[Closed] All Mountain Trail Centre's?

I dunno but a lot of trail centres seem to be wideish paths followed by a few short singletrack sections then say two set pieces. Gisburn springs to mind as a stunning example of this.

CYB leaves me cold. There's not a section that I remember fondly.

Glentress does have some memorable bits though that FLOW.

If they're so easy, why are you riding trail centres so much? You've ridden 4 "recently"

Because I'm independently wealthy and can afford to tour the world riding wherever and whatever I like. 😉

I didn't say they were 'easy' just that most centres were of the format: well surfaced section - tech feature - well surfaced section. Natural riding is different cos its err, natural. I like both I just thought that the person who got slated for the canal path comment actually had a point.

When did "mountains" get a 50% downgrade to 1000ft? A mountain is [b]2000ft [/b]in the UK. So those on AM bikes in the Peaks feeling so smug better be careful to stick to Kinder or Bleaklow or there'll be hell to pay 😉

If you are at 500ft near the foot of a mountain would you be worse off on an XC bike than someone at 600ft on hill riding a AM bikes? It's bloody complicated.

They are all bikes - some are better at some stuff than others - they are all good - and all probably better at what they do then me so frankly its immaterial as far as I'm concerned!

If it helps - Golspie was the trail centre I have been to that I felt most incapable of riding so probably the most AM.

I have fond memories of Spooky Woods as an ultimate bit of trail.

and Wow what a climb up there!

Natural trails

Whats that then a trail made be a wild dear

i saw this guy, right, who was on a comencal meta 5.5 with 6" forks, and he rode up and down dumyat and finished with those trails in woods. i rode dumyat and the same trails, yeah, and i was on an inbred with 4" forks, right, so i guess he was doing all-mountain, and i was just trail-riding.

A good summary of all the trails not at trals centres

"Canal path without features"

HaHaaaa! I love that. What the hell is all this BS anyway. Just grab a bike. Any bike.......& go riding.

If the bike you ride makes you smile then it happy days!!!

How can you not see that Fairhurst is a piss taker of the highest order. Blatantly a WUM

When did "mountains" get a 50% downgrade to 1000ft?

Apologies for this. It was a genuine mistake and only in my head trying to justify the purchase of my All Mountain bike.

Natural trails

Whats that then a trail made be a wild dear

Generally created by man on a horse, or footpaths 😉

"All Mountain" defined by the following characteristics;
On site car park for ones Audi.
On site cafe serving Lattes.
Collective of middle aged men riding expensive bikes for upto a few hours whilst wearing a few hunderd quids worth of gear.

Yup CYB is all mountain..

CYB leaves me cold. There's not a section that I remember fondly.

Seriously? I like pretty much all of the singletrack/DH sections on the MBR I think they are so much fun. What don't you like about it? Is it not hard enough?

Blimey - I cycled up (on a 'road' - in the loosest French meaning of the word) Mont Bouquet (629m) and descended (off-road - down a lairy pile of babies heads) on my hardtail.

Does this mean that I've been breaking the law? Clearly I was foolish attempting such a feat at that altitude (2069ft up) on such unsuitable machinery..

I shall have to sell the kids and buy a full-sus long travel thingumywhatsit to address this foolhardy, naive behaviour. Forgive me. 🙄

Ride where you can, when you can. Difficulty / enjoyment is surely in the eye of the beholder?

Hmm... I would say definitely coed-y-brenin! to me all mountain has to be rough enough to have to use a full suss. Coed-y-brenin fits that bill nicely. I took a close friend there last week and he was gob smacked at how technical it was! In the end he ended up just riding the blue route. I am working my way up to the black, slowly but surely 😀
I'm sure the pros will be able to ride the blacks, but I'm more than happy to be able ride all mountain, i'll let you all know how scotland goes.

The 'Black' trails at CyB arnt that hard they are good fun tho. We took beginners on BSOs round last year and they enjoyed it so much new (proper) bikes were purchased and they enjoyed it even more this year.

rupertpostlethwaite - Member

Hmm... I would say definitely coed-y-brenin! to me all mountain has to be rough enough to have to use a full suss.

Um. I do love CYB, but no.

"he was gob smacked at how technical it was"

It's fair to say I was impressed by the degree of armouring and glad of the comfort afforded by rear suspension. But were there really many sections that made you stop and go "hmm, I'm scared"?

