Forum menu
It is everyone
Oh aye, and it's compounded by everyone going to the same place. Cat Bells is a spin out from Keswick, The cheeky I rode on Sunday was a spin out from the CP and café at Ladybower,
It never fails to be massively obvious to me that everyone is on Snowdon and you can have Cadair Idris to yourself.
The science shows that bikes cause no more erosion than walkers (unfortunately my bookmarks for the peer reviewed papers showing this aren't on my work computer). What causes an increase in erosion is an increase in use.
In steep, rough terrain like the Lakes and the Highlands there will always be routes around certain features. Most of the munro hikes I do have something in the route guide saying "alternatively, avoid this bit by leaving the path and trekking around" - you get there and a walking chicken line has developed. People will have done this on Ullock Pike on foot as well as on bikes. If you look on Google Earth, there's braiding up Ullock Pike in 2003. Basically everywhere there's a steep bit there's multiple paths round. That wasn't cyclists.
More people are using the Lakes after the pandemic. There are more walkers, but I'd expect there to be a much larger increase in mountain bikers given its increase in popularity and e-bikes. It's a big hill with a nice smooth climb up it very close to one of the main towns in a National Park. Of course there's increased use, and that has led to increased erosion.
You can see the same thing happening on steep bits of Ben Lomond where there's a well built path - it's not cyclists that are doing this, to ride on the grass at the side would make life so much harder. What are you going to do, ban walkers from it? Fence the path so it's a corral? Of course not.
https://goo.gl/maps/xiE1C5fmC7zJwPR36
It's similar on the route up Sgorr Gaoith. There's two distinct paths running in parallel to each other, and it's not even that popular a route. They were there when I first went up there on a bike and you can see it on Google Earth on the earliest high res images (2006). It's now a popular route with MTBers but looking back to 1985 there's no significant changes to the path since MTBs started using it regularly about 8 years ago.
https://goo.gl/maps/b7nqHuW5kmecbr8R9
Removing anyone's access from the hills isn't acceptable in my view (despite the fact that I think e-mtbs are an environmental disaster and shouldn't be allowed). If people want to walk and cycle up Skiddaw, let them. But erosion will be a part of that. Mountains are the most eroded environments on earth, and I don't think there's anything we can do to stop that.
E-bikes are incredibly destructive and probably should be banned in the same way that motorbikes are (not that that stops the motorbikes!). Controversial I know but everywhere around Todmorden and Hebden is getting trashed. There's a 30ft wide muddy bog which runs parallel to the Stoodley Pike rock garden, which is basically the result of e-bikers who can't be arsed to ride the actual trail and instead just plough their way across the moor. I don't want to exclude riders who need e-bikes, but from what I can see it's basically become an excuse for lazy fat middle aged men to pretend they're not riding a motorbike.
The damage e-bikes cause is going to make gaining access to the footpaths much more difficult IMO. Walkers and those who are anti-bike are going to point to the damage and say 'look, we were right'. They'll be the death of mountain biking.
Oh here we go 🤣
There’s a 30ft wide muddy bog which runs parallel to the Stoodley Pike rock garden, which is basically the result of e-bikers
FWIW, there's been 30' wide bogs next to every puddle I've ever ridden or walked through because ramblers don't like to get their boots muddy (as it can make dainty tea room stops contentious I assume) so walk round the ever expanding bog expanding or further.
Stoodley might be an exception but thus has it ever been since long before mountain bikes were a thing let alone ebikes.
They’ll be the death of mountain biking.
Someone somewhere has been saying this since Methuselah was a lad. 🤣
The problem with e-bikes is that when it's wet and muddy, a lot of climbs become unrideable forcing you to get off and walk. Not on an e-bike, you just put it in trail/turbo and churn your way up, carving a 2.6-2.8in wide channel in the process. It's no different to the damage done by motorbikes just on a smaller scale, but amplified by the greater number of e-bikers to motorbikers. The only saving grace is that e-bikes are hard to manhandle over styles, but for trails not protected by such barriers they're a disaster. I'm pretty sure one day they'll be banned in the same way motorbikes are, but when that happens they'll also ban normal bikes too.
They won’t ban e-bikes. They wouldn’t be able to enforce it. They can’t stop bikes riding footpaths.
The thread does make me think we aren’t helping ourselves with greater access rights
but when that happens they’ll also ban normal bikes too.
I'll bet you 50p they won't. There's no appetite to ban pedal cycles from the countryside now and there never has been in all the years that bicycles have been a thing. If there's enough nuance to ban motorcycles (and let's not forget they were spun out of fitting an engine in a bicycle) then there's zero reason to make the same assumption now.
The thread does make me think we aren’t helping ourselves with greater access rights
Well, having had some insight, I would say ebikes are a long way down the list of things blocking progress toward improved access.
But if you meant erosion on Ullock Pike, you could turn it round and say it's evidence for demand for cycling on FPs, so let's just manage what's happening rather than try to prohibit it or keep turning a blind eye.
Keep the cheek, cheeky.
Ullock Pike regularly comes up on this forum. It's talked about in glowing terms. This also needs to be considered a contributory factor in its popularity.
All the decades I have been going up in the hills this has been an issue. Erosion of paths. Either they deteriorate into an eroded mess or something is done to provide a sustainable surface and decent drainage. Feet, bikes, dogs, animals all contribute.
