Local trails, pretty cut up. Strava damage?

Ventured out on to a certain area tonight that I’ve been avoiding due to knowing how badly it can suffer during prolonged bad weather. Was pretty gutted to see it in such a state. I’d say it’s seen a lot more traffic of late than it has on past years. I appreciate our sport is probably really in its hey day at the moment but one thing I did notice is a fair amount of straight lining some of the riders have been doing. Gone are some of the lovely swoopy sections, replaced with straight lines of churned up mud. Could the increased use be strava related as well as popularity, I certainly think some of the straight lining could be kom wannabes!

more likely just a case of selfish people who ride places when the conditions are not suitable.

Can’t comment without seeing pics – but nobody’s going to be getting a KOM in churned-up mud.

What chakaping says. Plus far more likely that people are straight lining corners to keep upright.

Rule 1 of bike club is that if a corner can be cut there will always be someone who cuts it. Then once they’ve left their tyre tracks someone else will follow, then another and another until it looks like a normal line.

I think there will be problems up there soon if we’re barking up the same tree. Massive amount of erosion and as you say loads of straight lining on the corners making the trails wider and wider. Probably not a major issue when you look at what they’ve done as a consequence of tree harvesting, but still looks bad and doesn’t give a good impression. As you say it’s getting hammered at the moment, the cows seem pretty indifferent though.

but nobody’s going to be getting a KOM in churned-up mud.

This^^ ,people did used to ride in winter before smart phones were invented.

Where about are you talking about anyway as I think I’m fairly local to you Wrightyson?

I went out today on a trail I used to ride in the dry. I found it completely mashed, walkers and horses! Lumpy, bumpy, puddles, ruts etc, only a couple of tyre lines.

Yes trambler the place where the cows reside. I noticed on the drive home they’ve tried to put a fence up on the piece of grass where folks cut up from spite winter to avoid the **** who lives by the footpath, that’s subsequently been ragged to the ground. I also noticed that the gate at the bottom has been ragged a bit too.
Ssboggy I’m on about the area between wussa and Cromford where the cows live.

Yes, thought that was where you meant.

Less people use strava than you think TBH.

It’s probably just idiots

I went out today on a trail I used to ride in the dry. I found it completely mashed, walkers and horses! Lumpy, bumpy, puddles, ruts etc, only a couple of tyre lines.

Always amuses me hearing mountain bikers complain about horses and walkers churning up the trails making them lumpy and bumpy.

small island + 65 million people + more money + free time = increased pressure on the countryside. It is only going to get worse 🙁

It’s been 2 bad winters in a row for my local trails, I think traffic is actually down (just an impression) but lots of damage. I’m just blaming the weather tbh, long wet spells and not many dry. Lots of braiding and widening but again that’s not strava, that’s just traffic.

OTOH some wee bits of trailwork I did do seem to have paid off in a couple of places, just nudges blocking some lines and narrowing others… I used to be subtle about this and try and make it look natural but I never really felt it worked, I’ve an inkling now that being really unsubtle plants the idea “obviously someone really doesn’t want me to cut this corner, I’ll not cut the others either” and also takes away “Oh no, a branch has fallen on this line, I’ll remove it…”

At GT where I do a fair bit of organised work, we spend a depressing amount of time blocking shortcuts or sometimes formaliisng lines of desire, twas ever thus but it’s worse now and I do blame strava****s for some of it. On the green route ffs!

I didn’t know that straight lining corners was frowned upon so badly by so many people, is this hallowed ground or something? Is this a relatively new phenomenon? Brought about bu STRAVA?

You would think that folk would encourage or even embrace the fact that an app can inspire so many people to compete in their own little world, getting outdoors keeping fit enjoying the social aspect, meanwhile in some one else’s world the wheels have fallen off because some **** has straight lined a corner, I’ve probably already said too much BUT I’d just like to add the following, if riders are finding their own lines it’s either because the trails not been built properly or they are or have been racing as in “racing line”

If you want to ride in straight lines, stick to bloody fire roads, single track is supposed to be twisty, cutting corners just means you dont have the skills to ride tight stuff fast.

