Ullock Pike Erosion - WTF!

e bikes... what used to be a 2 hour slog is now a quick lap from Keswick. Plus the inevitable drop in ability once the barrier to entry is lowered means chicken lines galore.

Noticed a lot of trail ribboning when up there a year or two ago.

I'm not sure it's productive to point the finger at ebikers or lower-skilled riders, but it might be worth conisdering that trail braiding can be caused primarily by walkers. And there's been a surge in walking in recent years too.

Its almost as if there may be reason why it's a footpath, and not a bridleway. You reap what you sow and all that.

endoverend
Full Member
Its almost as if there may be reason why it’s a footpath, and not a bridleway

The only reason I can think of is "crazy, weird, English laws"

If I had to guess I'd think it's more than likely a result of the massive increases in both footfall and riding. Pedestrians and cyclists often don't mix well which can mean a lot of alternative lines not to avoid features so much as people.
Add to that the seemingly exponential increase in attitude challenged users of the country side who won't slow down/give way/be nice say hi to anyone since lock down (oddly I've not noticed it of horseyists, but it seems to have bloomed in just about every other group) and I'm not surprised it gets wider and more worn.

Ullock has long been popular and erosion is a massive downside of that. There's a reason so many paths in the LDNP are Covered with cobbles.

Plus the inevitable drop in ability once the barrier to entry

Really not sure I get this, which barrier are you talking about?

The only reason I can think of is “crazy, weird, English laws”

Or "not suitable for horses"

It may not be productive, but a question was asked and I gave the answer. It's not walkers that are creating cheat lines round steep features.

It’s not walkers that are creating cheat lines round steep features.

You've never seen a "walker" in heels or trainers have you? Since lock down there's plenty creating "cheat lines" round everything. Once they get walked in a bit anyone who didn't know the existing line is faced with a choice, often they take the most recently trodden one just because it's obvious, and often those lines end up either being "cheat lines" or to need to be rapidly corrected.

I wonder whether that natural barrier has been lost or at least lessened?

I was on what used to be a "less travelled" cheeky in the Peaks on Sunday and while it's been a while since I rode it, and it has become admittedly more exposed on YouTube, the amount of obvious bike erosion was really noticeable, and the only other bikes I saw all day (that side of the hill) were all e-bikes. Now I'm not going to say it's just e-bikes doing this damage, but it's pretty clear that they've made it more accessible to a wider audience

I used to be firmly in the "they do no more damage" party but faced with reality on Sunday was a bit of a wake up call I've got to admit

Really not sure I get this, which barrier are you talking about?

Hike a bike missions tend to only be done by experienced and committed riders. E bikes means less serious riders can get places, so the standard of riding decreases.

I used to be firmly in the “they do no more damage” party but faced with reality on Sunday was a bit of a wake up call I’ve got to admit

Do they cause more damage or do more people cause more damage?
One of those is fairly incontrovertible.

That ebikes might [probably do] mean more people that's not really the same thing ss ebikes causing more damage. A bit like cars don't cause more erosion on ullock but without a doubt there'd be correspondingly less of it if there were fewer cars.

I'm more than happy to blame 'Toooobers though, basis in fact or otherwise.

I don't think I would point only at eBikes - yes they are a rapidly growing number, but it seems just there are more of us on bikes.
A few magazine articles or InstaBangers from an 'influential' rider and boom the world and their bike is up there - riding in all sorts of weathers.

I remember walking a bit on Ullock back in the day - but I suspect folk would now just look for the new line...

@dangeourbrain, yes I see your point, I'd guess it's probably more people doing more riding (because e-bikes allow them to do more)

I’m more than happy to blame ‘Toooobers though, basis in fact or otherwise.

Most of the better ones are happy to not reveal where they're riding, and most are good enough riders so they don't chew the arse out of trails. The folks that go looking for those trails once the video's been published, less so on both counts. That genie is not going back in that bottle though.

