cheekymonkey – you understand.

i've ridden your trails, you've thought about speed and flow etc. and taken steps to manage the riders, and consequently, your trails are really rather lots of fun.

you've provided me with many happy hours of bicycle riding, and i can't remember any braking bumps.

thankyou!

+1 Tim – I don't remember any braking bumps on your stuff.

I rode a three hour trailquest yesterday (did I mention I ride trailquests ?) and didn't encounter a single braking bump. 😛

probably not many corners/singletrack/jumps/drops/other ttf's either though…

i'm sure you had fun, but trailcentres are fun too.

X

I have to say the bumps in question are my favourite features at whinlatter, hit em flat out and skim over them . Whinlatter has been sanitised to much all features either cut out or filled in.
I disagree that braking bumps are caused by idiots. They develop on tracks only ridden by pros. i.e wc tracks

Sometimes they can be fine… We just replaced a seriously shagged out bit at Glentress with a new, smooth and superfast motorway, and it's nice and all but I kind of liked the destroyed section, it was the longest stretch of braking bumps i've ever seen and you just had to point and shoot them like a rock garden. Horrible in winter though since it became just a series of small ponds.

But, other ones drive me mad. BRAKING BUMPS ON BERMS. Who the hell gets halfway round a berm and then slams on the brakes? Worst thing you can possibly do. The first big lefthand berm on the Essentials at Glentress is the loveliest, fastest, easiest berm in the place, it just hooks you in but still people manage to trash it. And berms with bumps in aren't "interesting" or "evolved", they're just ****ed.

I suppose in short… When they stop a trail from working as designed, that can be annoying.

From a building perspective, they gather water and accelerate wear, an armoured surface like at glentress is a bit like painted metal, as long as the whole thing's intact it's fine but once water gets into it, it'll corrode away.

you're always going to get trail erosion, unless you concrete it.
If you want biking to be an inclusive sport (rather than a sport populated by middle aged men with too much money) then the skill level is always going to vary from nil upwards.
In France, I believe a large problem with trail erosion is down to bad grading and hence high traffic on the wrong trails, not trail design or maintenance (and if you don't think they maintain their trails, you should have seen the state of Chatel bike park after a large storm when most trails got almost completely washed away, they fixed that in a couple of weeks)
For instance, in Sauze D'Oulx (not France I know!), there are about 10 red graded trails and about 500m of blue. So all the trails get mullered. Make that 3 red, 5 blue and 2 green and suddenly the traffic is going in the right place and the trails hold up better. (the reds will still get wrecked by the DH boys with no skill on their big rigs, but at least the blues will be mint – exactly the case at Chatel bike park)
And again, in France (altitude 1200m+) big weather can wreck trails pretty quick, so why build them like they do in the UK? Mountain biking is only a small percentage of their income when compared to skiing after all.
So, they don't spend money on it until it makes them money. Wow the French are human after all.
As for braking bumps in the UK, never noticed any on the downhill tracks at Innerleithen (the great unwashed don't venture there), no surprise trail erosion is being seen at seen at other high traffic areas.
Sorry to disagree with Harry but trail design (that is the exact layout of a particular trail) is not the answer. Plenty of different graded trails is, IMHO.

dasnut – Member

"you're always going to get trail erosion, unless you concrete it."

I'm always curious what the reaction would be if someone started building with concrete. Makes sense to me but I imagine STW would go mental :mrgreen:You wouldn't want to crash on it, then again, you don't really want to crash on a hardened trail centre surface either. You could build some really cool stuff with concrete.

i followed a fellow rider down a bit of singletrack at a trail center a few weeks ago who locked the rear wheel at every slight corner. I was going to ask why he rode like that but i thought he would tell me to get lost.

I think we should ban anyone who rides a bike from trail centres. They only causes upset and drama.

Think the Braking Bumps at Winny are bad you want to try the Red & Black runs at Les Gets hundreds of the fooking things

+1 There may be a few more than that….

May be a little less tiring with out them but hey it is part of the trail so ride it and take the rough with the smooth.

I am with ahwiles on this one,A well designed trail centre should have all the qualitys of a natural trail with (imho) steady,sustainable climbs and decents.
The landscape should be well understood,and the drainage,gradients,and natural features should be utalised and considered.

The top part of the Northern red really suffers from poor drainage,and as a result is often icy due to the exposure to the wind and altitude,where the rest of the trail is relativly consistent in shedding water.

As for the last Red decent to the trailhead,this has "too much"gradient for riders new to mountainbiking,as a result,causes riders to skid into each turn.

