I think it would be better if things like that were placed off the main line, so they become opt in, rather than catching people out.

Someone dug a similar pit and jump on BKB a while back.

Remember speaking to someone who was proud of himself for having done that. His words were “it’s about evolving the sport”, and he couldn’t get his head round the fact it was really pretty stupid.

the whole trail could be flattened by the Hurtwood with a few chainsaw strokes..only take 1 show to the ranger of neck brace picture…

Erm, but that situation was caused entirely by the new modifications to the trail… That’s the problem. Yes the trail was probably a bit cheeky, but few were likely to get hurt on it. That’s now changed, and the stakes have been raised somewhat.

People crash everywhere. just not sure we need a 4 page spread about it!

Anyhow, I am off to ride TD’s lesser known creations! 😛

Personally I don’t think it would do any harm for certain trailsto have those no-entry to bikes signs. Official of unofficial, I don’t care. Have seen enough people tearing down them on bikes with kids/dogs along a stretch they really need to be careful on. Can’t see if happening though.

FTFY

FFS take some responsibility for your own actions, Joe Public walking up the trail with dog and kids in tow hasn’t the foggiest idea that some biker coming the other way thinks it’s a bike only trail. You on the other hand know you’re there, know your stopping distance, and should be anticipating that someone else might be on the trail. It’s a bit of land within easy reach of London with relatively relaxed access rules, who do you think they’d ban if push came to shove, the 99% of the population that don’t ride bikes, or the mountainbikers reprisented by the douchebag who ran over Rover and Fenton becasue he couldn’t stop in time?

Anyhow, I am off to ride TD’s lesser known creations!

Quicker than the trail in question? Seems you’re 100 places below me on Strava 😉

Calm down spoony. FTR I do take responsibility for my actions and like to think I actively look out walkers/kids/dogs on sections/corners where it’s not always easy to see what’s coming up. This is as a result of being a regular dog walker and XC runner, ie putting one’s boot on the other foot.

I’ve seen a mate have a big splat as a result of a dog running across his line on Park Life. He could easily have broken something. Owners didn’t give a to55.

EDIT: I know a fair few riders who sadly don’t give a sh1t who else is on the trail. Hence my concern is more for walkers/kids/animals getting in the way of people like this.

I’ve seen a mate have a big splat as a result of a dog running across his line on Park Life. He could easily have broken something. Owners didn’t give a to55.

we need the dogs viewpoint on this, was the dog on a strava run when your mate cut into the dogs line?

Quicker than the trail in question? Seems you’re 100 places below me on Strava

He’s still trying to catch me down Evian 😉

I’m going to have to put some effort in on the trail in question, i’m off the first page now 😯

There’s actually nothing ghetto about it, it’s been boarded & staked properly.

I apologise for calling your IMBA standard illegal building ‘ghetto’. How silly of me. 🙄

Its pretty stupid to say its perfectly fine to mod a trail to suit the diggers ability.
If there is a drop or a table thats been in place for a while and riders know its there , and know the speed and line required to clear it safely or think its still rollable as its a table. Then along come Mr dig-it and digs out a trench as a table just isnt radcore enough for him ,surely alot of riders are going to crash?
Its just dumb, putting people into danger on private land where its for the minority benefit . As for walking a trail , Yeah everyone does that don’t they.

You can see the take off and landing transition with enough time to stop. As such I feel that the creator of this trail has done a good job. If you feel that it should be made safer, may I suggest you pick up a spade and go fill the middle in and make it into a table top. Or just moan alot, that always helps!

Its Ok , I will just wait for the ranger to flatten it so I can roll it safely.

Hob Nob – Member
To be fair if you can ride that trail at any sort of pace the old berms were too tight, it was easier to double them up.

Not too tight at all I found. Was one of the best fast flowing descents in the hills. Sweeping berms, and was even getting into a little rear flick on the uphill corner into the last big berm. Now round the corner and “oh ****” 😀 . Yes it’s a small gap to most, but I have hang ups on them, so it’s no go for me until I can get my head round it (and all gaps really). Now I have to mince round the chicken line, which at least is less of a mess when the hole was first hacked in.

Actually I can see why it may have appeared. People couldn’t be bothered to corner and I was already seeing a short cut appearing and someone thought it would be cool to turn the short cut into a gap, but straight through the line into the berm!