Cannock cheeky has been mauled this winter by big groups riding trails that most folks leave to over winter. It just gives riders a bad name and creates more conflict with other users, when every path is like the somme.

main issue with stravassholes is not folks racing for times, but the fact it opens up trails to those that don’t have the local knowledge.

im with gandalf on this. ” keep it secret, keep it safe”

Water table been high/ soil moisturehas been high across big swathes of country for 2 consecutive winters now. Erosions is easier…..you can see it in the trails, but also in the road surfaces too where there’s a huge number of potholes, also a few reports of landslips every few months…it’s all the same thing. We need a long dry Mint Sauce style summer to start to dry things out properly, not just superficially in the top few Millimetres.

It

Its been mild, I think there have only been a handful of rides this winter where the ground has been frozen, so the trails will suffer.

small island + 65 million people + more money + free time = increased pressure on the countryside. It is only going to get worse

+1

, if riders are finding their own lines it’s either because the trails not been built properly or they are or have been racing as in “racing line”

And here in lies the problem. These trails I’m talking about are cheeky paths that have been there for countless years, not dug and armoured by a team. As tazzy says, I reckon it’s lack of skill or too much speed that basically forces you off the true line. Hopefully you don’t ride our local stuff with that attitude as if you and others keep doing so we’re going to get big swathes of it made it as inaccessible as possible by the land owners.

Some of my favourite stuff is wrecked. I’ve been leaving it all winter but what were once hard to spot drop ins and exits are now muddy and obvious. They’re not armoured but I was riding some of them 20 years ago.
Thanks to some enduros that used them they’re being battered on a weekly basis, issue being they used to recover now they’re not and are getting worse. They just can’t take the heavy traffic. New wider sections are being ridden and cut up.
Fortunately the organisers are moving the enduros down the valley this year.

A subject close to my heart and certainly the same where I ride. There are a couple of trails that didnt even exist before I cut them through. They’re soft in the winter and off camber, and I knew they wouldn’t carry much traffic, but there they are, on the strava heat map and mashed to **** on the ground too.

Less people use strava than you think TBH.

It’s probably just idiots
That made me spit my weetabix out laughing 😆
(although calling people who use strava idiots is maybe a little harsh)

I’m still trying to work out if I’m in the minority an idiot or both 😀

Depends on the location really, as North wind points out, Glentress is in a really bad way in places from people trying to cut off switchbacks, etc. A lot of that is in the climbs too, so not just straight lining for the ‘racing line.’

We rejoice when bikes have greater traction for climbing and can descend previously unattemptably steep terrain. It’s little surprise lines are changing as bikes evolve.

As Tazzy says anyone who respects the trails sticks to those that drain well in the worst weather or just avoids them altogether.

The problem with Strava is that it allows the t0$$ers to find trails with little to no effort. If you value your trails keep them off Strava.

small island + 65 million people + more money + free time = increased pressure on the countryside. It is only going to get worse

+1

65,000,001?

I appreciate our sport is probably really in its hey day at the moment

Are you serious? Everyone riding trail centres instead of exploring, more component/bike standards than you can assimilate etc.

1995 was the zenith.

I like riding in mud.

I will leave it at that.

Grapevine reports that there’s a cheeky enduros event at gt today. Apparently not all on official trails.

Is this the reason we can’t have good stuff?

Yeh it doesn’t take that much traffic, bike Walker or horse to turn a wet trail into a boggy mess.

There’s a few near me that are literally impassable at the moment, unless you enjoy wading through swamps and loosing your shoes to the swamp God.

Some trails just need to be allowed to recover and drain a bit after lots of rain.

Something I noted from some trail builder posts / blogs is good builds involve subtle blocking off the shortcut options or when changing the line, using natural resources around so it just doesn’t look like there’s any possible line that way.

