It actually amazes me that there are trail builders on here slagging off others trails. WTF??
Trouble is, when you've built some stuff it actually becomes very easy to see faults in other trails. Pretty quickly most folks also realise that a trail is often the result of a multitude of compromises throughout the period of development be it time, money, alignmnet, experience etc etc. And then most people shut up or put the comments across in the best way at all possible without telling the poor bugger's who've spent umpteen weekends grafting that their efforts are "crap". They rarely are, but often they can be improved (albeit with hindsight, experience or a disregard for the local practicalities). We've rebuilt (and I hope improved) loads of stuff :blush:
Also, it has to be admitted, (volunteer) trail builders are incredibly prickly about their babies. Often rightly though sometimes not so.
1) Costs, how about all the people that moan about how much the FC charge for parking make a list of all the FC centres where cyclists are welcomed and a second one of all the non FC forests that do likewise?
2) Lack on investment in trails: You may have missed the fact, but the FC are currently making about 25% of their staff redundant. There is no money in the kitty. they are however, actively supporting volunteer groups and facilitating opportunities to build trails.
3).... Oh bumbiscuits I can't be bothered .... see here It's not like any of this has ever come up before
I hear you and agree on some stuff. I do have a bit of a contrary view that it's already public land, publicly funded etc so the kneee jerk response of "just pay parking" isn't always appropriate. Plus there are issues of performance regarding some elements of FC (although I'm sure in many cases we don't know the "full story"). Also, for example, spending umpteen million on Glentress makes some people think some of FC's "work" is rather self serving. They are also, IMO, lacking in some real-world commercial experience / realism.
Saying all that without FC we probably wouldn't have the woods or the trails and I firmly believe that something is better than nothing. I know and talk to a number of FC staff / cycle rangers / local authority rangers etc. I hope everything I've said is balanced and not taken as being too sweeping or in any way deliberately nasty. I'd be the first to agree that some "volunteers" can be utter c8cks too
That apart, FC linked trail builders how about we hook up and swop knowledge? Tried it via IMBA and it was less than useless to the point that we've canceled our membership.
Sounds good, although I think there could be good and not so good ways of doing this. Think we've emailed about it before. I'm always happy to talk though (chairman@singletraction.org.uk).