Glentress – why is everyone so serious?

That could easily be construed as being you taking the pee . . . .t hey are at trail side suffering a mechanical issue not going anywhere fast, you pootle past smiling and say “have fun guys” . . .lol

Sorry, should have been clearer in my OP. Pretty much all of them were fettling just before the descent, I doubt they were all having mechanicals at the same time (unless they all had a spontaneous seatpost height failure and suspension dialling troubles). They were just making pre-flight checks before beginning the descent I would imagine. It’s a looooong road up there, so probably grabbing some air too.

There’s not much to fettle on my HT, so I just kept riding.

I have this same moan fairly regularly about the rudeness of riders on my local trails (I live next to a trail centre). I only really notice it when riding at peak times though, which isn’t that often, but it manages to really wind me up every time.

First of all there the “Why can’t you just cheer up a bit moan” about the glum faces, although to be fair when I ride out the door and up the hill I tend to come across riders who are a couple of hours out from the visitors centre and may be lacking the energy to be happy. So I might be being a bit unfair.

Then there’s the “Why the **** can’t they just be polite and say hello back?” moan. Now I have lived in places where nobody says anything to anyone if that can avoid it, and I now live in a place where everyone says hello to everyone, and if someone doesn’t say hello back to you you think “What’s up with them?” or “Must be tourists”, so I might be conditioned to it now, but in all the outdoory things I’ve done over the years people have always had a greeting to hand. Getting nothing back, not even a nod or a slightly desperate breathless grunt of acknowledgement puts me in such a bad mood. If it happens more than once on a ride (which it often does as it tends to be at peak times) I find myself turning around and childishly flicking Vs at their grumpy arses. Makes me feel better anyway.

The flip side is that if I say hello to another local, or worse a rider I know, then you can be stuck for ages passing the time of day and discussing the changing texture of trail x over the last month and how wet the moors are for the time of year etc etc 😉

you sound like fun.

I find myself turning around and childishly flicking Vs at their grumpy arses.

Angry much? 😆

Just had a week in Morzine and probebly about a third of the people i said hello to wanted to stand and chat for 2 hours, another third simply replied hello back, and the last third just blanked me and stared at my Cotic Soul, stared at me, stared again at the bike and rode off confused 😀

I find the “i’m cool as frick cause mum and dad bought me this bike and I own this trail centre” teenagers the biggest pain in the erse. I’ve seen them nailing it down the blue route behind obvious newbies and as they passed they tutted, shook their heads and rolled their eyes. You find ski racing kids have the same attitude.

Most of the “adults” give good chat and the top of spooky wood is a brilliant place for a blether with randoms. I usually stand away from folk cause I’m chain smoking 20 cigs after the climb 🙄

Angry much?

Hey – I live here I’ll be as angry as I like, but these bloody visitors, coming into my forest and being all grumpy and not looking like they’re enjoying themselves… I’m not having it.. go on.. get out.. the lot of yer!

😉

I used to ride there a lot and never found it friendly. I had a particularly bad experience around 3 or 4 yrs ago on a weekday in the school hols when I had my youngest on a trailgator and got some abuse on the blue for it

When my kids were younger I’d always ride at the back, give them space and not let anyone past – only once had a problem (Spooky Wood), and I’d already said to those at the start to give me a couple of minutes otherwise they’d be held up. Knob didn’t get past.

But if anyone is at GT tomorrow and sees a couple of blokes (456TI and Cube FS), say hello and we’ll say hello 🙂

We went for first time a week back – twas ace riding. As with everything in life, there are some friendly people, some not.
We had a good few cheery hello’s all the way round and some advice in the car park, and more chat with another family part way round.
We also had one chap particularly miserable and had a go about being on spooky woods with a kid, and a couple of ‘serious’ race-ry groups.
I suspect that trail centre’s may well attract a higher proportion of muppets than some of the more remote natural riding – it takes a different set of attitudes I think…
Generally, I think riding is a really friendly sport. Try some competitive sailing if you want grumpy.

