Bunked off at lunchtime (plus VAT) for a sunny autumn ride around the Bristol trails. While slogging through the mire my thoughts turned to:
A) What tyres?
B) I seem to be causing much more wear/trail damage than normal (doh!)

So – I wondered what your collective thoughts were on this. Should I be avoiding my local trails during the winter months as I may end up contributing to a general trashing of my favourite bits? Stick to the relatively weatherproof Trail Centres untill Spring? Or carry on regardless through the mud?

MTFU

mud the f… up!

Buy a hardtail and Alfine

Ride on the road then!!

Nice attitude guys. I am so glad you are not on my local trails.

You should avoid the more fragile bits when wet – or else they will be trashed responsible access and all that. You make me laugh – you complain you don’t have decent access but show no responsibility and then you complain when eroded trashed trails are repaired ( or sanitised in stw speak)

contrast the attitude to that espoused on this thread.

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/organised-wednesday-pentlandsgt-ride

I think it’d depend on the trails. In some places you could churn a rut up a hill, which focuses run off water, increases erosion, which deepens the rut, focusing more water…

In other places with less surface water, I guess you’d just be moving mud around. But if you think you’re causing more damage than usual – that might be a clue to go ride more sustainable trails until the conditions improve.

And don’t go mincing around the side of puddles. Not least because someone might ride through the middle at speed and give you a thorough soaking. 🙄

personally i have made the conscious effort to avoid certain trails, they are good in the summer and i want them to stay that way, riding in the winter just cuts them up to much.

I think that avoiding some trails in winter / sustained wet periods is part of being a responsible mountain biker. Even in the ten years i have been riding several areas have been ruined or at least altered and largely by mountain bikes. Most single track only stays single track for 2-3 years.

You could get a fat bike and float over the mud.

Hairychested +1

Fatbikes have less impact on soft trails than a walker. Also good on snow.

It’s sad to see the damage the skid kiddies do on some soft trails.

Don’t ride Leigh Woods and Ashton when they are sodden – get a map and find new trails that don’t get hammered like they do. The main trails didn’t start the winter in great condition and if everyone rides them the same, they will be grim until July.

Get out and explore – there is a whole world of little-used bridleways out there – even around Bristol.

Nice attitude guys. I am so glad you are not on my local trails.

You should avoid the more fragile bits when wet – or else they will be trashed responsible access and all that. You make me laugh – you complain you don’t have decent access but show no responsibility and then you complain when eroded trashed trails are repaired ( or sanitised in stw speak)

contrast the attitude to that espoused on this thread.

wow, who took the jam outta your doughnut?!

i’ve personally never complained about access, or eroded trashed trails, or the repairing of trails…. my comment was based on the general opinion that seems to be put across on here that avoiding puddles only widens trails and that angers the riding gods of STW.

chill out TJ, have a cuppa and brrreeeaaath.

Phil Many argument past but I hate the damage caused by inconsiderate MTbers. Like a local trail by me – it has water bars so the MTbers have been going round them – making them useless.

The lack of appreciation of this shown on here and out in the hills is painful to see.

And yes – riding round puddles is wrong – I have seen a trail erode to a 30 m wide swamp as a result ( walkers as well in this case)

so good I said it twice

TandemJeremy – Member
…Like a local trail by me – it has water bars so the MTbers have been going round them – making them useless.

I took a lump hammer and a bolster out with me one day and bevelled off portions of each waterbar. If you do that, then you’ll help save the trails.

trails have been trails for hundreds of centuries, through ice ages, wars and battles. They are what they are and what soon disappears, new will appear. Because mountain biking has been really popular in past 20 years or so we still cause very little impact on trails as a whole ans so we can only protect very little compared to say horses or walkers which have been around for centuries. We get to ride many a great trail which have been there way before we got on bikes and they have been used for centuries by other forms of transport without any care for trail sanitisation or worry about what if’s during rain, mud or snow.
I’ll continue riding trails regardless of weather and will always splash through puddles and ride corners as quick as possible. If puddles look on the rather deep side i will always ride around them ( apart from the puddle of doom at kielder 100, damn that puddle x2 years ).
I think as a generation we worry too much about these things which have been caused by centuries of mankind. Its not abuse, its just the way of life. The world is what it is, it developes as we develope .

