Just seen this report on BBC NI about an event in Belfast today.

Now other than the biased anti mtb nature of the report it got me thinking. 2 individuals were interviewed with contrasting views on the damage mountainbiking does to the landscape. Both of which fairly obviously had 2 entirely contrasting opinions on it. Anyway I’m just wondering does anyone know of an independent study that’s been conducted anywhere, though really specifically in the British Isles, on trail erosion? And I guess more so one that contrasts erosion caused by different types of trail users?

Obviously I’m not anti mtb, as well I’m a keen mountainbiker, though it would be interesting to find out if there’s any legitimate information anywhere that actually tells what the real story is. So should something like this come up again it would be easier to just say you know what that’s not actually true, here’s the real truth.

You ever ridden Cannock? There’s some pretty conclusive evidence leading upto, and around, every corner.

I ride trails that are already there. Certain bits turn into mud baths.
We cause tram lines, horses cause churned up bits. It dries out into rough corrugations, the top gets knocked smooth. It rains it turns back into mud.
Its happened the 20 years I’ve been riding. As far as I know the North Downs are still there.

Some stuff in here highlighting the results of various studies.
http://www.ctc.org.uk/file/member/201103042.pdf

Some more:
http://imba.org.uk/research-reports/natural-resource-impacts-of-mountain-biking/

Oh noes. We’re eroding the hill – god the **** humanity – it’s not like sheep, walkers, horses and eventually precipitation isn’t going do that anyway.

But the planets so precious we should lock ourselves in our rooms lest we tread on too many poor defenceless worms or erode any mole hills.

Get ridin’, roostin’, and splashin’ your way down the hills. Changing the track is a good thing in my eyes, keeps me on my toes!

Water erodes. Walkers make patterns which hold water. MTB riders make patterns which channel water. It’s easier to see in a tyre track. We’re actually helping to irrigate. People should be thankful. Without us the water table would be higher.*to smilie or not to smilie…nah*

My favorite trails are the most eroded ones and if that conjures up images of mud in your mind you’re not thinking of nearly enough erosion.

If there had been no erosion where I live over the years I wouldn’t need gears. I’d be a singlespeeder. Now that is a scary thought.

Walkers create paths
Cyclists create erosion
😆

She. Speaks. Like. My. Sat. Nav.

What a bunch of NIMBYs.

Walkers make patterns which hold water.

Ever seen the paths up a popular Munro? Washed away despite almost all the traffic being walkers.

Well I don’t know the real facts, but I’d be willing to bet significant body organs that the % by area of the countryside regularly used by walkers and MTBers, and therefore being noticeably eroded, is much more than a 3 or 4 %. I’m sure it is a problem that can be managed easily, if certain people were to invest half the time and energy dealing with the issue instead of moaning about it.

The odd skid vs widespread flooding

Gaia wins

Hate to say the words mbuk but think it was them that did an articul on this some years ago much of which came to the conclusion from some governing body that its walkers,horses then us that cause issues!! Mind you this was 10plus years ago and mountain biking has increased hugely since but I ride and walk the dog a lot in the same woods and it is very clear to see that where water lies walkers are making theses areas wider trying to keep there feet dry etc.. Horses are churning it up in small areas which we avoid as best we can this time of the year.

I can’t really see the point in the “they cause more erosion than me” arguments. Missing the point entirely. We all cause erosion to greater or lesser extents, therefore we all share an onus to participate in our chosen recreations in a responsible manner. Whether it be a walker, horserider, runner or MTB, churning up a path in the wet, doesn’t matter, they should all be using some common sense.

Mountainbikes cause errosion, occasionaly they cause an awfull lot of it, deal* with it.

I think it depends where you live and ride, on rocks your unlikely to make any huge impact, on a muddy trail on a steep unstable hillside it doesn’t take long for a ribbon of singletrack to cut in quite deep then the whole hillside washes away down into the valley. Now that applies to MTB’s, walkers and horses.

