If you’ll excuse the hyperbole, I’m sure I’ve seen pictures of Scottish trails running across barren mountain side, and there must be others, but why are they so often built in forests and woodland ?

It’s something I’ve been wondering for a while, then that other trail centre thread brought home how many people there are who simply want berms and jumps and an all weather surface and have no interest in the countryside and the scenery.

Ashton Court has got to be the classic case.
There’s a thin strip of wood between the playing fields and the road, so they built the trail through it.
Why not build the trail, with all the same twists and bumps, along the edge of the field and leave the wood undisturbed for people who like walking in woods ?

Why not build trail centres in the many remote fields, instead of the few forests, a bit like motocross tracks, and avoid any conflict with other forest users ?

Historically, it was the other way round. People were riding the gravel tracks in forests, so FC agreed to build trails for them.

Because most of them have been funded by FC, or the funding enabled by FC, who have no other real use for the land.

You don’t know the history of Ashton Court 😉 The ‘new’ trail went straight over the ‘old’ trail which in turn had been build mostly over the original ‘natural’ trail.

Also a lot of forests have been cultivated on steep sided hills/valleys that would be unsuitable for most other forms of agriculture but steep slopes make fun trails.

with ashton court it’s mainly because that’s where the informal trails were before they ‘built’ them.

Not so much fun just riding round the edge of the field there if there’s nothing ‘built’.

Also, the new linking bit they built at the edge of a field (which isn’t on the bikefest course) has shown that if there aren’t trees in the way a lot of people will just try to straight line everything…

edit: clubber beat me to it.

That new-ish centre in Wales that I can’t remember the name of looks fairly barren from what I have seen in videos.

Not heard of lee quarry then? 😛

I susupect it’s a mix of:

*They’re built by the FC (Forrestry comission, not Field Comission), obviously if another landowner wanted to build one then it maybe different (Lee Quary is LCC?)
*Keeps them out of other’s view, if walkers can’t see them they won’t complain about them, GT without the woods would be an eyesore. Quarry’s likewise.
*Makes them feel longer than they are, they’d feel like much less of a day out if you could see that in fact you’re only 50m from the 2 miles of trail you just rode down/up. This allows them to make better use of the space rather than running a single trail through a field.

A&E units in rural areas were getting concerned at the lack of multiple fractures they were getting in. That this could result as a cut in funding. It was frankly miniscule compared to their metropolitan equivalents rich assortment of gang-related baseball bat injuries, and car-thief-through-windscreen relted fractured skulls!

So they hatched a plot for the forestry commission to supply a constant stream of skill-free, overweight, 40-somethings with more money than sense, by building mountain bike trails surrounded in very close proximity by lots and lots of tall, solid, unyielding immovable objects

It worked a treat.

Remember: Don’t look at the tree!!!!

The way things are going afan/glyncorwg will be on barren land. Most of the trees are being felled

pjt201 has hit the nail on the head, build a trail where there are no natural obstacles/features and people WILL straight line it. Also, IMO, twisting and winding your way through the trees adds to the excitement and gives the feeling of going faster than you are

Most trail centre are in woods for the above mentioned reasons.

Lee and Cragg Quarry are fairly unique in that they are, as the name suggests, in a Quarry.

Riding both Lee and Cragg make a good day out, there is aslo an exceelnt race series held there:

http://www.brownbacksracing.co.uk

Could it be anything to do with erosion? I’d suggest that trails on open land might be more susceptible to getting washed away. Also, steeper slopes (more fun to ride) usually need trees or foliage to consolidate the soil and stop it from slipping.

If I think of open land around here, it’s mostly peat bog, it would be pretty difficult to keep the trail in good, ridable condition all year round.

Surely this is due to the ‘cheeky’ nature of the starting points of these centres? the trees hide a multiplicity of sins – e.g. Cannock chase is not just somewhere you can ride your bike, it has history as a dogging site as well – both because you can avoid being seen there.

This, and riding a bike requires, as a starting point, some kind of path, this is either going to be a footpath (but this leads to more conflict) or a deer track, which is less likely to – deer also live in the woods…

The same trails would feel slower and hence less fun in the wide open

I’d argue that most walkers aren’t really interested in forests anyway.

Look at the honeypot areas for them- Lakes, Peak, Downs- they want views.
Wlkers in forests tend to stick to short loops, and the well trod track. There’s plenty of room for both type of user in the space available.

trees provide shelter when the weather’s rubbish. Hiding amongst the trees protects you from wind chill / rain in your face.

some lots of the views at trail centres are stunning.

Lee quarry is very exposed – the weather is almost always appalling, i don’t go there very often.

and weaving through trees is fun! 🙂

Erh, most of us like snaking through trees? Plus don’t they bind the hillside together better giving us some gradient to ride? I think that open moorland type stuff is on harder ground, plus it’s probably remote because it’s not good enough for crops, just sheep.

Finally the woods and forests are often what’s left of the countryside where it’s conserved for public use. I can’t imagine many opportunities for concentrated trails in an open area largely bisected by multiuser bridleways over private land.

