Vandals caused extensive damage to mountain bike trails at the popular Forestry Commission Wales site at Coed y Brenin, near Dolgellau, recently.
Large rocks had been levered out of the trail surface, causing hazardous obstructions and leaving big holes. Signs were ripped off posts and branches strewn across the trail. Way-markers were removed at key junctions, and some direction pointers had been taken off and put back on to point in the wrong direction.
The damage could have caused an accident resulting in potentially serious injuries. Any risk was kept to a minimum by the prompt action of the recreation rangers.
“This was all done before a busy weekend and had very obvious safety implications for riders. A few way-markers changed round may be considered to be high jinx. However, just one arrow pointing in the wrong direction could result in a rider getting lost and in poor weather they could be in big trouble,” said FC Wales Mountain Bike Ranger Andy Braund.
Coed y Brenin is a very popular and successful recreation destination bringing 130,000 visitors and substantial economic benefit to the area. “It is unclear why anyone would want to cause damage and disruption on this scale. We are assisting the police in their enquiries in an effort to apprehend the culprits,” said Andy.
The Forestry Commission has asked Singletrack readers to keep their eyes open when riding there. Report any damage or odd goings on to the Visitor Centre.
Comments (16)
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So, the stwforum anti-manmade trails have organised a new militant arm then? 😉
that’ll be the “do gooders” trying to stop mtb riding in the
country side !!! Idiots.
WHY ?
“causing hazardous obstructions and leaving big holes…” – started to sound interesting (not that I am condoning any unauthorised trail alterations)
Shame they didnt break into the cafe and cause some… atmosphere!
Sounds pre-meditated and required considerable effort. Police should be able to work who cares that much pretty easily. Question is what to charge them with…. attempted murder?
I do not condone this in any way, simply malicious damage. However I do find mild amusement in the fact that our community has become so soft. I mean fancy having to take a map out into the hills or riding in a manner that means we can react to obstacles in/on the trail?!
Alas after my first (and last) visit to Coed just two weeks ago this sounds like just the ticket to make the trails more interesting than they currently are.
Obviously a digruntled South Walian who didn’t get his down hill kicks, got ripped off at the cafe when he unknowingly bought the cheap ‘toast’ option and then went to the pub in the evening only to wait 20 minutes to be served by someone who was only old enough to serve him soft drinks.
I suspect it was non lycra wearing people with not much travel who did this.
Sarcastic response to what is an attack on our community. Some people don’t realise how lucky we are to have these facilities!
I can’t believe how much effort obviously went in to this. Would seem to me to be something more than “vandals”. It would appear to be someone with a big grudge/point to make.
And as repatriot said, what the flinkin blip is up with the rest of you? If a car driver accidently cuts you up you scream blue muredr yet a concerted and expensive (and possibly dangerous) attack on the facilities that are provided for us and it seems to be little more than a joke or reason to knock CyB and Trail Centres cos you don’t like them.
I despair at times.
Those that find it funny have not really thought it through. What if the vandals hit parts of the north shore stuff on the 7stanes, someone could easily get very badly injured or killed, would you think thats funny if it was your best friend or yourself? I don’t think you would, this is a serious event and I hope it never happens again to any trial centre.
Trail centres maybe dis-liked by some but they are one the reasons the sport is growing. The sport needs more centres if anything, that are bigger, better and offer more choice. I don’t know why people don’t like them and never will, but then I don’t understand mountain bikers that wear lycra either and that includes XC racers.
Anyway trail centres are a good thing, build more. if you don’t like them, don’t ride them. Don’t ever experience les gets, whistler, blackcomb, leogang, snowshoe, glentress etc etc its your loss.
Anyway trail centres are a good thing, build more. if you don’t like them, don’t ride them. Don’t ever experience les gets, whistler, blackcomb, leogang, snowshoe, glentress etc etc its your loss.[÷Quote]
Whistler, les gets are not trail centre. They are bike parks. No trail have been build on purpose, it’s just another use of lift facilities.
Don’t mix it all. There is a huge difference between a bike park and a trail centre. Trail center exist because people are lazy and because of a stupid right of way law.
Whistler spends many thousands of dollars each year building and managing trails. So by your definition it is indeed a very big trail centre.
Also you can’t criticise people who use trail centres as lazy if you only ride lift serviced bike parks. That’s lazy !
What the heck is up with these comments??
People at Coed Y brenin have put loads and loads of effort into building these trails which you can ride for free. They have to cater for a huge range in abilities whilst still keeping it reasonably safe so put a lot of work into coming up with a grading system, so yes it does matter if you come flying round a corner so see a gaping hole or massive boulder in the way. can’t imagine what it feels like to see it all get vandalised.
some of the comments on here make it sound like people without expert skills, massives of trails knowledge and amazing map reading abilities should just be excluded from having fun! WTF? its just cycling. it doesn’t have to involve map reading etc.. if you don’t want it to.
If whistler is not a massive trial centre with many many purpose built trials then I don’t know what you would call it!
Whistler has a bike park, yes, but thats not what whistler is really about.
Whistler blackcomb and the northshore have 100’s of miles of trails and most are maintained by man or were built by man. The garbbazo zone is nearly all man made, teh north shore is all man made, A-line is pretty much all man-made these days. I spent months building and maintain trials at whilster when i lived in pemberton.
So basically whistler is a just a massive trial centre, as is les gets and all the rest. They alll started life as trails being made by locals etc but have ended up being trial centres. Afan was around way before it became a trail centre as was dalby and pretty much all the UK trail centres. The trails were already there they have just been improved, waymarked and are maintained. What is wrong with that?
Vandals damaging just makes them dangerous for everyone, and that is not a funny matter. If it happened all the time at all teh trial centres then the centres would close and the community would loss some excellent facilities throughout the country and mouuntain biking would take a massive step backwards in this country. We are already years behind the US and canada in terms of facilities and racing, this kind of stuff happening just does help that.
FFS its trail not trial!!!
it is a shame my first mtbing experience was at cyb back in 94 before it was a proper trail centre, just a bike hire shack and a track that would later become the redbull and now twrch trail