MX riders on trails

I just posted about the evidence that MTB riders leave behind on another thread (Glentress).

Except that mtb’s are allowed *anywhere* in Scotland and motorbikes still aren’t so the argument doesn’t really apply?

Well reasoned argument – thanks

put a CR500 next to even your raddest most gnarcore STWer and ask them to let rip..

try and spot the subtle differences between which machine causes more damage.. don’t be such a spoilt kid

the arguments about whether walkers, horses or bicycles cause most trail damage rumble on indefinitely.. even scientists can’t work it out, a different kettle of fish

It’s the same difference between enjoying a nice cup of tea in the afternoon with your dear old gran, and shooting up dirty heroin with used needles in a filthy squat while your AIDS riddled girlfriend sells her body in the next room to get the money to buy your next bag of smack

Ah, so because MTBs are allowed everywhere, they can cause whatever damage they like?

As a long time rider of both kinds of bikes, my sympathies are split, but I find it hypocritical that MTBs are seen here as the good guys and MX as evil trail damaging hooligans. This is precisely the argument that other trail users use to bash MTB riders and that hasn’t done much to improve relations or move either cause forward much IMO.

Yes in Scotland we can go anywhere but I that didn’t stop me being roundly abused on Sunday in the Pentlands (and I’m SUPER polite believe me) by walkers both in the hills and on the canal.

And as someone else pointed out, and as I know from experience, MX riders are seriously persecuted in Scotland (no BOATS etc up here) so basically you HAVE to wing it “illegally” if you want to ride at all. No trail centres for them. Of course some MX riders behave irresponsibly like the litter louts in Glentress, but the majority don’t.

put a CR500 mountain biker next to even your raddest most gnarcore STWer rambler and ask them to let rip..

Same argument exactly.

I find it funny how pretty much all of the Trails in use in the Thetford Forest (Both Trail centre waymarked and Local knowledge)were originally formed by running Enduros through the forest…..

They are certainly the ones with the most natural flow 😀

dazzlingboy – Member

Well reasoned argument – thanks. Horseriders/ramblers/others may disagree with that.

Pretty sure my bike does less damage than the average horse. And I rarely leave dung all over the trail either.

Pretty sure my bike does less damage than the average horse. And I rarely leave dung all over the trail either.

I agree with you 100%, but this is the argument that is used against MTBs time and again.

Ah, so because MTBs are allowed everywhere, they can cause whatever damage they like?

not at all and as I said in my first post I avoid areas where I know I’ll cause damage.

I think the reason that MX’s are seen as ‘evil trail damaging hooligans’ is because most of the time the evidence that people see that MX’s have been riding an area is damaged trails.

You could run hundreds of mtb’s up a fairly sensitive trail and find little evidence they’d been there, one or two MXers employing poor throttle technique makes it look like there’s been a race through.

We were on Wildboar/Cumberland Clough the other day and apart from the spraying of rocks and buzzing of MTBers, the noise from the ‘MX’ bikes was deafening. That’s a legal path for them but still, you can see why people don’t like hearing/smelling them while out enjoying the countryside.

but this is the argument that is used against MTBs time and again.

by who?
are there really screaming hordes baying for our demise..?

wwaswas – Member
You could run hundreds of mtb’s up a fairly sensitive trail and find little evidence they’d been there, one or two MXers employing poor throttle technique makes it look like there’s been a race through.

Or look at the trail maintainance that needs to be done every year in the national parks, and that’s got nothing to do with wheels or hooves

send the same amount of foot traffic up an unprepared track and see what the result is 🙄

A lot of us did ride Trail bikes responsibly, (Not my CR500 I hasten to add) and still got untold grief for it from the red socks, we`d pick routes which would minimise damage, not ride them in winter etc

Eventually the tiny amount of BOAT’s available became ever more restricted and those that did remain spent half the year under TRO`s as it was cheaper to slap a tro on than to correctly maintain the routes.

I got fed up with the hassle in the end and started riding MTB`s instead.

If everyone had the right to roam but with that came responsibility for only riding / walking / motorcycling routes in good condition then I`m sure the problems would lessen.

How many Byways are now overgrown due to not enough foot traffic, and no vehicle access I wonder ?