Ayers rock and the rock gardens on the black at Laggan scared me because I'd never seen anything quite like them on a built trail before.

Stuff like that, within and without trail centres, is probably more fun on a slack bike. But you still need to pedal up so that's my concept of AM. The new DH trails at Blaenau may qualify as AM it there is a route to pedal up.

I thought Blaenau was supposed to be a DH park type affair.

I think we all know what the OP means. He wants to know which trail centre is most like riding a real mountain and it's a fair question.

Personally I don't really like trail centres that much, which confuses me as many of the trails are actually great. The natural (non trail centre) riding does it for me as it's more about adventure and riding stuff not designed for bikes. I think it's a mindset thing, a feeling of remoteness and being close to nature.

You know what to expect at trail centres but riding in wilder areas can spring up more surprises. Go to Glentress and you know that at some point you're going to see some bell end do a bunny hop or something in the car park then look around to see how many people saw his amazing skills.

Kirroughtree black is probably the closest thing to a mountain I've ridden at a trail centre. I'd still much rather ride my local trails though even if they are a bit thin on the ground and limited at times.

Ayers rock and the rock gardens on the black at Laggan scared me because I'd never seen anything quite like them on a built trail before.

A few years ago I approached them on a borrowed full suspension bike and thought 'how does anyone ride that?'

In the last few months I've done it clean on a fully rigid bike. It's a great trail to test your self on and measure your progress.

Laggan does sound like an AM experience,and is on my list to tick off!

what about trying sherwood pines?

Laggan also gives yo a fair bit of the "out in the mountains" feel as well as a fair degree of technical difficulty and its not as manicured as some.

Laggan is a very pleasant day out.

Going back to the original question, I would agree that CyB is the most "all mountain" centre in Wales because it's the rockiest, and the less skilled rider like me would definitely be better off on a FS bike there. But it's still pretty tame compared to proper mountains and easily doable on a HT (pack some spare tubes though).

I suppose Brechfa and Llandegla could be classed as a "canal path with features", apart from the hills. The others are mostly pretty smooth too, which is nice when on a HT.

Looking at google its ****in miles awayfrom me!

A trail centre is always going to a canal path with "features".

More or less all the trail centres I've been to have been smooth paths [s]followed[/s] [i]interrupted[/i] by 'Technical Trail Features' (TTFs for short) or a tight switchback in case someone picks up an unsafe amount of speed. CyB is the worst offender in my mind - I hated it. I'm surprised people think it's technically difficult, perhaps I should have been more impressed by my girlfriend when she rode all of the MBR trail on her second time out on a mountain bike 😆

Everything I hate about trail centres is the exact opposite in the peak district. Calling the peak district a trail centre? Just... no.

[i]Everything I hate about trail centres is the exact opposite in the peak district.[/i]

I beg to differ. Ride from the Woodbine cafe along nice smooth trails/bits of road, up to the top of the 'Beast'. That's like a smooth bit before a tech section. Then go on the road to the bottom of Hagg farm; Ooh look, another smooth bit followed by a tech section. Repeat ad nauseam, finishing with a nice descent, perhaps down Cavedale and ride to the car park...

The over familiarity of the Peak is exactly like a trail centre, right down to the silly names...

Peaks? You don't see sights like this at Trail Centres

[img] [/img]

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or
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[img] [/img]

🙄

Go to a bloody airshow then, or even better join up. Getting a ride in a chinook is ace. What's the best/gnarliest descent in the peaks considered to be?

Parkin Clough.

[img] [/img]

Taken from:
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/i-think-ive-found-the-most-extreme-dh-in-hopepeaks

Aw, come on; that's called the 'Roooty tunnel of death' as a descent or 'Climb out of Mordor' as an ascent...

Look pretty tricky. Is that the one that hardly anyone can actually ride? (and is a footpath)

The over familiarity of the Peak is exactly like a trail centre, right down to the silly names...

What I don't understand is [i]why[/i] trail centres in the UK have to be so unmitigatingly dull. Whistler is just a trail centre with lifts - why hasn't anyone tried to build a UK version of A-line or Dirt Merchant? The North Shore in Vancouver has a vast network of trails, people ride up and down on their all mountain bikes, I'd go as far as saying [i]all[/i] of the trails there are more technical than anything you'll find in a UK trail centre.