I like the new jump for what it’s worth. It would appear I’m the minority though

Looks great. I can’t do it, but yeah it looks great. However it’s destroyed the flow for those who don’t want to or can’t jump it. I’d rather a second line out of the original flow with a jump was put in that descended into the berm rather than destroying what was a nice berm (and probably a lot of work involved) entirely. That way there’d be a pay off for the jump guys by hitting the new line and maybe more speed without killing the speed for everyone else, instead of slowing everyone else down so a few can have a blast. But hey ho.

Really though the problem with Supernova is it’s incredibly popular now and a main end of ride run to the car park (when people are tired and make mistakes). Everyone rides it, with a wide variety of skills and (in)experience. Something like that built on Northern Monkey or a more secret trail and fine you’d expect that, so long as you give me a chicken line 😀 .

Edit: Just looking at the video, it’s hard to make out but it looks different yet again from at the weekend. Is that further back? Doesn’t seem to be where I thought it was and looks like more of a drop now. Can’t see a line round it either. Difficult to see though.

most of the stuff in winterfold in unofficial

I believe Hurtwood owns and controls a part of Winterfold – not sure which parts though, always ride there with an eye out for getting told off by a certain landowner especially around the Supernova area.

OP hope you get better thanks for the heads up

Nobody enjoys a big stack however it happens so hope you’re all healed in time for your trip to Wales.

Some good points made in this thread, but honestly, how are people going so fast that they are going into the jumps with no time to react / stop / avoid? There’s more than enough run in on that section to see what is coming up and realise that the trail has changed. First time I approached them I just slowed a bit, popped the first one and stopped for the second, took a look and went back for another run. True, you can’t track walk every single trail when you ride just incase there’s a new feature, but there’s pretty much always time to see what is ahead and react.

Or maybe I’m just slow.

jeeeeeeeeeeeeeez
so now its down to picking holes in peoples grammar..

[pedant]Actually, he was correcting bad spelling, not bad grammar.[/pedant]

jeeeeeeeeeeeeeez
so now its down to picking holes in peoples grammar..

[pedant]Actually, he was correcting bad spelling, not bad grammar.[/pedant]
Very True!.

To be fair if you can ride that trail at any sort of pace the old berms were too tight, it was easier to double them up.

I did always find them a bit tight actually, but assumed it was my lacking skillz.

Very True!.

Full stop and an exclamation mark. Tut tut.

the whole trail could be flattened by the Hurtwood with a few chainsaw strokes..only take 1 show to the ranger of neck brace picture…

a bit effing late now lads… Hurtwood do lurk on here!

Assuming this is the same feature (I think so) this was a bit of a surprise when I rode it on Wednesday in the dark – that’s a significant change to a trail I’ve ridden many times before.

It seems an odd modification to do to a trail that will be very familiar to many riders – I bet it’s going to catch more people out. It’s not an improvement IMO, I preferred it as it was before, but that’s subjective certainly. It concerns me somebody could get badly hurt there because they’re not ready for a new feature on what’s to them a familiar trail.

Careful out there folks, the only worthwhile lesson I guess is not to take these trail layouts for granted

@op glad you’re OK, could have been nasty.

when I rode it on Wednesday in the dark

that sounds like I rode the jump … I didn’t, jumps aren’t my bag. It means the trail.

Very True!.

Full stop and an exclamation mark. Tut tut.

i Am not sure what You mean.?

There are plenty of trails with jumps with and without gaps just a few minutes pedal from SuperNova. I think these modifications are irresponsible on what was previously a rollable “easy” trail ridden by almost everyone on their way to the bottom of the hill.

As for walking the trail, 10 or 15 mins walk down plus the same back up, so 20-30 mins. Are we assuming we chain the bike up at the top or do we push that down the trail whilst we are scoping it ?

I just go for a ride. I ride the trails that happen to be on my route and look interesting once, otherwise I would feel the urge to walk, lower my shorts and hang a full facer from my bars!

I just like to ride my bike. Why so I need to inspect trails before riding them? Surely that just wrecks a ride.

“Surrey Hills” as the phrase is used here isn’t a bike park or trail centre, it’s a shared access area where trails are to a degree tolerated (though there’s plenty of resistance too). So warning signs and so on, as one would see in a bike park, aren’t a good idea I think. Basically this is a place where anyone can go anywhere, and that stands for everyone.

It doesn’t seem smart to me to add new potentially dangerous features into longstanding, not technically advanced, trails that many people will already know pretty well. It’s not viable to expect people to approach a familiar trail as if it was new, every time.

If a change needs a warning sign, that’s maybe an indication that it’s in the wrong place.

Likewise on a normal ST trail, it’s probably smart to make everything so it’s rollable … like they do in Coed y Brenin etc! This doesn’t stop people jumping the feature, they can still do that. And there are plenty of other trails that have gap jumps in and always have done.