BUT MTB’ers do tend to go out in search of those off camber, steep, erroded, rutted trails as they’re fun. Walkers and horsey types tend to go somewhere for the view/fresh air/peace and quiet/etc, and probably take a much easier (and likely sustainable) route.

*Dear Mr National Parks Accountant, thsi means ignore it, don’t flatten it out into a crushed limestone motorway.

Erosion wouldn’t be a factor if we actually built trails properly in this country.

For the most part, “natural” is not sustainable when it comes to a large volume of traffic.

People out walking at this time of year inevitably see not the footprints in the mud, but the tyre tracks through it and conclude that the erosion is down to the cyclists.
We can probably help ourselves in this regard by avoiding easily damaged (i.e Gopping) trails at this time of year. The trouble is, after our “summer” the choice is severely reduced.
I’d also like to point out that 4 hoofed 1 ton objects being ridden up / down steep hills is doing more damage that anything else and has ruined a number of bridleways to the extent they are impossible to walk full stop. Who do I lobby to get the horse riders to open their minds?

Erosion wouldn’t be a factor if we actually built trails properly in this country.

Trails aren’t “built properly” anywhere. Some countries just have better climates, some have better geology, most are less densely populated. Most trails just start off as either sheep(or other animal) tracks, some variation on a road for moving livestock from home to field to markets (migth be ‘built’, or military routes (usualy Roman, usualy survived 2000 years untill the first Onza Porcupine skidded down them).

You could take a photo Leith or Pitch Hill, and one in some BC rainforest. They’d look the same (asside from the giant Redwood). The only difference is there’s 20 million people withing 90min of Surrey, the same number of people are probbaly spread over the entirety of Western Cannada.

Trails aren’t “built properly” anywhere

Not the case.

Many rights of way enjoyed by MTB’s are historic carriageways dating from the 18th and 19th century. These are often recorded on the definitive map as restricted byways or byways open to all traffic (BOAT’s). Although lot’s have been incorrectly recorded as bridlepaths and footpaths.

As these routes are carriageways they were constructed to sustain the traffic of carriages. In the historic context this means two carthorses pulling 2 tons+ of cart running on narrow wheels.
Many from the mid 19th century were also created and constructed to accomodate steam traction engines.

MTB’s are carriages in the legal context.

The legal events (eg inclosure awards) that created these carriageways often specify minimum widths of 30ft+ and also that the carriageway be mettaled.

SSSI’s cannot include a metalled carriageway. Any assertions by conservationists that MTB’ing (on a mettaled carriageway)is damaging a SSSI are incorrect as the SSSI lies either side of the MTB trail.

There seem to be a lot of pro-bikers in the very same conservation group, so this is just the BBC doing a bit of bad journalism AS USUAL.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/276252062449664/?fref=ts

Many rights of way enjoyed by MTB’s are historic carriageways

I was responding to Mikey74’s comment that implied trails should be “built properly”. The infrance being that it’s someones responsibility to turn every trail in the coutnry into IMBA spec bench cut singletrack to avoid errosion.

Yes some trails are old roads/paths and have an armoured surface of some description, some a couple of hundred years old, some a couple of thousand. But the but the bulk of what mountainbikers like to ride is unsurfaced and errodeable unless you’re lucky enough to live somewhere where the bedrock is at the surface (Peaks, Lakes, etc).

Mountainbiking causes errosion, how much relative to other user groups depends on the trail and traffic. Anyone who denies that is surely sticking their head a very long way in the sand. Rather than digging our heels (or back tyres) in and shouting about how it’s not our fault, he did it, etc, like a spoilt toddler we need to be having these conversations with those in harge of manageing the land. If national parks can afford to surface walking paths with rocks brought in by helicopter then surely there’re the resources to ask them to do sympathetic draninage and armouring work rather than dumping 2ft of crushed limestone on rocky bridleways.

