Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 59 total)
  • Worst. Conditions. Ever?
  • binners
    Full Member

    What do you reckon?

    We were out in’th ills the other night, and I’ve never ridden in conditions like it. Everything is absolutely saturated! There’s a degree of squidgyness the ground doesn’t even seem to reach in the middle of winter. May be something to do with the temperature?

    But large sections of our normal stuff is just completely unridable. We shouldered our bikes and sank over our ankles in filth, for sections we should be blasting through at this time of year. In a couple of cases the trail had disappeared completely due to land-slips, and collapsed riverbanks. 😯 Needless to say, it absolutely bucketed down for most of the ride

    I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen conditions underfoot/wheel this bad. Ever. We were meant to be out riding last night too, but abandoned it, as we just couldn’t be arsed with it

    How’s it on your local trails? As bad?

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    It’s a mixture by us. But the hardest stuff is BWs that have been churned up by horses in the wet but are now rock hard. You could just about blast thru the wet stuff but the rock hard version is more of a challenge, at least for me and my old HT!

    tracknicko
    Free Member

    hard work last night, that’s for sure. shame. still fun tho innit?

    unklehomered
    Free Member

    We’re drying out pretty well here (Dales) considering, but last night was my first ride on one set of tracks this year (real life has denied me of much riding so far), and the change from months and months of downpoor was remarkable. trails washed out with thin narrow gulleys carved by what must have been shed loads of water, but barely visible from thriving undergrowth. And with the soluble soil washed out many of the trails are now just loose stones 6 inches deep.

    Its also showing in the over grown state of the trails, they really have not been used this year, I’m gonna have to get a trail saw/machette. My hands got laserated by brambles.

    I had a very soggy end to the ride. Sitting above Shaw Mills I looked back towards home. Dark clouds of doom. Looked over my shoulder towards Harrogate. Sunny. No choice but to put my head down and plough into the rain. Which was refreshing to begin with. But after 10 minutes or so, not so much.

    Drac
    Full Member

    Well I’m not sure it is, I’ve seen worse.

    wiltsrider
    Free Member

    Its much the same on stuff round here – the regular cycle of flooding/drying out has just torn things apart and made alot of areas just plain miserable to ride on…Also its the impact of the farmers driving their cattle etc down some of the routes which has just destroyed the riding, basically all regular wear and tear seems to be increased by a factor of 10.

    I would also add that choosing to continue riding through these conditions has meant that my bike looks about five years older than this time last year. Rubbish.

    cheese@4p
    Full Member

    The worst thing is the amount of vegetation that has sprung up. Face high nettles and bramble shoots. Trails obscured by bracken and bushes so you cant see the bike and rocks greasier than winter.
    It’s rough out there I tell thee.

    scaled
    Free Member

    We knocked it on the head early last night due to the biblical rain that came in and knocked us sideways.

    Was actually quite funny.

    binners
    Full Member

    Its still fun in parts Nicko, but I was getting pretty bored with getting off the bike yet again as the front wheel sank up to the axle in a ‘puddle’.

    At one point, we were splashing through some sodden singletrack and and I uttered the immortal line ‘this stuff would be great in the summer’. It was then pointed out to me that it was the 1st August, so technically….

    MrOvershoot
    Full Member

    Wednesday evenings ride was a right shitfest, thankfully the pub at the end of this route has alloy chairs and a hose so we rinsed the bikes & the chairs off 😀

    TBH what is slightly depressing is the depth of mud at this time of year, some sections saw my pedals slapping into the mud at the bottom of the stroke.
    Its a good workout though!

    mintimperial
    Full Member

    No idea. I’ve given up on mountain biking, bought a road bike instead. 😉

    unklehomered
    Free Member

    I have to say the north dales have been getting a pasting even today my favourite weather site –

    http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/observations/?tab=map&map=Rainfall

    shows us just about getting away with it again.

    I will see how Norwood trails are this weekend… (not widly optomistic if I’m honest)

    MrOvershoot
    Full Member

    Drac can you keep the trails round your way in that condition for another 5 weeks for me?

    wors
    Full Member

    Thats why i’ve been riding my road bike loads, I cannot be arsed anymore dragging my bike through crud. 😥

    Drac
    Full Member

    I’ll see what we can do Overshoot but ermm it’s always rains in the North apparently.

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    Yep, forgot the brambles wrapped in bracken. I look like a self harm victim with lacerations over all my inner arm/elbow.

    MrOvershoot
    Full Member

    Drac – Moderator
    I’ll see what we can do Overshoot but ermm it’s always rains in the North apparently.

    Tell me about it, I’m in the North West and have had a lot less rain than family who live in the south west!

    BTW where was that shot taken?

    franki
    Free Member

    Some trails round my way are o.k.
    Others are in the worst condition I have ever seen, yes. Grassy areas are pretty waterlogged and trails impeneterable due to brambles / nettles. 🙁

    Drac
    Full Member

    Friend took it at Simonside, I’ve not been out for weeks but hope to fix that tomorrow.

    mtbfix
    Full Member

    Local Chilterns trails are a bog in the main. Today was a revelation though after two months of hating it. Didn’t try to go fast or stay clean. Just went out, got filthy and enjoyed every minute of it. Conditions on the ground are worse than winter but that appears to be the hand we have been dealt this summer.

    teamslug
    Free Member

    Not too bad in South/West Yorkshire. Been riding to work all week and trails are drying pretty well.Not done anything really gnarly and it does look a bit soggy here and there off piste. Effin nettles and brambles are unbelievable. I’m sure they see my skinny legs comin and bend out onto the trail. Missus is well pi££ed off…jumpy legs all night

    z1ppy
    Full Member

    Been close to tears over the crapness of this summer, we’ve just had a week of pretty decent weather which has just about dried things up but the weather forecast is for more wet weather FFS.
    Roll on another dry winter…

    davidjey
    Free Member

    Lucky enough to have a fair bit of rocky/man-made stuff round here (South Wales) which is all running well again in the dry(er) conditions we’ve had more recently. I’m staying away from lower-lying/poorly draining natural sections, but they also happen to be sections of tight singletrack that the undergrowth ‘claims’ in high summer, so I’m used to leaving them alone for a couple of months at this time of year.