Its a combination of bad trail design,the weather,and popularity of Whinllater that is making braking bumps,and its becoming a bit of a flaw with this trail, shame really as it might be putting some riders off going. 😥

Kirroughtree is a great example of sustainable trail building,and I cant fault any of it,(Apart from the steep climb from the road halfway round) 😉

Some pretty serious braking bumps appeared at the entry to some of the berms at my local trail over the course of the year. They made it difficult to carry speed, seriously eroded the trail and just looked untidy. This bothered me so I spent several days off during quiet periods with a shovel and repaired them. I built plenty of layers of solid rock into the repairs and at the end of the summer they have held up well but braking bumps are re-appearing so before winter I will do some more repairs. I have no prior knowledge of trail building.

Why not go along on trail building days and volunteer to help put right the damage done by people that are not as experienced as as you?

ahwiles – ok, i'll nip out this evening and build a nice-n-flowy, official, way-marked, 25k singletrack loop around Whinlatter.

Someone's has actually been building something not far from you.

I've never had an issue with braking bumps but then I ride a skill compensator so I probably don't notice them and create 10 in my wake.

as i've said before, I'm not sure i understand why full suss riders get blamed for them. Is it that they both want to go the same speed round the corner, but the HT would be already going that speed anyway and thus wouldn't have to brake?

In motor racing if you don't have to brake for a corner, then you weren't going fast enough on the straight, could the same not be said of this…?

Not really sure I've ever been bothered by them or noticed them, I probably have, but haven't recognised it as one or thought 'ooh there's a braking bump how annoying'. Are they on the north loop of whinlatter, the one with the jumps?

If they do cause a problem there is surely a way of designing the trail such that they don't form. I can't see how there can possibly be any at penmachno for instance.

But I think the problems are with berms because it is tricky to judge correct entry speed unless you have a lot of experience. You don't get much experience of berms away from centres. So folk approach too fast then panic brake which skids the back and rips the surface. I don't actually mind the extra hazards.

At the end of the day if a trail is ridden its going to get braking bumps, even if top riders hit, look at any decent downhill course, its fresh at the start of the weekend and chewed to shit by the end and most riders who enter a BDS arent going to be bad. Having said that and as someone has pointed out on 'trails' you can take some of the pressure off the trail by bleeding the riders speed out by going uphill before the bend. Whilst this is good practice for sustainable inclusive trails (which are ace fun) I still like hitting sharp corners after a massive straight! Too much of of the trail thinking for you is boring, its fun but can be a little patronising?

where are these braking bumps?? Rode the whole trail twice this weekend and couldnt find any!
MTFU

Grum… Had similar problems with some but not all hire shops when taking new people out before they purchase their own bike. Its what happens when you give a guy you pay peanuts (aka a monkey) a little bit of responsibility.

Presuming Northwind is talking about Magic Mushroom. New bit has got braking bumps already. Don't think there's much you can do at places like Glentress. Everything done correctly by the rider and there would be no braking bumps but I don't believe there's anybody out there that hasn't at some point locked up their brakes. Take a newbie round a red route with berms and they don't have the skills, panic and skid. Or they think its cool to lock up and slide the back wheel out etc, etc.

mikewsmith – Member
where are these braking bumps?? Rode the whole trail twice this weekend and couldnt find any!
MTFU

full suss mikey?

two years ago i was hardtailing in the alps – la pleney in morzine had braking bumps that were 26" wide and 13" deep – great fun!

not sure what the problem is personally, and if there hadn't been so many other people against this phenonenom i would have called troll.

But, other ones drive me mad. BRAKING BUMPS ON BERMS. Who the hell gets halfway round a berm and then slams on the brakes? Worst thing you can possibly do. The first big lefthand berm on the Essentials at Glentress is the loveliest, fastest, easiest berm in the place, it just hooks you in but still people manage to trash it. And berms with bumps in aren't "interesting" or "evolved", they're just ****ed.

Totally agree, it was a great corner. I used to try and ride it a little quicker each time and now its got great big chanks gouged out of it.

Straight line braking bumps I don't actually mind that much, they encourage to think about you line and brake smoothly or carry speed. But braking bumps on berms are just shit

I don't think I've ever noticed braking bumps at any UK trail centre (and I thing I've ridden nearly all of them several times)….

Its a bit selfish to be complaining about braking bumps isn't it? How many of us haven't been going a bit too fast into a bend and grabbed a bit too much brake to compensate at some point?

I quite like braking bumps up to a point – stay off the brakes over them, get slowed down a bit by the rattling, final little dab (before the turn obviously and making sure you don't lock up!) and you're through the turn. I see them as handy braking markers, as in no need to brake until you're through them!

do they only get caused by actually locking up the back wheel, i.e. skidding, or is it just *any* braking that can cause it?