[Closed] Lovely looking bit of new trail... don't you agree?

Nice video...

Nice video...

I watched with the sound off. I saw fluorescent bicycles, gnarly skids, not much decking, and fullface helmets.

Did I miss any words of wisdom?

However that trail looks like it was designed for novices or people with some sort of OCD desire for deadly dull looking boardwalk.

Seriously the pictures don't do it justice! The boardwalk stuff can be steep, has a few interesting cambers, a steep short and fun climb on it, a few drops / steps and some places to get a bit of air. Its not dull - it might not be your cup of tea but its not dull!

After the boardwalk you get some very very nice rocky sections, reminded me a bit of sections of laggan or contin/strathpeffer trails. Steep slabs, some general rocky descents and then it drops to a nice spookywoods at glentress akin section to the car park and gondola station!

I have ridden nearly all of the 7 stanes reds, laggan red, strathpuffer route, and a whole pile of local trails, a lot of the routes in Kenny Wilson's book and I would say that its the hardest thing I had ridden.

However - i don't know if its worth a trip all the way from London. Next time your in Scotland though with a bike its worth a visit!

Cheers,

David.

i wish they would show some imagination when building wooden trails

I think a good deal of foresight has been shown by the designers in making something that's not too nutso.

Otherwise there would inevitably be tears when some of the forum heroes off here come up from London to ride it, exercise poor judgement of weather conditions and their abilities, and end up in a broken heap on an exposed mountainside in the middle of nowhere. 🙂

imagination doesnt mean danger

i wish they would show some imagination when building wooden trails

Not many words there, but that's the opinion I'm listening to and agreeing with.

I've ridden it. It's total rubbish. The boardwalks are more interesting than usual, but still incredibly tedious. You're on them and nothing is going on, except that at any second you might get blown off because its built on the windiest bit of the hill. But the biggest risk is that you'll fall asleep and fall off.

The rock sections don't fit together very well and the trail doesn't flow at all. now I'll accept that when I did it it was incredibly windy and it would have been almost acceptable perhaps without the wind. BUT it's always bloody windy up there on the windiest bit of a very windy hill.

You've travelled all the way to Fort William and they have a proper mountain bike descent there too. Why the hell would you waste your time on this?

The thought crossed my mind also that the Gondola might close because it is too windy on the red run, when the black is still perfectly serviceable, so the real riders then lose out. They do seem incredibly trigger happy when it comes to closing the course. When we went up it shut an hour early with no explanation and the Gondola still running.

Regarding the bike shop there; it's also complete ****. Last time we had any involvement with them they charged my mate £40 to hire some Giant cheapo FS bike with v-brakes and no damping. Then charged him another £35 when the inevitable crash happened and the seat popped a rail. Then we saw them put the seat in a vice and pop the rail back in.

And the woman selling tickets, yes I do know what I'm doing, yes I've ridden the course loads of times, yes I'm in the minority because I'm wearing jeans, but I think if you check you'll find that they are in fact thicker material than all these other chaps are wearing. Grrrrrrr!

where is the trail in question, behind the ikea stuff?

Go on then Jedi, how would you make that more interesting?

Boardwalk stuff seems a complete waste of money to me, TBF I have not ridden that but I've ridden the stuff at Laggan and Dalbeattie.

Why spend so much building something like that that is not even remotely interesting or challenging?

I actually agree with Jedi - most boardwalk stuff in this country (uk) tends to be a bit dull: They could try offering different lines, maybe including a skinny line, maybe a see-saw or two, a steeper line, whatever.
Also, what is the surface like? It's not covered in chicken wire is it?

i am in fact looking into doing this uk wide for trail centers

Trade secrets then? 😉

LOL at Dr Do. I don't know of anyone who has ridden the trail and not really enjoyed it. If that boardwalk was in London they could charge twice the price for that alone and it would be mobbed.
The woodwork nay sayers should go have a play at Balnain unless the FC H&S dept have taken all the skinnys and see saws out of there too.

The most annoying thing for me is that I live sooooooo very far away from all this stuff - if anyone builds a bridge over a ditch here in the south-east the FC and H&S have a heart attack and order it to be taken down.

I really hope you succeed Jedi and I think most trails centres would benefit dramatically from some imagination.

You aren;t going to get proper wooden trails in the South unless you go to a private venue like Esher, but the FC aren't anti- it as far as I can see. This is from a really popular trail in the Midlands.

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If there's a dearth of "North Shore" on trails in the South it's because it's ridiculously expensive and slow to build, and it goes rotten and needs ripping out every couple of years.

Did the dalbeattie boardwalk last weekend, it was rather long and tedious. But I'm not too keen on ANY boardwalk because I find it either boring OR the exact opposite - designed to be ridden at one pace and one pace only (usually faster than I want to!) so it screws up a ride if there are not alternatives. The ideal use, IMO, I found in Slovenia where it was short (50ft sections to navigate impossible drops/sections, with the odd jump or drop thrown in, rather than a specific part of the course.

Also, what is the surface like? It's not covered in chicken wire is it?

Nope - its not!

I don't know of anyone who has ridden the trail and not really enjoyed

I've ridden it, it's gash.

Also, what is the surface like? It's not covered in chicken wire is it?

Nope - its not!

So how do they achieve grip? Or isn't there any?