UK trail centres have hundreds of thousands of pounds ploughed into them - there's so much potential to build something awesome. And yet we have 20 or so trail centres across the country, each more bland than the last.

At least it keeps a proportion of the idiots out of [i]MY[/i] peak district.

'AM' bike is probably the best weapon.

House!

Roadhouse!

Look pretty tricky. Is that the one that hardly anyone can actually ride? (and is a footpath)

Yeah it's fairly steep. There are a few descents like that - where getting down in one piece is the goal. In that respect it's more like a trials section than a downhill trail. It may be one of the gnarliest bits but it's not the [i]best[/i] IMO. My favourite bits of the Peak are faster than that.

[i]I can go as fast or as slow as I decide is safe[/i]

No you can't, because the trails are shared.

...and as for UK not like Whistler shocker 🙄

[i]Your[/i] Peak district! LOL, it's actually not yours, it's shared, and so give over with the 'local trails for local people' cobblers.

I'm trying to point out that attitudes like yours are hilarious; you think that because there are no little signs at the start of trails or features, that some how this makes the area better than a trail centre...and that you are somehow better than others who choose to ride elsewhere.

Hmm, that reminds me of a track down coed-y-brenin, and that's only a red route! They wouldn't have black routes for nothing! Its like a warning to all mountain bikers warning not to ride unless you are extremely skilfull bike handler! 🙂

why hasn't anyone tried to build a UK version of A-line or Dirt Merchant?

This. We need more trails with proper jumps and drops in. The guys who dig and ride at Woburn have the right idea but obviously there's not enough of a hill to have long runs.

The North shore couldn't be more different to anything we have here (or ever could have); it's pretty much in a city where there is a MASSIVE MTB culture, they are large mountains (most are bigger than ben nevis), the trails are hand made for people living where freeride originated.
We are too far behind and have too much H&S/litigation to have trails like this. The fact that your mrs rode MBR 2nd time out and it's still challenging/fun to skilled riders is just good design (her 1st ride out must have been in the peaks). If you found it dull, you weren't riding it fast enough.
The UK could never have anything like the north shore. The FC would be getting sued all the time and the less experienced would have nowhere to ride (as there aren't enough trails/finance to have greens/reds/blues everywhere)
Trail centres aren't perfect, I find them too crowded in the summer when the fair weather riders come out but they're brilliant places to ride especially for people who don't live in the lakes or peaks.

Of course I'm sometimes limited by other trail users but actually it's not that common to meet other people, and because the peak district isn't a scalextric track, people can pass each other easily. So yeah I'd say I can go as fast or as slow as I choose.

I'm not pretending to be 'local', anyone is welcome to enjoy the peak as much as I do. I just think it's a good thing that the area isn't thronging with mountain bikers all the time. In the same way I'm sure the people that ride Llandegla are grateful that it's not overrun with people.

You've got me completely wrong. I'm not [i]ideologically[/i] against trail centres as in places built for the sole purpose of riding bikes. In fact I know they can be great (see the Whistler/ Vancouver thing). I've just never ridden a UK trail centre I particularly enjoyed.

I'd actually quite like to ride at Woburn. It seems like those guys have got the right idea (if not the right landscape).

I understand why we probably won't have anything like the North Shore of Vancouver in this country because of land ownership problems, access rights etc. However I'm sure Whistler and all the other big resorts know about the risks of litigation, and they clearly manage that risk. From what I can tell, Canada's liability laws are quite similar to the UK's. C'mon, even the USA (the Land of the Lawsuit) has bike parks.

If you found it dull, you weren't riding it fast enough.

Yeah, I've heard that point before. But see my above point about speed limitations in trail centres by design. They simply wouldn't work if people could chose their own speed on the descents - and as such there are a lot of engineered speed restrictions like tight switchbacks and short segment downhills interspersed with uphill bursts.

[i]I've just never ridden a UK trail centre I particularly enjoyed.[/i]

...and that's fine.

I'm just gently poking fun at those who assume that the trails they ride are superior because they aren't in a trail centre; it's all riding, and if half the features at Llandegla where available on a route in the Peak, it wouldn't make them 'better'. The mentality is just the same; drive to point A, go round trail XX, go to cafe, drive home.

Mountain biking, for better or for worse, has developed a dependency on the car and trail centres are an extension of that.