I’ve noticed even on official trails like the new section of Summer Lightning there’s a load of short cutting all the roll downs and bomb holes. Okay there are puddles in some of them at the moment, but that’s what you sign up for if you ride mountain bikes in Britain.

a few years ago people would post here to ask for guides to areas and it doesn’t seem to happen much these days. as someone who has guided other forum users, if it were wet, i might point out a trail and say ‘but we’re leaving that alone today else it’ll get trashed’. if someone goes exploring with strava they don’t get that. they might pour in to a trail and think ‘this is a bogging mess’ but they’ll probably just plow on.
there are shortcut lines that get opened up now and then at our local spot, and i do wonder if the motivation is to retake that KOM. i wonder if you’ve got someone sponsored, who can use strava to show they’re training and getting quicker, if that is the reason behind what i find from time to time. the stuff i fine is probably going to give you a couple of seconds, and i’d imagine that’s pretty tempting to some.

Likewise, years ago someone showed me a lot of the cheeky trails locally, all very much “local trails for local people” 😉 kind of stuff and stressed the rule that all the locals use about keeping off certain bits in the wet as the soil there doesn’t cope well (or it’s chalk/clay etc) and also a lot of “don’t publish this trail” as it’s sensitive/cheeky etc.

All that’s gone out the window and the places are swarming now all the year and whatever the weather, along with a lot of digging despite rangers and landowners trashing and blocking off.

Though I’m not a believer in the American rule of just not riding at all in the wet. I’d never ride in this country if I followed that rule. There are plenty of trails which cope okay in the wet. Doesn’t have to be sticking to hard pack trail centres. It’s just where it’s getting clearly over ridden and swampy, maybe it’s time to leave it for a bit, but people keep riding it.

I just think spread the load and try different areas for a bit, explore new.

Still though, never resort to the road bike because it’s too wet off road 😉

I don’t think you can necessarily blame Strava, it is only a tool after all.
Yes people are using it to discover new trails, and then riding them when they’re too wet and trashing them. But then you can only really blame a new generation of MTBers brought up on all-weather trail-centres, who then don’t have the awareness not to ride less hardy stuff when they start to move up in skill levels and explore more ‘natural’ trails.

I don’t think it’s really down to people looking for trails they see on Strava. There is some of that going on (I do it myself, discretely if necessary), but the main hordes of people are down to massive increase in popularity of mountain biking and social media talking places up.

Peaslake end of Surrey Hills is a classic example. Wasn’t so long ago that while there were a fair amount of riders about it was about as busy as it is during the week days. Now it’s heaving. A lot of people go there first time having heard about it from friends or read posts about it. All the time I see posts asking about the trails there.

Plus there’s a boost from certain locally based magazine staff who promote the trails, including those that are illegal (most of them in Surrey Hills), complete with guides and maps.

And then there are YouTube and pinkbike videos followed by comments “where’s that?”, and someone eventually describes it.

Infamous jump trail in Surrey Hills built not so long ago had sign up saying not to advertise it or post videos of it, but sure enough that’s what happened (including by a certain bike magazine) and it became hugely popular. Until the landowner found it and even commented semi-jokingly about the sign. Then he flattened the entire area.

Hang on, let me get this right? Some people have been riding bikes and you are moaning? Presumably you own this land otherwise why would you think you have the right to dictate who rides it and when,

If that is the case you need to enforce the fact that it is Private land owned by yourself for your use and that you are saving it for s sunny afternoon when it hasn’t been raining for 4 months solid after annual bike sales are growing year on year bought by people with Smart phones who use an app which highlights secret trails that must not be ridden outside your rules otherwise you post shit on a forum dominating the moral high ground because 20 years ago you made a trail and today people aren’t adhering to your rules, if I were you I’d call for a complete ban on all bike sales, I mean now you’ve got one why would any one else dare to even look at one, imagine if their bike was better than yours, they had STRAVA and rode during winter, The Bastards.

If I were you I’d get out riding instead of sitting in the house chuntering waiting for Summer sunshine, Whilst your sat with your feet up others are out there laughing at you. And I think the Secret trails you are referring to are in Narnia,

‘Dark coloured stones’ by any chance Wrighty?

Not been up for a while, so don’t know the conditions tbh – there are some great natural trails up there and while we all want to go faster, straightlining is balls – most of the fun is in the twisty stuff!