I know that section at Cannock and I can't see how you'd fix it without digging it all up, re-laying the surface and probably re-routing the trail to make it shallower and slower. It's a bit of a mess but it's still fun to ride.

I was up at Whinlatter at the weekend and I agree, it is cutting up pretty badly.

Don't know if anyone has noticed but there has been a load of ice/snow covering most of the trails for the last couple of months. Freeze/thaw erosion can **** things up pretty badly.

ban brakes, ban suspension, ban knobbly tyres, ban anyone over 10 stone, ban anyone with less than 10 years experiences, f'ck it lets just ban everything and stay in bed, no, ban beds, i'm going mad, pass me a noose, anyone got a spare noose, you can have it back when i'm finished.

i think a different sense of perspective can sometimes be usefull.

there's some seriously eye opening footage on the beeb of an entire hillside falling off:

now this is what i call erosion

and we're panicking about a few rutty trails?

yes, trail erosion is a problem, but we have solutions. i'm not about to lose any sleep over it.

Trail erosion is a natural side effect of having a trail in the first place, weathering and rider use will inevitably cause damage…

I find it most interesting though that the various petty prejudices come out in this thread;

-Bouncy bike = “over biked”, under-skilled trail lout
-HT = “inexperienced” Newby dragging brakes over every thing and cutting corners

It’s always someone else at fault with you lot isn’t it….

I’d rather my local trails got ridden and had to have a bit of maintenance done or simply got rougher, than they were a billiard table smooth, yawn fest…

My local trails have started to cut up in places due to winter use and patchy drainage it simply means the way you ride them has to change with the seasons, one of my favourite cornering sections has effectively developed a new berm on what was a flat turn simply from tyre erosion. By the middle of summer it will have changed shape again as weather and peoples use of it changes.
The spots where braking bumps turn up on corner entries are an added challenge meaning you have to set yourself up for the corners differently to accommodate the trail…

To be honest a corner will normally change over the course of a race weekend with heavy use so adapting to a changing trail is actually a skill in itself, whinging because other (less silky smooth) riders dare to use the same trails as you is not a particularly useful skill, if it annoys you that much though why not try fixing it?

didnt say it needed re-laying, just ammuses me each time I ride it, and i still have to make a consious effort not to brake over it!

Years of conditioning to slam on the brakes as soon as the bumps start takes a while to get over!

Personaly i think trail centers should be built then 'abandoned' with no maintenance, for nature to take its toll and create more of a challange. Spend the moeny building new blue/green/red trails and let the existing stuff weather into black runs naturaly.

Check out Chappel Gate, a man made trail that just gets better every year.

Do any of you watch the DH videos they post on Dirt? Loads of the riders are doing cool looking skids around the corners, and it seems very trendy at the moment to get the biggest baddest roost you can. There are good examples of this on the Peaty/Miami video up there now.

How do people feel about this?

Skidz rule!

There's a big difference between how you behave on a DH race course against the clock, and how you behave on the trail.

I'd also argue there's a difference between a skid and a drift. Although neither are good for the trail surface, a drift (rotating, but not gripping wheel) does far less damage than a skid with a locked wheel.

Check out Chappel Gate, a man made trail that just gets better every year

Oh yeah. Rode it on Sunday and it was ace. 🙂

One answer is to armour the corners and susceptible parts using rock: It doesn't have to be uniform and dull, in fact you can make some nice, technical features this way.

It works in Canada where the weather can also be pretty wet.

And to say that this is down to FS bikes is just ridiculous. I would say you actually brake less using fs and therefore cause less damage than hardtails. It is more about the way you ride, rather than the bike you ride – oooo now there's a revelation ;0)

Coogan, and Jon, I agree!

However, these videos inspire a riding style that may actually be fairly destructive when us plebs start doing it on mass on our normal trails. I dunno.

question though, would people tolerate 'armoured' trails?

not being 'natural' and all that.

(i would)

question though, would people tolerate 'armoured' trails?

not being 'natural' and all that.

Those who truely care about the sport and trails they ride should/would.

