Love it. Admit I rarely hit it in the wet, but I love the sound it makes and the weaving through the woods.

Some in france earlier this year:

Love it in the dry. Smoke & Mirrors + Devils Club @ whistler = awesome. Haven’t tried it in the wet yet but I imagine it would be lethal. Kind of like constant roots.

It’s not because they use hand-split cedar which has a natural grain to it that provides quite alot of traction, even in the wet.

North Shore stuff built with sawn wood and no sand/paint or chicken wire is just dangerous and irresponsible.

Love the stuff! Heading up to Mabie to hit the Darkside next week. Excellent for comedy falls too, one in particular last year in Les Gets on the Canyon run (after a morning of heavy rain) as the boardwalk pops over a crest and into a sharp left hand turn, my mate nearly stacked it, stopped to watch how I handled it and watched in awe as I came screaming over the crest at far more speed than I should’ve into a barspin dive to flat landing with the bike wrapped around me!

Always wonder, when people brand it dangerous, what they’re actually doing on the stuff… The Laggan one is built to need very little input, it swoops along so no hard turns, no hard braking. It can also be ridden very slowly, if you don’t like it. Since most people manage to ride it fine, it’s not the surface that’s dangerous, it’s the combination of woodwork and rider.

Though I do sympathise, it’s a weird sort of thing to ride on and that can mess up people’s heads, and that’s when you stiffen up and overcompensate and overbrake and take crap lines and things go wrong. So it’s a bit of a vicious circle and I think most of us have found a few of those. You can find people that’ll brand practically anything dangerous or unrideable.

Also fell off the Laggan boardwalk when it was damp week before last.

Same thing as OP – moment of lapsed concentration, too much rear brake to try and correct and down I went into the bracken. Luckily only a couple of bruises on shoulder and thigh and no damage to bike.

Not sure why there is no grip surface on the boards there?

Having said that, felt the best thing was to loop round and ride it again so as not to leave with a ‘can’t ride boards’ niggle in my mind.

slainte ➡ rob

shocking stuff – i dont even really see where this trend came from/started?????????

and whats more annoying to me personally is most of the time where they decide to put it, it could easily have been replaced by lovely singletrack 🙁

Oscillate Wildly – Member

and whats more annoying to me personally is most of the time where they decide to put it, it could easily have been replaced by lovely singletrack

Aye, that does annoy me. When it’s spanning a bog or something, that’s one thing but not when it’s just good forest floor and it’s been added just as someone’s idea of a feature. Short balance/techy sections, sure, but not for long bits.

shocking stuff – i dont even really see where this trend came from/started?????????

It started in the old-growth forests of North Vancouver and was, and is, used to make unrideable parts of the terrain rideable. Over time, as the riders have become better at riding and building, they have grown more “creative” with their woodwork.

I think it is fantastic if used and designed in the right way.

I’m not quite sure why people have such a hangup about it? Why is it different to any other bit of trail? You wouldn’t fall off a piece of singletrack, so why would you fall off boardwalk? It’s also perfectly easy to assess the grip conditions and take action accordingly, exactly as you would if you were riding roots or mud or slippy rocks.

I agree with those who find it a bit pointless when someone builds some across a perfectly adequate piece of ground instead of “proper” singletrack, but it definitely has it’s place when attempting to cross boggy ground, or even stuff that’s too rocky/not enough gradient to ride.

JonEdwards – Member

I’m not quite sure why people have such a hangup about it? Why is it different to any other bit of trail? You wouldn’t fall off a piece of singletrack, so why would you fall off boardwalk?

For the same reason I can ride along the kerbstones or white lines all day, but struggle to ride along a log twice as wide but 2 feet up Put it over a stream and all bets are off.

i blame binners

Northwind – Member

Oscillate Wildly – Member

and whats more annoying to me personally is most of the time where they decide to put it, it could easily have been replaced by lovely singletrack

Aye, that does annoy me. When it’s spanning a bog or something, that’s one thing but not when it’s just good forest floor and it’s been added just as someone’s idea of a feature. Short balance/techy sections, sure, but not for long bits.

yep exactly – if its there to get over water crossing/ bogs etc etc extreme mud then fair enough – but why on earth designers think its a good ‘feature’ to put on a trail is beyond me – its dangerous in anything other than dry weather, and most of the time its simply just boring – its not fun at all to me…..again it goes on and on in alot of places where it would simply be alot better to just have nice flowy singletrack – i guess some people must like it, but its not for me

Awesome!

Frikkin hate it – the stuff at Fort Bill Red is wider than any piece of singletrack, but just anchor up at every bend. Proper fear and mental issues with it

Hey Stevey, bad luck mate! Out of interest what trails at Falkland were you riding?

I think its pretty pants as well, especially in the snow with no chicken wire, when you’re racing.