Or “not suitable for horses”

Horse riders don't just head off up random trails, and horses can't read maps. Non-issue in countries that don't have the same access laws

I’d guess it’s probably more people doing more riding (because e-bikes allow them to do more)

That's is my observation. Not the bike as such, but the volume of riding it facilitates.

One of my good riding buddies has improved a huge amount in the last year since getting an E bike. The amount of descending we would do on a big Sunday ride he can now do on his lunch break, multiple times a week.

My gut is that it is bikers who have caused the damage. It used to be a clearly defined route up and down. You either took the narrow path around the slab or went right up or down it. It was a ride or walk binary choice.

I wrote channels but it is more like steep and loose deep run off gulleys that have been created. All it takes is a few folk heading off path so that can say they cleaned it and the die is cast. Once the rain water hits it, particularly on steep ground, the end effect is what we now have. Sadly, it becomes self perpetuating as folk then look to create more lines and the problem simply grows.

@mattoutandabout

Pretty sure this was the bit you and indeed most folk walked down.

@dangeourbrain and @cha****ng

You are of course right. Walkers do the same thing but in this case I would say the blame lies squarely at our door.

On a related vein, one thing I did notice when I had a full fat e bike on test was just how easy it is to misjudge trail conditions, particularly on wet grassy climbs, and end up powering up where you would finesse on a normal bike or simply get off and push up. The lack of feedback when you are able to just power through stuff and not, for want of a better phrase, feel the grip, was really off putting for me. I don’t want to be the guy who tears up the trail and leave it in a worse condition than I found it.

Cheers

Sanny

This is what the elitist haterz have been pointing out for some time.

The Strava heatmap for bike vs foot is interesting. Around where I assume the slab is: a) both those on bikes and foot are taking various lines b) the trace from bikes gets very faint, imply most walk it or go slow enough for their GPS to cut out.

In more general terms I think the push to sanitise trails to the point they are now half made road in many places encourages bikers to find footpaths for a bit more interest with the inevitable consequences on walker-biker interaction and trail wear.

It was a beautiful day- managed to get to 1350m above sea level on my paraglider above skiddaw, which gave a great view of the worsening erosion. I agree with others that the increased awareness via Strava/ heat maps and YouTube, plus the fact that skiddaw is almost custom made as a ridable summit for e-bikes, has increased the traffic with the results you have seen. Shame really, but I am not sure what the solution is.

Its almost as if there may be reason why it’s a footpath, and not a bridleway. You reap what you sow and all that.

It's a mistake to think any rational decision making has been made on the classification of footpaths and bridleways in the UK for their suitability.

Its all based on ancient use and thats it.

Its outmoded, inappropriate and responsible for the vast network of ROW that we have. Calling it Dickensian would be a significant modernising.

I think ebikes have massively opened up places like Ullock Pike to riders who would otherwise have written it off as too hard. Aside from the aforementioned slab, there is one corner in particular which always used to have a pretty gnarly drop in. There's no reason for walkers to go round, but there is now a second track to the side which is perfect for bikes. I'd say bikers are mostly responsible for starting cheat lines, then walkers follow and solidify the new tracks.

I've seen maybe one youtube video where the riders stick to the path and don't take cheat lines, all usually prefaced with a clickbaity title like "OMG we ride the most epic ridgeline in the uk!"

@TomB

I reckon you were above me as I was riding down. I was the tiny dot in the bright orange jacket. It was some day to be out eh?

Instagram as well, it looks great in a picture. That's where I first found out ullock pike thanks to #Lakesmtb. Not been yet though

I didn’t know about Ullock Pike until I read about it on STW, I then rode it next time I was in the Lakes.
Therefore its partly the fault of this forum.

Its all based on ancient use and thats it.

Often not even based on that but just on cursory assignment when the access act was passed. Hence why you can have bridleways become footpaths and back again as they cross authority boundaries and some areas with sod all bridleways and others with a lot.

the trace from bikes gets very faint, imply most walk it

Can you explain this line of thinking as I don't understand it.

