Is that a wheelchair access path? How smooooooth is that
I suspect that it’ll wear in a bit, as no doubt thousands of riders will go down it in the next few months. In time undergrowth will start encroaching the bits of the trail that aren’t on the ride line so it’ll look a bit narrower (but still with some wiggle room if less able riders stray from the line). While it’ll never look like it was created by sheep having wandered along its length for centuries it won’t stay looking brand new either.
TJ is right, the amount of effort required to get Glentress’s trails so they’re capable of withstanding the the amount of use they see is immense. Yet many people on here seem incapable of realising that they do wear and change. When the cartwheel on Magic Mushroom got resurfaced a couple of years ago some people reacted like the sky had fallen, that its roots were gone forever and everything was ruined evermore. Yet oddly enough, the cartwheel’s roots are starting to show through again and even that wheeltrappy little drop on the inside line is starting to reappear.
If you want to get more technical stuff built at Glentress, persuade umpty-thousand more people to ride the black instead of the red each year! The trailbuilding budget gets spent where it’ll provide the most benefit, generally that results in it being spent on trails that appeal to the most people and that seems to be mainly fairly smooth, fast and swoopy trails.
That said, I wonder where their rider counters are kept? I wonder if they count how many people ride The Bitch or Double X compared to how many ride the full black? If the black’s rider counter is on the Goat Track or Deliverance it may not give the FC the full picture of how many people are riding technical trails at Glentress.