[Closed] Descender Bender @ mabie

Well one man's "sanitisation" is another man's "going round a 180 berm almost horizontal feeling the g forces" 😀

Monster101 - Member

Anyone agree?

Nope.

What's with all the bumps at CV now.? Is so you can pump the trail?? Seems to be all pump and no circumstance..
Don't see how that will help newbies to the sport either..

Mate was at Mabie yesterday he prefers the gnarly descent feels they have spoiled it

Spoke to a couple of people in the car park, they agreed! Liked the berms but the wide track before and after is poor!

My wee boy likes the re sculpted Carron Valley cannonball run but some of the pump rollers seem to be in odd places and they have removed the sharp turn and "that rock" 🙁 always gave the heart a flutter at full pelt

It's fresh machine-built trail, so it's wide and flat. Give it a year for the edges to encroach and the surface to wear in.

rode it on Tuesday. Never ridden there before so I don't know what it was like. Its different to what I normally do/like and defiantly felt more bike park than any of the other trail centres I've done. To be fair though, that's only Marin/Penmachno in Wales!!

Enjoyed it though.. bit short but good fun. Wouldn't make a special trip but if I'm passing again..

Where was the gnarly descent at Mabie before?

Agreed it should bed in better, however berm baby berm was outstanding from the get go and descender bender has more of a vertical drop

True dat. TBH Berm Baby Berm's a fantastic bit of work.

But does Descender Bender not retain bits of the old trail? (could be wrong but it felt that way, new bits wanged into an old track)

First couple of laps I didn't rate it but its grown on me, old surface was still better though.

Descender bender has been resurfaced and follows the old one. Of course you can miss out the sections and do an off-piste ultra slippy old school downhill should you so wish, which gets interesting in the wet, and of course you can find other ways to descend too, in a local stylee, not so far from the madding crowds.

all pump and no circumstance..

*polite applause*

Funny how the auld brain plays tricks on you. Mabie is my "home" trail and is where I started mtbing a few 😳 yrs ago. Rode the new section 4 times over the weekend and the "brain" had me sheeting myself/bike up for the auld trail which causes nae end of bother ❗
Have voiced my opinions to the guys responsible for the berms, doubles and various "features" which crop up on the trails....seems they no best what "clients" want.

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Thought the new section was good

Cheers mintimperial!

Here you go for anyone who wants to know what we're talking about.

Yeah, afraid I'm with you on this Monster101. Spoilt it. Much preferred it as it used to be, was a whole lot more entertaining, even on a hardtail. As you say trails are getting far too sanitized now. 🙁

FFS - its not sanitisation its repair,

Trails like this erode and wear getting looser and bumpier until the surface is gone when they then need extensive and expensive repair.

When repair by machine building ( as anything else is too expensive) you get a smooth surface until it beds in. its a cyclical process and will simply continue.

Erodes, repaired . moans. erodes repair moan ad nauseum.

TJ its not just a repair of the original surface though, new features have been added and the whole feel of the descent is different its as if it has been downgraded to blue.

There's repairing and there's repairing. In my view it didn't need to be so comprehensively "repaired", money could have been saved and put to good use where/when it was really needed.

TJ its not just a repair of the original surface though, new features have been added and the whole feel of the descent is different its as if it has been downgraded to blue.

I'd be really very surprised if anything like those new berms turned up on a blue route in the near future!

I don't have particularly strong memories of what that descent was like before the rebuild. I remember it had a few small berms and was fairly fast. It was quite an old bit of trail IIRC, the berms probably seemed bigger before Spooky Wood at Glentress got rebuilt (and similar trails sprung up in various places) and I expect it wasn't as rough when it was first built as it was before it got changed.

I would not be surprised if the logic behind the changes was to make something that was fast and bermy like how it used to be, but updated to reflect how many people are used to bigger berms and faster trails at trail centres these days.

Go to dalbeatie then, if you dont like Mabie, there is something for everyone in the 7 stanes.