Yeah easier to find the gnar than it use to be = more punters.

I think this is just the way it is now. Chicken and alternative lines galore over Ilkley Moore too.

Last time I was up there ~1.5 yrs ago I also noticed the erosion and had the same thoughts

Yeah easier to find the gnar than it use to be = more punters

This is true IMO however there are more reasons than ebikes (not that your quote suggested ebikes were the only reason.

In no particular order:
- ebikes
- more capable bikes
- social media (inc STW forum, Strava, insta, YT etc.)
- generally more people looking to live the outdoor lifestyle - it's a lot cooler than it used to be (when I started, all cyclists including me were considered weird)
- enduro style riding becoming popularised (rather than ye olde XC and/or DH)

all of the above are driving more traffic to multiple honeypot areas (not just Ullock). Some of the same above factors are driving similar problems for other outdoor sports/passtimes e.g. bothying.

I don't really buy into the theory that ebikes open Ullock up to less capable riders. If I was a beginner then to be honest I would find the descent harder than the climb and probably be walking most of ullock down rather than inventing new chicken lines. I do however think eebs are part of the problem due to experienced riders doing more laps.

PS: I say this as someone who owns and eeb but also normal bikes. Ii have only ridden normal bikes down ullock.

PPS difficult to know what the fix is. Cat's out the bag.

Infact I do know what the fix could be. Byelaws banning bikes (i.e. criminally) from the honeypot areas.
+
More specific MTB trails (trail centres? or just tolerated off piste? not sure) through agreed forestry areas away from walkers where we can't offend other users with our mess (e.g. as per Golfie or any other number of places)

But we probably don't like that do we...

I guess the other 'solution' that will likely be foisted upon us, will be trail 'repairs' along with closing/fencing off all the other lines to allow then to recover.

Be interested to hear a Scottish perspective here, where riders have equal access to the same trails as walkers etc. Does everyone just tolerate and accept as inevitable the erosion that accompanies increased traffic, particularly in honey spot areas?

my daughter was walking in the lakes at the weekend.
she isnt a walker ( 1st time in the lakes ). she walked up Catbells.
first thing she said to me when she got home was ' bloody heck dad, the path up catbells had loads of people on ebikes on it. we had to keep moving over to walk'.

my theory being this, as a conventional mtb rider, when i rode in thel akes, i stuck to BW's and legal paths. reason being, footpaths were usually too hard/narrow/steep/poorly serfaces/illegal.
i think a lot of people riding ebikes around places are pretty new to the sport, and possibly dont really know/care about rights of way.
my daughters comments showed this on sunday.
so, new riders + lack of knowledge about ROW + powerfull ebike = lots of erosion on easily damages paths.

i may be wrong.

I didn’t know about Ullock Pike until I read about it on STW, I then rode it next time I was in the Lakes.
Therefore its partly the fault of this forum.

+1

It was harder than I expected from here/yt and I was alone so ended up walking a good few bits. Was on a manual bike so did it count?

Edit - concur with the comment on the peak district too, the steeps off win hill are lousy with ebikes, not so much the rest of the peak though, so maybe social media in that case is containing them to a mostly hidden wood?

The solution is so bloody obvious but it's unachievable because mountain bikers are too lazy (sorry, too busy...) i.e. put some effort into trail building/repairs (or at least advocacy or donations, if you genuinely, physically can't do trail work)

when i rode in thel akes, i stuck to BW’s and legal paths. reason being, footpaths were usually too hard/narrow/steep/poorly serfaces

There are plenty of hard/narrow/steep BWs and plenty of motorway-style footpaths in the Lakes. It's not a difficulty classification system.

Two things have happened - bikes are generally more capable on steep, rocky ground, so more riders want to try these lines, and ebikes have taken the sting out of some of the approaches, Ullock being an obvious example.

I suppose one solution is for local riders to try to block off the worst of the 'new' lines in the hope they recover a bit.

new riders + lack of knowledge about ROW + powerfull ebike = lots of erosion on easily damages paths.