So grab yourself a winter tyre, get on your bike and ride till your tired and dirty and what you may cause in erosion etc, you’ve saved on driving your car to the shops, having the tv on for that few hours extra, having a cup of tea.

My job here is done, you are all free to ride

Raddogair – I have seen trails destroyed in a couple of years of MTB use – turn from nice bits of singletrack to eroded messes

and so have i, but i have also seen a huge amount of new found trails which have counterparted this, whether its us building them or walkers/horses/mtb’ers making new paths because of this erosion. It wont stop me going out enjoying myself on trails worried that they will become slop. Last winters weather for instance caused alot of natural erosion from the amount of water flowing down paths which no amount of riding would of caused.
Before it gets a stupid he this he that typical ‘STW argument’, what i would say is that i adhere to signage regarding issues ( i.e., new trail/ surface, no skidding please ) and watchout for wildlife concerns but i’m not going to worry about trail erosion and not ride trails during certain times of the year

radogair – the point is it the damage caused by bikes And feet) that leads to the water runnoff and eroding the trails. There is provision in the access code that you should avoid damaging paths

It really upsets me to see these huge eroded scars on teh hills

i partly agree with yourself but also partly disagree. It also is a pain to see hugely eroded parts of trails. Its not just bikes and feet which cause this. Animals, livestock, the weather, heavy rain all cause this. I honestly think we beat ourselves up too much about this, blaming ourselves overtly too much for damage. When we look at weather, animals, natural causes and us towards how trails are damaged,its only us humans that do our part to protect/preserve/ amend trails and nothing else. The way i see it is the world will be around for millions of years to come, so will trails and for those trails that eradicate or diverse into other things then other trails will be made to combat this issue. Alot of wild trails are made from livestock/ wild animals going from A to B over a period of time. We find them , ride them until they bed into flowing trails and then move on to the next set off animal trails. Things will always develope over years so worrying about whether to go riding because its been raining and will i make a dent on the trails doesn’t make one scoot a difference. If locals have a good set off trails then regardless of conditions and how we ride them, we generally look after the upkeep oursleves, well until forrestry commision come and bulldoze everything down for logging, but then thats evolution anyway

rad – you are a selfish man if that is how you see trails and other people. You might live where there are lots of trails, but you sound like the idiots who insist on riding Leigh and Ashton all year and turning areas into The Somme.
The OP is talking about a relatively small and over-ridden area near Bristol city centre. Thousands of riders a week are over there and, without some sense and self control, it would be a couple of years before it died. There aren’t other animal tracks to go and trash as you would – it is a finite resource.
While there are people thinking like you, I won’t beat myself up for my own riding behaviour – which I vary to match the trails throughout the year.

I think it all depends on the area, the small areas with a high density of mtb’ers will be more sensitive to damage/erosion etc, other areas will not be so badly affected. My local area is wyre forest, riding there for 6 years in all weathers and there are a lot of riders that use that area, not seen any damage that has destroyed any of the trails other than that caused by the logging operations.

Ride the trails that suit the current conditions. I thought that was what we all did anyway ? Its not rocket science to work out which trails can be ridden and in what conditons/weather. Soon be summertime only 6 months to go……. 😥

radoggair+1 – at least round where I live. There’s enough space here, and livestock, that it’s a perfectly reasonable way to behave. The damage done to the natural trails by natural erosion far outweighs the tracks round the puddles that appear in winter.

However, if I were close to a city centre, or were riding man-made trails I’d advocate a different style of riding.

With TooTall on this. I’ve seen the local trails in Bristol go from singletrack to tracks a metre wide mudbaths in the time I’ve been riding. Many of the decent trails are shagged and week in week out people still keep riding them when they are wet which only makes them worse.

I know that some money has been won to armour the trails and develop new trails but at the current rate of damage to the singletrack it will all be metre wide trails in the next few years.

Big credit to the Ant and the Bristol Trails group for repairing the main trails but their job is like the local authorities when it comes to repairing roads, there just isn’t enough resource to look after it properly. More people who ride the trails need to help repair them.

I personally haven’t ridden the trails when they are wet for years to prevent erosion I just wish some of the other riders would do the same or contribute more to maintaining them.

radoggair – Member
trails have been trails for hundreds of centuries, through ice ages, wars and battles. They are what they are and what soon disappears, new will appear. …We get to ride many a great trail which have been there way before we got on bikes and they have been used for centuries by other forms of transport without any care for trail sanitisation or worry about what if’s during rain, mud or snow.