I think it works very well and, if used creatively, adds a technical feature to the trail.

"braking bumps, knackered bends and jumps, corners cut."

Oh good. I call that bedding in. Throw yourself down it and hang on for dear life!

as i had a spare few minutes yesterday morning, i popped over to aston hill
i know there is work on-going there and thought i would check it out

the conditions in the carpark give a great idea of the trails – shocking at best, its that wet clay mud that comes up in huge amounts. Walking i didnt get past the carpark

still it was obvious that a good number of people had dug out the swampthings at the weekend and honed their skills. I just hope its not those same people who complain that the trails are in dire need of work, when the drier weather comes

mountain bikers love a wet muddy ride, and then expect someone to make everything fast smooth and beautiful for the summer

cake and eat it? yes please.

OP why don't you just admit to yourself that the big boys on their big bikes intimidate you, and that you secretly yearn for a bouncy 6 incher?

The enormous chips the mincy hardtail gayboys carry on their shoulders must cause untold damage to the trails.

ouch, I'm reporting that to sir.
Who says I don't have one, but find it overkill on 'red' trails?

(I don't, because I would and I don't do proper downhill/FR/AM and don't want to haul it up here):

EDIT: Flickr not worky – picture big mountain

Nice photo's, I'm sure The Laird of Lorton will thank you for posting those white shorts on the interweb!! Tehehe 😆

Neil – I'm confused – can you see that pic??
I can't
😕

Paste'd the properties from your post into the address bar which revealed the set, looks like a top day out that. We did High stile and Red Pike a couple of years back, wasn't much fun as the weather turned grim.
Changed his name also in my post 🙂 just in incase it was too much information.

You pesky IT guru, you.

looks like a top day out that

It was an evening ride – set off 6.30 from Ennerdale and finished with a cheeky drop back to Gillerthwaite
Could you mail me re: evening rides? Trying to get out more now the smoke (cying/poo) is settling here, but the Lairds men head out a wee bit early doors for me. Ta

Mailed you 😉

coffeeking – Member
mildred – by far the fastest way round a course, IME, is to brake late and hard on the *front* to kill speed to the level you can carry smoothly round the bend without braking, then boot it out of the exit, not kill speed early (that's a waste of a straight and gets you round the bend no faster than killing speed just before it).

I agree. There are no end of examples in Whistler Bike Park where you can just hammer through all the braking bumps at high speed, tap the front brake hard a couple of meters before the turn and swing the bike in with no loss of traction. That said, you need to know the trail pretty well in order to have the confidence to do this, and whether it's Whistler or a UK trail centre, most people won't know the trails enough and brake earlier in a semi-panicking style and shred.

Cutting corners or taking the racing line?

Cock of the day… There is no such thing as racing line. There is the trail and then there is cheating. If you can't beat people going around the switchback and you have to cut through them to beat it's a cheat simple as that. Last enduro I opened, rule was each corner cut would gives you a 30 second penalty and guess what, no one cut any corner…

See I kinda agree with the OP. Here I have seen numerous trails getting trashed by DHer. It may be a factor of both overbiked and underskilled, but it's generally the same modus. Normal people included trail X in their 5 hours ride. So ride it once, being careful not to cut corners/switchback, and working hard to do it (yes we have rather sharp switchback down here).
Then DH found the trail. Gather with other rade/gnarly dude and jump into a van. Get to the top of the trail and hammer it down. No respect for other users or trail itself. Cut straight through corners. To add to the guilty profile, they usually are not good nor member of a club that gets involved in trail maintenance.
It comes with the image we are giving of our sport. It's not an extreme sport any
more, it's just a way for middle aged IT bloke to spend money.

Cock of the day…

Or he would be if he hadn’t posted the comment 2 weeks ago… 🙄

He said "the day" not "today" – seems you may be "cock of today"?

It's funny that this thread got resurrected.

I went up to Whinlatter the weekend after this was originally posted and rode it on my 6in FS bike with enormous 2.4in tyres.

