boulder which was placed to slow you down before bursting out on a walkers trail?

Somebody has gone to the trouble of getting funding, designing the trail, building the trail and some idiot decides they want to straight line a corner. Making the trail wider and subsequently as wide as the old boggy trails we had the joy of before, making the new all weather trail redundant.

Are Mountain bikers just lazy?

I’m with Flatfish on this, I think the current cuts are actually quicker lines rather than easier lines, which is a bit of a change. I’m all for closing down the corner-straighteners. I don’t want every trail to end up like Picnic Bench- where there aren’t any corners left, if you follow the main line.

moan whinge moa sneer damm technology thats whats to blame with all these kids. Too busy looking at screens to get out and exercise or see corners.

Moan Moan Moan it’s the internet it’s killing MY trails moan moan. It never happened before this year, nobody ever cut corners to go quicker at all because before strava mountain biking was all about just rolling along.

The Marin trail in Betws had it’s corners cut and trashed in 2003 how could that be?

flatfish – Member
if you ride round a corner on a nearly billiard ball table smooth trail, you really shouldn’t be riding a mountain bike.

FTFY

I have been doing it to deliberately annoy you