I agree with the first part of this. Trails evolve and I have no problem with the widening around a muddy bit.

However, as a lad I was often on paths in the Hebrides with various adult members of the family. It was quite common to stop and do a wee repair or get some stones to harden a bit that was getting boggy when you came across it, or to do a bit of draining by using the heel of your wellies. I’m sure the same principle applied in other parts of the country when paths were the main form of communication between communities.

So there was/is a principle of user maintenance.

It would be good if mountainbikers occasionally jumped off their bikes and did a bit of impromptu trail repair when they saw a bit that could become a problem. Often mudholes on tracks are caused by last minute braking before an obstacle. Most could easily be drained by a bit of heel action at the side of the track. Next time you see something like that, why not get off the bike and try to fix it. (Not talking about trail centres here)

If more riders did this then the heavily used tracks would become bulletproof 🙂

I like to ride when conditions are crap and this means the track is often soft. I always try to walk the parts where my wheel would leave grooves. I have fixed this by getting a fatbike with 4″ tyres. Now I can ride on soft stuff with less impact than a footprint.

What a bunch of fatuous nonsense.

Some of you are delusional to think these worn footpaths have evolved for your personal mountain biking pleasure, and you are being oh so prissy to think that your diatribes can alter that evolution – or stem the flow of mother nature. King C-n-u-t anyone?

These paths are created through thousands of years of footfall – human or animal – wearing a discernable track through otherwise overgrown countryside, along routes which have proved convenient for whatever reason. Over those thousands of years, every year, it’s got wet and muddy and frozen and dried and cracked and dusty. Yet, if you resurrected a Roman Legionnaire and took him along a familiar path in 2010, he probably wouldn’t see it any different than he remembered it.

All this micro-eco whinging is just getting ridiculous – there’s a limit of common and factual sense. Please stop minding other people’s business.

Ax3M4n

And has not had the traffic they have now. Much of what your legionary waked down is now tarmaced

I have watched over decades paths being eroded and winter MTB use is bad for this. its clearly obvious if you have eyes in your head. You watch what was a nice path descend into an eroded mess – once the soil cover is stripped of it will not magically reappear

Fortunately most of us try to be sensitive about this

You treat the great outdoors like it is the carpet in your front room. Please take off your shoes.

No – I treat it with respect. I don’t want everything to be an eroded mess. I want teh trails to be there next year.

Ax3M4n – Member
…These paths are created through thousands of years of footfall – human or animal – wearing a discernable track through otherwise overgrown countryside, along routes which have proved convenient for whatever reason. Over those thousands of years, every year, it’s got wet and muddy and frozen and dried and cracked and dusty.

True enough, but the paths made by humans on foot received some basic maintenance from them which is why they lasted.

When people start bombing over them in bikes and doing no maintenance they erode.

Your Roman legionnaire would understand that.

All we have to do is a little maintenance each time we ride.

<pedant alert>

rad – you are a selfish man if that is how you see trails and other people. You might live where there are lots of trails, but you sound like the idiots who insist on riding Leigh and Ashton all year and turning areas into The Somme.

The Somme wasn’t unduly muddy, taking place mainly in late summer. It wasn’t until very late in the piece that bad weather came.

Passchendaele, on the other hand:

IGMC. It’s the khaki greatcoat.

I ride different routes in winter and try to avoid the stuff that will get trashed. Increased MTB use – frankly just increased use – has had an impact on local trails . I see people riding up footpaths across muddy ,moorland and ignoring the road 50 m to the side to say this does no damage is not true. We can winge about increased access north of the border but until we are more responsible we have limited chance of this occuring.

Yet, if you resurrected a Roman Legionnaire and took him along a familiar path in 2010, he probably wouldn’t see it any different than he remembered it.