Of course when paths are repaired the cry of "sacrilege! sanitsation! " is heard echoing round the hills from the warriers on gnarpoons 🙂
Its cyclical, paths are created by wear but become unsustainably worn, get repaired or collapse into a mess and traffic patterns change. Get involved in path repair, try to be sustainable in what you do -its not just walkers responsible for braiding and bog widening - MTBers do it all the time.
They can’t stop bikes riding footpaths.
Only because they don't try. Would we ride footpaths if we could be prosecuted and our bikes crushed as happens with motorbikes?
More traffic equals more impact irrespective of source. Duh.
Theres certainly more impact in some areas of my local hills as mtb increasingly ghettoises itself, but other trails in the wider network are returning to nature.
More than ever mtb seems to be focussing on honeypot sites and signature trails. IMO ebikes do lower the barrier of entry by giving some people - notably middle aged men with beer bellies round my way - the capability to get places where they otherwise wouldn't.
The consequence is seeing more traffic everywhere and disproportionally more impact in sensitive areas.
Anyone who thinks ebikes don't have more of an impact is not looking at the evidence. The bikes are heavier, the riders are heavier, the ground pressure is greater and the power output is 4 times greater.
The argument for responsible use of ebikes is even more important than it is for regular mtb, but we won't see it, and regulation won't be able to effectively segregate powered or unpowered, so when it comes it will be applied to all bikes.
and regulation won’t be able to effectively segregate powered or unpowered, so when it comes it will be applied to all bikes.
Banning cycles from the countryside has been the favourite subject of every Eeyore on a MTB website since the creation of the internet that I've lost track of the numbers of times I've been told it's literally just around the corner.
Many moons ago you only knew of good cheeky trails by word or mouth unless you were local and happened across them. Everything else was guide books and they, understandably, stuck to the UKs rights of way system. And it was that way for years.
Then we got Strava, Trailforks, Komoot sharing where these places are. Coupled by "Shredits" on You Tube, Internet Chat Rooms and Social Media inspiring us to go there. Plus we were sold more capable Gnarpoons and Ebikes making everything easier.
It is of no surprise whatsoever that we now find more and more people in these places and the resultant erosion.
I’ve lost track of the numbers of times I’ve been told it’s literally just around the corner.
Agreed, I don't think its round the corner. It'll pop up at individual sites where the acrimony is highest and its easy to lay bans and enforce them. Leith Hill type areas perhaps.
Enforcement is very tricky to acheive. For the sake of the very high amount of cheek I ride, long may this continue...
I'm with those that suggest going up and fixing it. If not f*** the fells might...
That’s is my observation. Not the bike as such, but the volume of riding it facilitates.
+1
This isn't some local loop on a FC hillside. It's a descent that requires ~3000ft of climbing in one hit to access, and there's no short cuts or halfway trail crossings where you can just do laps of the good bits, it's all the way to the summit (bar litterly a few hundred meters of plateau to the trig point) and down the other side. That's more climbing than Snowdon (because you start much closer to sea level). It's steep (in places) too.
It's not a ride that even someone local would do more than occasionally. It's an exhausting half day at least, with plenty of hike a bike even if you're fit.
An e-bike however would breeze up 95% of it, there's one awkward 100m section where the track goes steeply up then turns up a step which is the only bit I can recall where fitness (or electrons) + skill would be needed equally.
If there's been increased traffic the last few years, then it's almost certainly e-bikes. It's just not a ride any normal rider would do.
It’s just not a ride any normal rider would do.
I'd consider myself a normal rider and I rode up Skiddaw. I then rode back down the BW 🙂
Blimey, it was 8 years ago!
I’d consider myself a normal rider and I rode up Skiddaw. I then rode back down the BW
When I were a lad it's exactly the sort of ride all normal riders did, it was all riding which would have been a lovely hikes or two.
Only weirdos rode in small circles in the woods.
It’s just not a ride any normal rider would do.
Yes it is.
My first Skiddaw was after work one summers evening, another when I first met mrs_oab who rode it on a ridged Saracen and canti brakes...(natch).
I’d consider myself a normal rider and I rode up Skiddaw. I then rode back down the BW 🙂
I've done it a couple of times too.
I was going to add the caveat *more than once a year or so.
Simply put there's less exhausting, more spaced out climbs/descents if you want a 4+ hour Lakes Ride. Which means for most people on an annual trip it's not the one you'd pick. You'd go up Borrowdale, or do the Caldbeck / Uldale Fells loop nextdoor.
Yes it is.
My first Skiddaw was after work one summers evening
Lots of people do Snowdon in an evening too after the ban finishes.
Doesn't make it a normal/regular ride even if you lived in North Wales.
If you live here, Skiddaw and down Ullock or Carlside is a regular ride.
This isn’t some local loop on a FC hillside. It’s a descent that requires ~3000ft of climbing in one hit to access, and there’s no short cuts or halfway trail crossings where you can just do laps of the good bits, it’s all the way to the summit (bar litterly a few hundred meters of plateau to the trig point) and down the other side.
It's easy enough to save 200m of climbing by getting dropped off at the top of the road compared to starting in Keswick. I rode the bridleway up and down a couple of years ago and I don't think an e-bike would have made the loose slog up Lonscale Fell any more pleasant.