All that said, my suggestions are entirely uninformed, so I could be totally wrong about this.

I’d argue that most walkers aren’t really interested in forests anyway.

Look at the honeypot areas for them- Lakes, Peak, Downs- they want views tea rooms

FTFY 😉

Seems to make perfect sense to me, Before trail centres existed as they do now, we always used to ride in the woods.

We never used to say, let’s head over to Norfolk, there’s miles of open fields to ride.

Riding through a field or potatoes / cabbages / cows is bad for the potatoes / cabbages / cows. The trees don’t seem to mind so much. As the trees tend to be built on small hills this also makes good terrain for bike trails.

They plant trees in places that aren’t useful for other crops. Trees are a cash crop in this country and the vast majority of “woods” are actually tree farms.

Most trails centres are built on top of existing trails anyway

Trees add a bit of shelter from crap weather and also the main supplier of land for trail centres in the UK to date has been the Forestry Commission, who own sites planted with… guess.

The Ashton Court trail used to go along the edge of the field due to concerns over dead wood falling onto the trails and people’s heads (the trees on that particular section are a habitat for rare insects, which means they’re not allowed to prune as frequently).

However the trail along the edge of the field was boring, muddy and damaged a strip of calcareous grassland which was home to lots of orchids. So they put it back in the woods.

leave the wood undisturbed for people who like walking in woods ?

It’s the second most visited country park in the UK, and that section of trail is effectively a 20 foot-wide strip between a golf course and a 60 mph trunk road. Calling it “undisturbed” is utter nonsense.

I think I see where the OP is going with this. People of STW, let us stop kidding ourselves, no longer shall they be called mountain bikes but instead forest bikes. Or, sat in the shed because it’s raining bikes.

As they have to maintain the fire roads for their original purpose – letting a few of us in when the forest isn’t on fire or being felled isn’t much of a hardship.

What they said. Except binners.

Traquair xc at Innerleithen has a good mix of woods, not woods, with some great views to boot.

Why not build trail centres in the many remote fields, instead of the few forests, a bit like motocross tracks, and avoid any conflict with other forest users ?[/b]

I don’t want to ride around a field, and why should there be conflict? are we not, after all the years we’ve been about regarded as legitimate users of Woodland/forests by now?

They’re in woods so the riders don’t realise they are actually going round and round in circles?

Woods/plantations are cultivated on land thats to steep, lumpy or thin to be used for much else, so by virtue of being steep and lumpy the lend themselves well for MTB trails. Trail centres tend to try and fit a lot of trail into a small area, if it was open land you’d get more of a sense of just meandering senselessly back and forth.

Wood owners / managers often also either have a remit or a desire to attract visitors as there isn’t much you can do to yield an income from woodland in the decades / centuries between planting and harvesting, whereas a field can yield and income annually. Certainly with newer forest planting schemes its a condition on creating woodland from what was previously arable or pasture to facilitate and encourage leisure use of the land being turned over to woods. Owners of fields aren’t bound to create access in the same way.

It’s something I wondered about too.
Not sure about fields, but to my mind it would be great to have some proper (legal) mountain routes marked out by small signs or paint on the rocks like they do in some areas overseas. (Or moorland routes.)
I’m not bothered about the “built” nature of trails, I like a bit of everything, but enjoy not having to worry about navigation sometimes, especially in wet weather.

…and no I don’t own, or plan to buy a GPS. 😉

it would be great to have some proper (legal) mountain routes marked out by small signs or paint on the rocks like they do in some areas overseas.

Like this you mean?

😆

Yes. Just like that one.

Joking aside – in my experience bridleway signs are almost non-existant in some places and especially where there’s no visible trail on the ground and you could really use a pointer.

If only somebody would draw a picture that showed where these mysterious routes can be found, preferably on a big piece of paper one can fold up and put in a pocket.

😉

Whilst i appreciate a great view, I absolutely adore the feeling of being in a forest, be it riding or walking. Finding a opening, brook or even lake to stop at. Marvellous.

Just come up to Scotland. Loads of tracks across hills and moors. Put there for the shooting crowd, but you are free to ride your bike over them. Just check that you are not going to be a target before you head out 🙂

Question for Roverpig: Is there much opposition to mtbers’ freedom to ride in Scotland? Are there any attempts to limit bike access, that you know of, or is everybody content with the arrangement?

I like riding in between trees, so trail centres in woods keeps me happy.

No resistance as far as I know. Of course there are bound to be some people who don’t like it, but freedom of access to the wild areas has always been part of the Scottish psyche. I’ve not seen anything in the media about it and in general it just seems to be accepted as the way things should be.

It’s a wonderfully simple piece of legislation that basically says that you can go where you want, just don’t be a dick about it. It would never work down South though as the whole culture is much more geared towards the rights of the landowner and the need to write down rules for any possible situation that might conceivably arise.

It seems terribly sensible.

It is. To be honest, as an Englishman whose been up here for 15 years and has chosen to raise a family here, this one piece of legislation perfectly encapsulates what I like about being here and also highlights neatly what makes the Scots fundamentally different to the English.