Does erosion not exist ? I can see the differences on my local trails yearly where erosion occurs

of course erosion exists, but to blame ourselves is naive and stupid. Its a collection of multiple things and i would suggest that on many trails, mtb’ers are the least significant of all of them. Why is this, simple, trail centres have evolved and taken the main hub of riders onto them.
I would also reply to a few posts that i have done and will do trail maintenance in the past and present. In fact, many local trails i used to ride were only trails because we conceived them and maintained them over many years.
If you feel bad enough about this then dont ride them but still expect many others to do so, as well as walkers and horses etc. 1 or 2 bikes a week less will not make a squat of difference to how that trail will look next year so to prevent yourself doing something which many love doing all year round is pointless, but its your choice i guess.
Its not the case of being selfish as someone said, its my choice in this worlds evolution and a choice that singularly makes no difference whatsoever to the trail.

TooTall – Member
rad – you are a selfish man if that is how you see trails and other people. You might live where there are lots of trails, but you sound like the idiots who insist on riding Leigh and Ashton all year and turning areas into The Somme.

Tootall – harsh matey, very harsh. ‘Other people’ who know me know what type of person i am, and yes i do live near loads of trails. My riding thou is split between 5 days road biking/2 days mtb’ing and because of this i drive only once maybe twice a week. Towards trail selfishness,as i said i have done and will do trail repairs in the past in present but i will refuse to not ride something just in case it becomes a mm wider or deeper in sections. We’re unfortunate/fortunate enough not to ride in spanish/utah conditions where trail erosion is minimal compared to ours but then potentially maybe thats why some of our trails are the best in the world?

Erosion does exist, and in areas of particular natural interest, measures are taken to limit or correct that erosion. The Lakes, Snowdonia and more… programmes and regulation is in place to repair and/or prevent damage to particular areas. And I am thankful to those graceful volunteers, community folk and council/trust employees who work to this end. However, the work they do is arguably to preserve the landscape to allow people to continue to enjoy it. They may even go so far as closing down certain areas for maintenance. But then… that’s their job, their right or their choice.

What I don’t appreciate is self appointed MTB custodians, in an ever invasive Nanny State trying to tell me when, where and how I can’t ride.

The same is arguably true of other pastimes, where civilized, well behaved, practitioning Joe Public is put upon by apparent do-gooders, with no discernable benefit other than to befuddle and deject a hitherto enjoyable hobby.

If its open, I’ll ride it, and I aint going to lose any sleep about it.

Thanks for all the input – I genuinely wasn’t sure what the best course of action was but you’ve given me something to think about.

I guess tt depends on the nature of the trail and the amount of traffic it gets and some will suffer more than others during the winter.
I also have to admit to being one of those all winter types sloshing around Leigh Woods in the pouring rain a few years back. Looking back the trails did get worse as that winter progressed but it’s always someone elses fault isn’t it? 🙂 A single rider may not create much damage on one ride but if everyone’s at it :-)…….

I think I may stick to the more resiliant sections in future and get to Cymcarn at the weekends.

(May get involved with some trail repair too)

trail centres have evolved and taken the main hub of riders onto them

Yes no one rides natural anywhere the lakes , the peaks are empty of MTB .

and a choice that singularly makes no difference whatsoever to the trail.

A bit like me saying well everyone else steals from work so it wont make any difference if I dont. Personal responsibility

If its open, I’ll ride it, and I aint going to lose any sleep about it

we know itr is why the nanny state has to prevent people you cant do it yourself as you just dont care

I don’t want to get into the rights and wrongs of what other people do when I don’t know where people are talking about (although I tend to agree with Junkyard, epicyclo et al), but here’s my 2p.

Most of my riding is in SSSIs and pretty sensitive to damage in wet conditions. If I want to ride the best tracks as they are (miles of gently twisty <20cm wide singletrack) it doesn’t make much sense to ride the tracks in such a way as to contribute to their erosion through riding them when they’re waterlogged, the effects of which increasingly results in their over-zealous repair. It’s hardly rocket science to plan routes according to local conditions, walk sections if riding them will be worse than walking and so on. Unfortunately, that kind of principle seems to be beyond some people (IME, and on this forum). Having said that, if I lived elsewhere, the issue would be significantly different- plenty of routes are pretty much “all weather”, user impact is less significant even if tracks have greater use and so on. Again, it’s not that difficult to make reasonable judgement based on experience and the context.

A) Bonty Mud X

B) http://www.bristoltrailsgroup.com/events/158-50-acre-trail-day*

*I’m ashamed to say I’ve not been out fixing myself all year. I have however, also been too lazy to do any riding either.

What I don’t appreciate is self appointed MTB custodians

You’re going to have a field day on here then…