I'd agree with that @ton. There was a bloke popped up on here a couple of years back promoting his ebike YT channel. He clearly didn't know what he was doing riding a load of footpaths round Leeds (not even fun ones!)
He basically got sent away tail between his legs from here, bit out of interest I occasionally look up what he's up to on YT out of interest (car crash TV)

He progressed to riding better footpaths and people pulled him up on it. Didn't seem to have any idea about trail classification. That he was on those trails was definitely enabled by ebikes, (however they weren't particularly hard trails, but they were sensitive)

Still kept the videos up on YT mind🙄

Skiddaw/Ullock is a local ride for me - I've been riding it for twenty-plus years and it's always changing. The biggest impacts I've witnessed come from the weather and walkers.

Two things have happened – bikes are generally more capable on steep, rocky ground,

I agree with this. So I'm blaming the enduro/LLS 150mm riding crowd now, as much as eBikes.. 😉

Interesting to hear of increased pressures and riders on places like Cat Bells. A place I wouldn't ride purely to avoid doing human slalom...

Yeah, riding Cat Bells during the daytime is just asking for trouble. Once the walkers have gone home though it’s a different story…

It was much better when no-one rode mountain bikes and there was no internet to encourage the people who didn't ride mountain bikes to ride mountain bikes. Trails were pristine and perfect. Now that mountain bikes exist and people ride them and, worst still, sites like this encourage people to ride them - the horror - mountain bikes are being ridden and causing erosion (though mostly when ridden by other people, not me, obviously). I am not sure what we can do about this other than banning mountain bikes and the internet

To be fair, it's questionable whether anyone here actually does ride mountain bikes any more, but let's put that to one side for now or simply use it to reinforce the point that whoever is causing that erosion it's not me/us.

TLDR: You are the traffic.

TLDR: You are the traffic.

Yeah a bit...But, MTB has been a thing for 30 years or more now, and I've always thought personally that the barrier to bigger take up of the sport has never been money - Ten grand bikes have been a thing for a couple of decades now, but physical capability. Not to blow our collective trumpet, but to enjoy the less beaten path you did need to be pretty fit.

There's no denying the fact that that barrier has been totally removed; what was a daunting prospect of hours of a slogging trek up a mountain side shouldering a 10kg bike just for a 5 minute descent has become accessible to just about everyone and it's a 20 min ride up, a glance at the view and a spin down the fastest way you can ready for another go. In lots of ways it's a great equaliser and it's to be welcomed, but there's a downside and it's more erosion, and that's going to have to be managed. You can lay some of the blame at YouTube and IG fo'shure and  even LLS 150mm + bikes, if you want but in the grand scheme of things, all of those pale in the face of the sales of e-bikes.

It’s easy to go oh it’s the e-bikes what done it, or oh no it’s not it’s the walkers. The bottom line is it’s more people up on the fells. E-bikes don’t help in that they increase accessibility and so numbers. But walkers are also a problem. Everyone seems to walk or cycle around the eroded edges to keep their shiny gear dry or ease their line. It isn’t an us vs them. We are the problem.

No doubt ebikes are contributing to the wear on the trails and I don't think real bikes should get off lightly either.

All bikes are wearing the trails especially as there are now thousands more people who bought bikes during lockdown and suddenly realise there's an outside world to explore.

They go to these places unprepared, make their own lines because they can't handle drops and steep sections and shocked when there's no cafe at the top.

It’s easy to go oh it’s the e-bikes what done it, or oh no it’s not it’s the walkers. The bottom line is it’s more people up on the fells. E-bikes don’t help in that they increase accessibility and so numbers. But walkers are also a problem. Everyone seems to walk or cycle around the eroded edges to keep their shiny gear dry or ease their line. It isn’t an us vs them. We are the problem.

Totally, and if it was me that first mentioned walkers then I was only doing so as a counterpoint to the OP.

It is everyone, and I'm sure there's a similar thread on a walking forum having a go at ignorant new walkers for causing trail braiding.