I think if we’re getting into a ‘which way of accessign the outdoors causes the most trail damage per user’ the MX riders aren’t going to come out other than near the bottom?

It’s true that over use of any trail by whatever legal traffic is allowed on it will cause damage if there’s enough use but trails damaged by only foot, hooved or mtb traffic will probably recover quicker than an over used mx one?

put a CR500Honda C90 next to even your raddest most gnarcore STWer and ask them to let rip..

FTFY

MX riders are seriously persecuted in Scotland (no BOATS etc up here) so basically you HAVE to wing it “illegally” if you want to ride at all. No trail centres for them.

You don’t have to, you could go to any one of the MX race tracks, or MX practice tracks. The fact that motorbikes have a disproportionately large detrimental impact on both the environment and other peoples enjoyment of it means that it’s banned from large parts of the countryside. Take the Dark Peak as an example, on a summers day there may be 10’s of MX’ers*, 100’s of MTB’ers and 1000’s of walkers, yet if you stood anywhere you’d only know about the MX’ers* as you can hear them, and if you look at a badly erroded track, odds on the majority of the errosion was done by the motorbikes with some help from the 4×4’s!

It looks like a heck of a lot of fun, but as a sport it’s not sustainble on ‘natural’ non-maintained tracks.

*catch all term for off-road motorbiker in this case

I reckon MXers (or whatever) should be invited to certain places;
http://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/wigley-lane-no-longer-wiggly/
Longest wheelspin competition, anyone?
Use them as trail desanitisers.

Use them as trail desanitisers.

😀

yunki likes this

Interesting topic – used to be quite keen on the motocross thing, and the topic of illegal riding was a regular issue, I’m quite new to mountain biking and and interesting to see it’s a topic here too.

With motocross, I was always of the opinion that illegal riding absolutely cannot be condoned. Apart from the illegality of it, I always saw it as a massive threat to the sport itself – noise has always been an issue, even more so with the popular resurgence of 4 strokes, and illegal ridingwas always going to be the world’s worst PR for the sport. Always surprised me how many people justified it on the grounds they had nowhere else to ride…

Riding a legal bike on legal trails is a different matter, but if someone’s riding a motorbike where they shouldn’t, reporting it gets my vote. They’re indulging themselves at the potential expense of everyone who makes the effort to be legal, so screw em.

There are loads of bike types but usually classified by discipline:

MX – motocross on a closed private short circuit with jumps and turns, much like BMX.

Enduro – riding trails, much like XC (AM) MTB, on road registered bikes on legal trails (or closed private events)

Both can be done on either bike, a bit like you would be downhilling if you do an uplift day, even if you take a trail bike.

Third class is

Scally (or other derogatory term) – ripping around on whatever, wherever, illegally.

All semantics for sure but for every illegal rider there are many, many respectable ones sticking to the law and only riding where they should. As Pondo says, illegal riding is actively frowned upon and not condoned in the (respectable) off road riding communities as the minority tarnish it for the others.

So please do single out and report the illegal riding but don’t tar everyone with the same brush!

As a mtb’er and ex motorbike green laner, I can see both sides of the story. However, what many ramblers,horse riders, mtb’ers etc. aren’t aware of, is they have somewhere around 100,000+ miles of of off road right-of-way, when users of motor based vehicles have less than 10,000. And what there is, is being downgraded year on year.

The damage they are capable of causing is/can be bad if not ridden/driven with restraint. However, when I used to go green laneing, most of the damage to land I rode on was caused by farm machinery of weather erosion.

And as for horses, they can do a fair bit themselves. Then when your finished riding one, you don’t just power wash it and leave it in the shed for a few weeks. You put it in field/paddock, where it chews that up and 5h1t5 everywhere.

I reckon MXers (or whatever) should be invited to certain places;
http://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/wigley-lane-no-longer-wiggly/

When the other trail sanitisation thread was going, I pointed out the repair list that my friend’s volunteer group had put together. Says on their PDF that Wigley Lane was going to be resurfaced by the council, rather than volunteers, so I think they’re in the clear of that particular effort. 😛

Was a bit alarmed to see Jacob’s Ladder on the list though, although I guess if it’s tricky getting Dobbin down it…