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guys,
I am new to mountain biking (18 months) and have graduated onto doing 'proper' rides after doing regular local routes with minimal offroad sections, broken up with cycle ways and a bit of road.
I did the MBR trail of the year at Church stretton incorporating minton batch a couple of weeks ago.
I managed 80% of the ride all bar the uphill drag out of Cardingmill valley onto the top of the Long Mynd, it was just too uneven for me to get up clean.
The bridle ways on the top were fine but when it came to Minton Batch I found it very challenging to ride although fun, It was just like riding in a channel, it was about 10-12 inches wide in many places but the track was below the surface level by a good 4-6 inches in places meaning that the pedals would catch when spinning.
how are you supposed to be able to ride that, or is the trail in such a bad state of errosion given its recently published fame?
Any advice appreciated.
Thanks
Colin
Riding in a narrow 12inch gully is not singletrack riding.
And if you were clipping your pedals then it will probably be difficult for any rider.
You're better off picking your lines and trying to ride outside of the gully.
Yup, that's a rut, I hate them too, I get totally psyched out.
The drag out of carding mill is tough. Don't worry about it, just see as it a challenge if you return
Downhill rut singletrack, you've just got to carry as much speed as your mind will let you and pedal where theres room to, else pedals level
I rode Long Mynd last summer and came off a couple of times flying down Minton Batch with too much speed. The single track is very narrow in places and if you lose your front wheel over the edge or get stuck in a rut your toast. I also came off on the other decent (can't remember the name) so it really wasn't my day. Only damage done was grazed knees and elbows but it sure knocks your confidence coming off on what looks to be straight forward single track 😯
james+1
This was explained to me:
Because one is anxious about the rut, one stares at it. It's called target fixation and it stops you looking ahead along the trail. With less idea of what is ahead, you slow down and this makes you wobble and need to pedal in the rut... and so on... It's not just ruts: any unusual trail feature can cause this and half the battle is overcoming it. My test piece rut is "The Chimney" on the Quantocks.
So when you feel this anxiety, trust you peripheral vision* to deal with the rut and make a concerted effort to look up where you are going next! Your speed and stability will quickly increase and you wont need to pedal; you will flow.
*FYI peripheral vision makes up all your brain can see away from the bit you use for staring at things. It's what stops you falling when you walk down the stairs, you need it for juggling, and it will spot tigers jumping out of the hedge beside you. The pixel resolution is lower, but it has very fast processing of movement. It's much better at seeing the moving trail under your wheel that the conscious part of your vision.
What Buzz said and speed is your friend in a rut, the faster you go the less likely you are to crash in a rut as the bike will hit the sides and just bounce allong, at slow speeds you try to compensate too much and end up jamming the wheels against the edge and going OTB. The downsides of goign fast is when you do crash it generaly hurts a lot more.
If you can avoid pedalling then do so. Its quite downhill so not pedalling is fine, when I did it level pedals was OK.
Cheers folks I shall he
ed the advice and see how I go!
What is that mysterious force that draws you into the side of a rut and keeps you there until you crash?
There's often ample room in the middle but some gravitational pull draws you to one sidewall repeatedly.
No it doesn't draw you in, it stops you escaping. Being at the edge stops you being able to steer away