That and we just have to accept it’s a very small island with a lot of people living on it, the paths are going to get erroded.

Trails aren’t “built properly” anywhere.

Canada: Armoured corners, wooden bridges over perma-boggy bits (how do you think the “North Shore” style started?), camber designed to aid drainage etc etc all designed to make the trails stand up to high levels of traffic.

Avoiding riding after heavy rain would certainly help. But the problem with that is you can’t control access + sometimes as a rider you don’t know the trails are knackered until you get out riding them, at which point it’s too late…

Bits of the Surrey Hills are dire after rain and with heavier use over the last few years have become effectively unrideable year round, except during an extended dry spell – Xmas Pud/Orange Clawhammer, Yoghurt Pots, T1 and T2 spring to mind here in particular…

Regular trail maintenance (see BKB) is definitely helping sustainability/protection from water and overuse and will in the long term help resolve the local issues without needing to armour the whole area like a Welsh trail centre… but it would be very labour intensive to support all trails in that way…

Prepared trails are all well and good, and I like a trail centre as much ad the next guy – sometimes. But sometimes I like the freedom to roam on unprepared trails as that is part of the essence of the sport for me. The only time I’ve been hassled by ramblers was when I passed them running in rut carved out by a tractor while they were walking just off the formal trail to avoid the tractor rut, so go figure. Also one of them was substantially overweight, but I took the moral high ground and decided not to respond with a smart Alec comment about who was the one most likely causing the more damage to the surroundings.

robsoctane – Member

Get ridin’, roostin’, and splashin’ your way down the hills. Changing the track is a good thing in my eyes, keeps me on my toes!

Round here, this approach has turned miles of lovely woodsy singletrack into miles of 2 metre wide swamp. Even when it dries out, it’s still featureless and wide. Which ironically, the horsists and walkers don’t care about but it makes it all rubbish for cycling.

I mostly ride on forestry commission land. I am concerned about the erosion I cause and try to avoid riding through boggy bits etc. But I’m also aware that, at some point, the forestry commission will want to chop down the wood I’m riding through and when they do they’ll cause a heck of a lot more damage than I could ever manage.

The erosion cycling is causing around here is a fraction of that caused by farm/forestry vehicles, walkers and especially horses. The only folk interested in repairs and hardening are cyclists.

Canada: Armoured corners, wooden bridges over perma-boggy bits (how do you think the “North Shore” style started?), camber designed to aid drainage etc etc all designed to make the trails stand up to high levels of traffic.

That’s the Canada equivelent of Glentress, which also has “Armoured corners, wooden bridges over perma-boggy bits”. A purpose built trail will handle whatever trafic it was built to handle.

Canada doesn’t suffer the same population density as the UK. Watch any NS vid and it’s all mud and rainforest, the difference is those trails probably see single digits of riders in a day. Swinely (if you believe the crown estates numbers) averages almost 500/day!

All the rain has done a beautiful job of carving and scouring a bit of technicality into the trails.. 8)

If you want to be worried about something worry about the pig asphalt road they put in so everyone can drive to the country side!

If national parks can afford to surface walking paths with rocks brought in by helicopter

You forget the pecking order. in descending order of importance, ramblers, horses, cyclists, motorists.

In practice the ramblers interests outweigh those of all the other groups combined.

Wilson and Seney (1994) is the paper frequently reffered to when looking at comparitive erosion.

Also bear in mind that the authority has a legal duty to maintain roads so as to accomodate the traffic that uses them.

“damage” is different to “erosion”. Those seeking to deny access continually seek to confuse the two.

Most historic carriageways used by MTB’s were built to a higher than IMBA spec. The had to be to accomodate the steam traction engines and horse drawn carriages they were created for! Many appear unsurfaced now because they haven’t been kept in repair.

Agreed that MTBer’s need to have a better understanding of the issues of erosion/damage. It is used as a tool to deny access.