Don't know what the trails are normally like, but they seemed perfectly fine to me. Better than a lot of trail centre surfaces anyway.

double post 🙁

tj said it right 2nd post

they seemed perfectly fine to me. Better than a lot of trail centre surfaces anyway.

Does this imply that it's a trail centre, so there to be used in a way that doesn't take sustainability into consideration?
It's this acceptance of trail damage being unavoidable that worries me – or will as and when it leaks onto 'normal' multi user trails.

I know you didn't need 6" travel and 2.4" tyres, but did they make it more fun do you think?
I'm not judging/criticising, just curious, as 120mm sus bikes are now considered short travel apparently.

juan really is making a special effort to sprout irate illegible gibberish of late.

Just one thought. Trail centres will require ongoing maintenance, I think I'm right to say that almost all money for trails at the 7 stanes now goes into trail maintenance and there is very little if any for new trails. So if people want new trails then we all have to ride a bit smoother and make the trails last a bit longer otherwise all time and money will be spent solely on maintaining what is already there.

juan really is making a special effort to sprout irate illegible gibberish of late.

he is french – its in the Job description

There are some braking bumps at Swinley Forest on one of the 'downhills'. Does make me laugh…. I suspect that the bike the person rides has nothing to do with it, more just skidding rather than braking properly.

For another dead hero:

Cutting corners or taking the racing line?

Cock of the day…
There is no such thing as a racing line. There is the trail, and then there is cheating. If you can't beat people by going around the switchbacks and you have to cut through to beat them, it's a cheat, simple as that. Last enduro I opened, the rule was for each corner cut, you would geta 30 second penalty. And guess what, no one cut any corner…

See I kinda agree with the OP. Here we have seen numerous trails getting trashed by DHer.
It may be a factor of both over bike and under skill, but it's generally the same modus operandis. Normal people included the trail X in their 5 hours ride. So ride it once, being careful not to cut through corners/switchback, and working hard to do it (yes we have rather sharp switchback down here).
Then DH[/b]er found the trail. Gather with other rade/gnarly mateand jump into a van. Get to the top of the trail and hammer it down. No respect for other users or the trail itself. Cut straight through corners becasue they can't be bothered/don't have the skills to take the switchback. To add to the guilt profile, they usually are not even that good nor are they members of a club that gets involved in trail maintenance.
It comes with the image we are giving of our sport. It's not an extreme sport any
more, where you have some respect for your playfield/outdoors, t's just a way for middle aged IT bloke to spend money.

There are some braking bumps at Swinley Forest on one of the 'downhills'. Does make me laugh…. I suspect that the bike the person rides has nothing to do with it, more just skidding rather than braking properl

It's rear suspension that causes braking bumps – bouncing up and down – I reckon (no, I'm not an engineer – and wouldn't be civil if I was!). You didn't see them until you got lots of full sus bikes.

I am an engineer (well by training at least). And it's not. You start off with a small dip, someone skids over it, the wheel pops off, and hits the ground. Repeat to fade and you'll get a serious of bumps. If anything a full sus should reduce it a bit (as it'll at least absorb some of the impact – although single pivots lock out (a bit) under braking reducing this).

Does this imply that it's a trail centre, so there to be used in a way that doesn't take sustainability into consideration?

No, not sure how you got there. Just saying the trail didn't seem very eroded.

It's this acceptance of trail damage being unavoidable that worries me – or will as and when it leaks onto 'normal' multi user trails.

My local 'normal' trails are much, much worse than anything I saw at Whinlatter. If you'd seen what the MXers have done to my favourite bit of singletrack last weekend I think you'd have a heart attack.

I know you didn't need 6" travel and 2.4" tyres, but did they make it more fun do you think?

I had that bike for the weekend in the Lakes, Whilatter was just a warm up. I'm really not with you on longer travel bikes/wider tyres causing more damage at all though. My logic says it's just people braking in the "wrong" place.

For what it's worth though, I thought the trails were (mostly) really well designed, so that you didn't need to brake too much anyway.

Awwww, thanks Juan :love:

Perhaps you should go and ride road bikes if you find off-road trails a bit too tough and are concerned that they are becoming too eroded.