Did the dalbeattie boardwalk last weekend, it was rather long and tedious

My point exactly - if they used a bit of imagination, it would be more interesting.

chicken wire is best for grip.
if builders had a maintenance ethic the problems of it ripping up after a while wouldnt be an issue

I think the word you're looking for there is "budget" not "ethic". I'm sure there would be plenty of people out there willing to do the work if they got paid. 🙂

paulrockliffe - Member

I don't know of anyone who has ridden the trail and not really enjoyed

I've ridden it, it's gash.

rocky, it's nowhere near as bad as you make out. yeah the single time that we rode it it was completely turd because of the wind - we were more focused on trying to stay on the boardwalk rather than actually riding it. and the same with the non-board sections - i think the flow of the trail was limited by the wind. saying that there were sections where you had to scrub off loads of speed, whether it was windy or not, due to the technicality of the trail. i mean the parts where the trail used natural rock formations. but i don't think that is particularly a bad thing - it does feel a like you are riding on natural trails compared to many other trail centre trails. if they had just dug in to the hillside and laid down a weatherproof trail you'd all be complaining about that as well. you have to take it for what it is, not the best trail in the world and probably not somewhere that you would travel specifically to ride, but worth a couple of runs down if you are visiting Aonach Mor.

chicken wire is best for grip.

That is true, but it also shreds you if you fall off on it. It's still better than nothing.

i think they are painted with paint with sand in it - i may be wrong but there is definitely some attepmt to increase the grip. still got the feeling my front wheel was going to wash out at any second when it was raining though...

paint/glue sand mix last less time than chiken wire

[i]You aren;t going to get proper wooden trails in the South [/i]

chicksands anyone??

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most of that is no longer there

Looks to me like they've done the best with the available terrain. Fact that the woodwork section is longer than most dh trails in the south seems to make people think that is the whole trail!
Don't see how they couldd've made it mroe exciting/imaginitive without it being ridiculously expensive.

The sleeper up to Fort William is excellent.

Mad girl arrives in Scotland
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Somewhere on Rannoch Moor on the way home
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N.b. other trails are available in the area. Very easy to find something utterly wonderful.
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TM

The thought crossed my mind also that the Gondola might close because it is too windy on the red run, when the black is still perfectly serviceable, so the real riders then lose out

😕

They close the gondola because the wind is too high for the actual gondola, not because it's too windy for the trail.

jedi - Member

chicken wire is best for grip.
if builders had a maintenance ethic the problems of it ripping up after a while wouldnt be an issue

Mr Agreeable - Member

I think the word you're looking for there is "budget" not "ethic". I'm sure there would be plenty of people out there willing to do the work if they got paid.

the builders shouldnt build if they dont maintain.

So how do they achieve grip? Or isn't there any?

They are painted if I remember right? It was very wet the day I went so grip was pretty poor.

A lot of negativity from people here... If its not what you would have done then find a bit of mountain and build what you want!

I take the view that slagging someone else's work as poor and that you could do better can only be justified if you actually *have* done better! For example I took a fair bit of stick on a different thread for something I did from a few people that proved they had done better - fair enough! I learned a lot from that! But slagging the trail without riding it and without having built something better seems a bit pointless. Loads of opinion and little fact. Nothing to back up some statements made. Lots of willy waving.

Oh - hang on - Im on the STW forum here? Ignore my last paragraph... 😛

dmiller, im not slagging it!

it looks well good to me. i'm deffo gonna try and get up there

Jedi - then I have totally miss-read your posts... sorry!

I wish the internet had a "pint in a pub" button. One press of the button and everyone in the forum magically appears in a pub, pint in hand, for a chat.

So much easier that way!

I'd have said the words you're looking for are "willing volunteers".

"indentured slaves", surely? 🙂 I hear ya completely about the enthusiasm thing, many mountain bikers just don't seem to get the connection between building something, maintaining it, and having somewhere good to ride. A bit more of the dirt jumper mentality of "you dig, then you ride" wouldn't go amiss IMO.

The problem with planky stuff is that the raw materials work out a lot more expensive than conventional trails, even if you get volunteers to do the actual building.

im talking about chickn wire and its use as grip agent.
plus i do have shore building experience .
am in talks with building a wooden trail at a trail center too .

It's 2 hours from me. I haven't ridden it yet because there are heaps of other brilliant trails between me and it. I'm going to ride it next year, and the black - and heaps of trails between me and it. I sometimes wish I lived down South so I could spend more time on the internet whinging about trails I haven't ridden rather than going out and riding trails. 😛

It's gash

Blimey, you're a tough person to please, where's the mecca that you compare it to?

im talking about chicken wire and its use as grip agent.

I think that a grippy paint would be more skin friendly... perhaps get a sample of each out in the local woods and see how they handle winter and what local riders think?

[I]The problem with planky stuff is that the raw materials work out a lot more expensive than conventional trails, even if you get volunteers to do the actual building.[/i]
depends where you're building it. build that far up a (proper) hill and it becomes very expensive to helicopter in enough rocks to build a [b]sustainable[/b] trail across a boggy hillside. as was pointed out a while back, boardwalk like that is a lot easier/cheaper to remove in future too.

slagging the trail without riding it and without having built something better seems a bit pointless.

You know, in the sober light of day as my nerves jangle with a 2.5 bottles of red wine hangover I do feel a bit bad about being so relentlessly negative about the trail and someone's handywork, especially having never ridden it. I do still think it is a bit of an eyesore though, and more suited to the Tate Modern rather than a Scottish hillside.

yes it's very expensive and time consuming, and (in our case) FE structural engineers have to get involved.
It can be done with free materials off the floor tho:
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