TBH I’ve never found it unfriendly… But I think the draw of the place does mean you’ll get more variety of riders. You’re not so likely to meet a miserable rider up the top of Golspie, or halfway down talnotry hill, because only people who love bikes will be up there in the first place. Whereas at glentress there’s loads of people whose mates or boyfriend loves bikes.

I can’t recall anyone not responding to a nod or verbal equivalent at Glentress and we usually get some aimed at us. There’s almost always a conversation, even if only a quick remark passed, at the gatherings by the exits off the forest road onto the singletrack.

I think it’s just a trail centre thing, I always say hello to people I see on the trails and don’t always get a reply! It always seems to be the guys on “serious” bikes as well. The more casual riders on cheaper “halfords special” type bikes seem to be the ones having the most fun. Very much a generalisation but that’s my experience.

hels – Member

“I know what you mean. I always say hello to folk, but it’s so busy at GT at weekends you end up smiling and waving like a loon. I now just nod a “s’up?!” kind of gesture if I catch their attention. Like when I owned a van, a car, a motorbike, a road bike and mtbs and had to wave to and let in pretty much everyone on the road. Except tractors. I hate those guys.

What I want to know, is what is all up with amassing your group at the entrance to the trails, then giving evils to people that just wanna keep on truckin ? It’s not Tesco. And you really think I am going to hold you up, you big fat mincer ?”

Ha ha – class 😀

Glentress is no friendlier or unfriendlier than anywhere else. I think it’s all down to the large numbers. I generally say hello to folk on the black (ie not that many) or when I stop at the top of Spooky Wood. Lower down though there are just so many folk it’s not practical.

Not that I’m complaining; I think it’s great huge numbers are out on mountain bikes (any bikes in fact).

That’s just society these days. I once saw a lady that had fallen off her bike at Drumlanrig during some kind of race. She had blood running down her leg and was walking rather gingerly down the trail. I asked if she was OK and was told to “f##k off and keep riding” or words to that effect. Decided it was best just to do as I was told. Your damned if you do, damned if you don’t. What bothers me more is when we are trailbuilding at Glentress and the majority of riders barely acknowledge us never mind thank us for our hard work, although I think most of them are terrified they’ll fall off in front of us so are concentrating fully on that too much to say anything.

Some of them think we’re community service. More fool them, it’s more care in the community

If they knew us better they’d give us a much wider berth, body armour is no match for a Mattock. Just ask Fudge 😳

You’d need a much bigger Mattock for Skipper, fair to say.

I was brought up not to talk to strangers and to keep myself to myself and I ain’t gonna change now.If I am out riding on my own it’s because I want to be on my own.

I was brought up not to talk to strangers and to keep myself to myself and I ain’t gonna change now.

Yeah, my mum told me not to talk to strangers too, but I think she was just protecting me from being abducted by a paedophile rather than prohibiting me from being civil to people as an adult.

I was also brought up to leave cookies and milk for a bearded pervert who used to slide down out chimney in the middle of the night, and told to leave teeth under my pillow so that a tooth fairy would leave money instead.

In addition my mum used to tell me to drink milk before going on on the lash as a teenager, to line my stomach (I now know that milk and alcohol don’t really mix too well)

You really haven’t changed from the way that you were brought up? I’m guessing you’re maybe in you’re about 50 now? That’s some pretty impressive indoctrination.

I followed my own path, it’s quite a happy one, I tend to say hello when people speak to me. But hey, i’m probably just crazy 🙂

I’m afraid I’m one of those folk with a generally cheery disposition and will happily say “hi” to everyone I meet out on the bike or hillwalking – regardless of where I am. I mostly ride solo and, especially on longer rides and tours, meeting and chatting to folk is one of the incentives for getting out there.

I’m willing to bet some most of you would fine me perfectly insufferable. 😆

I gave up hillwalking ‘cos I got sick of saying hello to dozens of complete strangers.

I’ve yet to be on a walk where I’ve met dozens of complete strangers. I don’t count the high street as hillwalking.

If you said hello to everyone on the High St they’d think you were bonkers but do it in the countryside and it’s fine apparently.

Was up there for a weekend in June, and had a blast, but i must admit i wasn’t looking for a bromance or ‘owt. Seemed friendly enough to me; sorry to not join in the bed wetting.