    I suppose I’m lucky to have that choice…

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    Utterly rubbish round here too, especialy on routes popular with horsey types.

    I’ve a 13 mile ‘soft-road’ route (i.e. mostly farm tracks, byways and c-roads etc) that I do regulalry in the evenings just for a quick blast. Decided to ass on about four miles of bridleway that croses a small valley (steep down, steep up) then decends alllong the valley and back up the other side. Took almost two and a half hours! Ankle deep mud and hoof prints, and hore shit everywhere. I was in such a mood by the time I passed the next stables what when someone said hi I alsmost lost it and comited a dirty protest!

    What was singletrack last year is now an 8ft wide four mile long bog!

    But it does seem odd, some tracks are bone dry, others just 50m away are under water despite being on a hillside! The grounds just so saturated it’s litterlay running out the sides of the hill and down the trail!

    clarkpm4242
    Free Member

    Managed a 75km ride off-road from Settle->Kirkby Stephen yesterday. No rain 😉

    Had cold feet for the first 3 hours, on August 2nd!!!

    Mainly dryish BWs, ‘self-harmed’ on inner elbows though.

    Felt a bit harder than it should.

    Del
    Full Member

    things actually pretty alright down in the sunny south west. 8)

    BillOddie
    Full Member

    Odd conditions in the Leicestershire (Charnwood to be exact) area.

    Anything on a slope (yes slope) is basically fine, hardpack in places.

    However the flatter woodsier sections are a shitfest. They finally dried out for approximately 24 hours last weekend before the rain came back this week.

    To make matters worse we have had loads of trees come down and the “forest managers” (I use the term loosely) have come in with big machinery and taken them away turning the already wet ground in the a flat features less mud bog.

    Some of the calmer steeper trails have actually been improved by the erosion though.

    rogerthecat
    Free Member

    Riding around Dorset this week, trails done so far non too shabby.

    Woody
    Free Member

    The worst thing is the amount of vegetation that has sprung up. Face high nettles and bramble shoots.

    Trails not bad where I am but many have become quite obscured due to the above and the fact less people are using them.

    My shins have some very strange scratch patterns on them as a result.

    Rio
    Full Member

    Chilterns trails are pretty awful at the moment, some nice dry bits but inevitably joined together by ribbons of mud which are gradually getting overgrown in some places and in others are getting turned into wider and wider mudbaths by the horseists trying to get round the mud. I’m just about to go out for a ride with with my secateurs to do some sneaky pruning to try to retrieve some of the more overgrown trails.

    stcolin
    Free Member

    My local is pretty wet and muddy, but to be fair, it always is at the slightest drop of rain. Great for honing the skills, though some places with huge slop is very difficult to ride in.

    Suck it up 😉

    uselesshippy
    Free Member

    Surrey hills seemed pretty good to me last night 😀

    TheFopster
    Free Member

    Yep – it’s been just about as bad as anything I have seen in winter. Rode a couple of weeks ago and as above pedals hitting the ground at bottom of the stroke making it near unrideable. Cracked some weeks ago and put my mud tyres back on (though t.b.f. that was followed by that nice week we had so I’m claiming the credit for that).

    Off soon for a quick pre-weekend bimble. Let’s see what’s out there today…

    teamslug
    Free Member

    We did Mam tor and chapel gate last sunday. All the trails were pretty dry considering. Everything was defintely rideable. Bit sticky in places but no worse than it has been previous years. Stream crossing are a bit wider.The area does drain very well though.

    MadPierre
    Full Member

    I was expecting a nightmare on the local clay last night – first time I’ve tried a local one for ages – and I was very surprised to find it all fairly dry!

    edlong
    Free Member

    What were you all expecting when you bought mountain bikes? Did the omens of impending greenhouse gas related apocalypse make you think you’d be riding in something like the mojave desert by now? It’s Britain ffs, it gets muddy, that’s why we have nobbly tyres.

    gee
    Free Member

    Bone dry at Swinley now.

    ahwiles
    Free Member

    …It’s Britain ffs, it gets muddy, that’s why we have nobbly tyres other things to get on with while the conditions are a bit shitty…

    mountain bikes are ace, but so are road bikes, running, canoes, climbing, surfing, reading a book, diy, baking, etc. etc.

    Hob-Nob
    Free Member

    It was dire before we went away, to the point I stopped even bothing going out I was so fed up & just stuck to the road bike. The trails were worse than they had been all winter.

    Just got back from 2 weeks dry & dusty trails in the Alps & heading out this weekend, no doubt in the rain again.

    I was hoping for a few nice months of warm (even hot) rides as we seemed to suffer from a very cold & wet winter this year as well, just to add insult to injury.

    Pinning my hopes on autumn being great this time round.

    binners
    Full Member

    It’s Britain ffs, it gets muddy, that’s why we have nobbly tyres.

    Yeah right! We’re all proper pansies in East Lancs. Proper delicate little flowers. Absolutely terrified of getting a bit mucky, we are!

    But There’s muddy, then there’s totally unbridgeable calf-deep swamps. We did one 5km stretch the other night where we pushed/carried for the higher percentage. It took ****ing hours. A reasonable walk (I won’t go as far as to say ‘nice’) ruined by having to carry a bike on my shoulder for most of it. One with the cables underneath the frame 🙁

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