I like the new section it flows much better than it previously did and as many have mentioned it will bed in and roughen up over time, though I do fear they may rebuild the elevator/bad step descent too which is a lovely rough, worn in piece of trail.

If you want harder, rougher technical descents then there are plenty around.

If you dont like it go get involved in the trailbuilding and put some effort in or shut up whining.

scruff - Member

If you dont like it go get involved in the trailbuilding and put some effort in or shut up whining.

TandemJeremy - Member
scruff - Member
If you dont like it go get involved in the trailbuilding and put some effort in or shut up whining.

x 100

When Rob had the Ae shop he did a survey after seeing the negative threads on here and elsewhere. He managed to get a group together and with support from Tally @ Upliftscotland started repairing/upgrading the bits that were highlighted in his survey. Sadly that group could not be sustained for various reasons. The repaired sections then got slagged for being too smooth, no pleasing some people 👿

For the moment there does not seem to be any mechanism or way to influence the way trail repairs/development takes shape.

Large ugly manmade feature in manmade forest shocker,

However it will all wash away come the summer deluges

In a few years the new section will have some vegitation on it and be a bit more rutted, it will look more part of the trails.

I am more worried about what happens once the funding vanishes for the trails, as i dont see the useless D&G council putting money in to them.

For a region that has so much going for it in terms of both mountain and road cycling its has very poor support from the LA.

^^^^^^^^^^^ 💡

For a region that has so much going for it in terms of both mountain and road cycling its has very poor support from the LA

It needs so much more.

This talk of sanitisation and reducing the section to blue grade had me a bit confused to be honest - i don't remember anything technical or challenging on this section of trail prior to the resurfacing?

Its wasnt technical or fast, its was a bit of a mess, hence why it got changed, and much for the better. It adds something to an ready nice flowing downhill, its a shame they couldnt connect the first section to the new section without the short bit of forest road that kind of stiffles it.

See, I have absolutely no memory at all of the old trail, it just got filed under generic trail centre stuff- I thought I remembered it, but it turned out I was remembering a bit of generic trail centre stuff at Ae instead.

Whereas the berms the size of houses, I will remember.

But yeah, if they mess up the Bad Step and the bits preceding it, I will be wroth, that's a lovely bit of trail and it's the sort of thing that the current techniques don't do well. Could possibly do with some sort of warning for the unwary- "Watch out, big **** off black feature right in the middle of a flowy red trail", perhaps- but still. Very good.

I love it. And I can also see the logic in why they build trails like this, It means all riders can ride it, the slower newbie riders rolling the doubles etc, and the more experienced riders hitting those at speed. Horses for courses though, some people won't like it, I appreciate that.

It's all biking.

Someone builds and maintains trails for you to ride and you have the cheek to bitch about it??? Some people don't appreciate how lucky they are.

Went to Mabie a few weeks ago. Rode the new berms. THought 'that was jolly good fun - isn't it great that they're still investing in the trails'. Went about the rest of my day.

Some people will never be happy, trail centres are the best thing to happen to mountain biking, without them the sport would on its @rse. Over the past 20 years trail centres have brought mountain biking to the masses with all the benifits in bike bevelopment that extra income brings.

Its so funny when people diss trail centres as if its stops them going out and doing 'real' mountain biking. On you go and leave the trail centres to people who appreciate them.

For those of you with poor memories this my video of what it was like in the olden days: [url] http://www.pinkbike.com/video/144099/ [/url]

Not ridden the new version yet so can't comment on the changes....

So from what I remember the trail was broken into three sections. The top part that was quite good. The second section after the fire road which wasn't that good, was too pedally and was getting cut up. And the third section down to the burn splash which was good fun.

Where are the new berms? Have they improved the whole descent or just patches of it?

Its the middle section that has been upgraded.

I have a video of doing it a few weeks ago, much improved. When i get a chance i might even upload it.

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14yr olds 1st time on both bike and trail

Random rider near end of section
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