Arrrgggghh foresters stop wrecking trails pleeeease. You could have driven your cat-track logging machine anywhere through the wood. But you chose to drive right down the line of my singletrack!
I started clearing up all the debris today but it will take hours of work to clear a new line bypassing the tracks. At least the most important trails in the wood are still OK. But for how long!?
It'll be worse when they drive over your bridge.
I think we've had this discussion before, the woods are there primarily for the trees which do need harvesting from time to time otherwise there would be no woods.
legal trails? I suspect they have the right to be there. Do you?
By posting this thread, were you hoping that said foresters are:
A) STW regulars
B) browsing the web looking for comments about Foresters handy work
Where's got it now Buzz?
The machines tend to leave quite nice dual track you can race your mates on I find 🙂
Meh, all trials need a refresh now and then.
Build it back better.
It's not necessarily all bad. We had a bad attack of the foresters here a couple of years ago. After they'd gone it looked like the Somme so people made tracks anywhere they wanted. Now we have new tracks where we didn't have them before and as a bonus this year we've had a particularly spectacular display of foxgloves. Which is nice. 🙂
Scienceofficer: I'd guess it's Stockhill as there's been work planned there for a while as i recall.
The forestery work in Roeberrow resulted in better tracks than before as well as a very fast dual track near the old ruined cottage.
Eff You.......... 😉
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A. Forester
Yes they've been thinning and harvesting in Stockhill. AFAIK, Lord Waldergrave is very happy for people to treat his wood as a public amenity. Riding was off the menu today (am slightly ill) so I did an on-foot inspection of my previous small handiworks. Spent a couple of hours walking the lines, sawing and sweeping. There's quite a few hours re-routing and heavy labour needed to fix up a favourite section.
It could have been much worse: the important lines are fine. They're just blokes doing their job and I have no problem with the work. But they can cut their way in anywhere they like. So it does not seem difficult to avoid ploughing-up the nice walking and cycling trails then burying them in debris. It's like they say "oh look there's already a nice gap in the trees lets go in there...".
Sorry, just expressing some frustration. I have no expectation of any sort of informed or constructive reply 🙂
It happens in one of my local woods every year. We spend a couple of weeks angry and mourning the loss of "the best trail ever", and a month later our new lines is "the best trail ever" like Rio said. It's just one of those things. I will gladly hold my hand high and swear our latest one is the best ever though 🙄
I don't spend much time in Stockhill TBH, its the wrong side of the hills for me, and I don't really enjoy the tarmace slog to link it with any of 'Mendip proper'.
Of course, It has some fantastic singletrack, but in a couple of hours all the best bits are exhausted. I could go round and round like a hamster in a wheel, but I'm not really that sort of rider.
Here in the FoD our problem is with the FC . They have taken to putting gravel on tracks now they are signposting and grading evrything. Why do people come to a "wild" area and then want civilisation?
the woods are there primarily for the trees which do need harvesting from time to time otherwise there would be no woods.
strictly speaking there would (heh) be nothing BUT forest over much of this country had it not been chopped down 🙁
Gravel is a pretty dicey surface for bikes - I do wonder what they're thinking - FC did this in the New Forest too. Miles and miles of graveled 'family trails' where the little ones can barely stay on due to the excessive size and depth of the gravel.
"its the wrong side of the hills for me"
And the right side for me. Being small and fairly flat, it's only good for quick blasts or somewhere to go when feeling lazy. I'm getting overly proprietorial about it.
I'm off work today as the manflu continues. A gentle stroll up there this afternoon might help clear my lungs and I can start looking at a re-route.
Once the trees have been thinned its an idea opportunity to survey the land and plan new trails 😀
I'm getting overly proprietorial about it.
easy done when you've put a lot of work into something. change is not always necessarily good, but it does provide opportunity, even if that ends up being 'f*ck it, let's go build another one somewhere else'.
whatever you do now will have the benefit of experience.
And the right side for me.
I've Weston Woods for that, which is surprisingly technical and good for a blast for a couple of hours too.
I must admit, I was horrified when Rowberrow was trashed last year and the year prior to that, but, as has been said, the trails are back even better than they were before.
We've 'lost' treasured trails too, in the end trails come and go, but the riding rarely ceases 🙂