Imagine if that jump was a childs face.

It’s all very well dishing out advice on how to build trails for us all to ride. But in reality there are very few out there willing to do the work, and a lot of people with advice. Maybe they should put there money/spade where there mouth is!

If a change needs a warning sign, that’s maybe an indication that it’s in the wrong place.

Mmm, seems about right.

But in reality there are very few out there willing to do the work, and a lot of people with advice. Maybe they should put there money/spade where there mouth is!

Well folk are generally saying that leaving the spade at home is the preferred idea when the alternative is sticking large doubles in non-technical and well used trails…

It’s all very well dishing out advice on how to build trails for us all to ride. But in reality there are very few out there willing to do the work, and a lot of people with advice. Maybe they should put there money/spade where there mouth is!

So if you dig something, like say a new jump, and someone who doesn’t like it grabs a spade and comes along afterwards and demolishes it, that’s cool? I can see the potential for conflict within trail user groups here, let alone between them.

Yea, but if you don’t like the gap, fill it in. you don’t have to flatten it all. I recon the berms would have taken quite a lot of digging, don’t you?

njee20 & edlong i think what freeride_frankie is trying to say is that if people get involved a bit more with build trails in the first place you will have more of a say in what they turn out like. It should be about all working together.

It’s very easy to say I don’t like this and that.
What about saying how can I help to make it better?

I was kidding. I know (and agree with) what he means, but I think his comment’s a bit misplaced, that’s all.

It would be utter carnage if everyone just took a spade and modified every trail to suit! I fully appreciate what goes on up there, and the vast majority is excellent work, but folks adding things like this to suit their riding and putting others at risk is a little daft. I agree that turning it into a tabletop could work very well, but odds are someone will dig it out again in the name of rad.

Well one reason I haven’t picked up a spade and modified that trail is because I liked it how it was.

Frankie I don’t think anybody’s raising an issue with gap jumps as a concept, just questioning the wisdom of dropping one into a well established well used used where riders are going to come upon it unexpectedly, and it’s not in keeping with what was there before.

And if Josh Bender wanted to ride that trail, would he be alright to just dig it out into a 30ft drop? Does he have the right to do it, because he’s actually wielding a spade?

Personally I think jumps with consequence should be kept to trails with jumps with consequence.

I’m all up for a cheeky table top etc which can be rolled, or little kickers, and drops etc – but once you start mixing the two there’s always someone missing out.

The jumpers miss out because they can’t build bigger and bigger.

And the trail riders miss out because they aren’t into jumping.

Make it rollable and you get heated arguments about why “old Lycra clad ‘xc’ types” are spoiling their fun and how no one understands them etc 😉

Or at least that’s a regular argument on the Swinley FB group 😀

You all know that the truth is none of us have the right to build on the h/wood. Many of us flock to the Surrey Hills to ride these iligitimate trails. If we only rode the legitimate trails, our rides would be a lot shorter and duller! don’t quash the trail builders artistic licence. If you feel that there efforts are wrongly placed then why not fill that gap!

You could put the dirt out of the 30′ bender bomb hole to good use!

Heal well OP, sorry to hear about the spill.

I came across this just as they started to build it. It was getting late and was very unexpected. I bailed it as I couldn’t see what was there at first. But it basically looked a mess. I guess it has been finished now! On balance I am with Jambalaya on this one. But also credit to the trail pixies (I assume TD and friends) as I think they are bloody smart at creating chicken routes in most cases. The obvious example is the (increasingly well known) run not far away on W’fold. The gap jump and the jump before the big berm all have very obvious and rideable chicken lines (for the likes of me) and I was very thankful of them first time out on that trail.

I don’t think signs are an answer though!!!

You either ride the trails and take responsibility or u ride fire roads and what ever,u can’t ride illegal trails then moan cause they change

Gutted that you hurt yourself but buy posting pics on forums and social media is goner cause nothing but mayhem and trails to be shut down

Seems to me it’s the same few riders debating/moaning about the building ,riding of the Surrey hills
Don’t ride them trails stick to the other trails

We is all mountain bikers or cyclist just cause you can’t / don’t want to ride stuff don’t make it wrong

Tony b

Gotta love the school holidays!

I can’t believe that u all moan about the trails but ride them u need to sit back and think about what ya saying

I’ve crashed on every trail at some point but I don’t post up pics saying watch out there’s a root or a new super smooth fast berm

B careful there’s a new roundabout on the way to Horsham from Crawley could be tricky

Tony b

Tony b