I think one if the differences is the trail building community is more of a ‘thing’ over there.

this is pretty much it. Where I live mountain bike trails are very recent things and they were all made by volunteers and are maintained by the city and volunteers alike. Personally (probably having grown up in the UK), I see ruts and erosion and tree fall as evolution of the trail.

Here, Canada, even the overhanging foliage is cut back to “keep the trails open”. I fully respect the culture and always despaired at erosion from locked and dragged wheels in the old country to be honest.

<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>but the big but is, If rain is forecast even with a 100% chance, it will be over in a matter of hours and not a matter of months.
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thd worst time is the thaw. Not enough snow fat biking and the trails too wet for normal biking. And the packed snow on the trails takes an age to go.

in many ways, the year round riding in the UK is something I never fully appreciated. Probably because I was wet and cold and muddy.

I only ride trail centres in winter.
Tracks rideable
Changing rooms
Bike wash
Hot food

Part of that is because natural trails are no fun, and also you can wreck them.

Yanks have other options in winter – skiing etc that we don’t. There winter is more of a “season” whereas we have the same weather with slight temp and rain differences as the year goes round

I have seen trails trashed by overuse in winter. the worst was the company that ran a commercial trailquest in the pentlands one winter. They were english based and simply could not understand that the scottish access laws mean the rangers could not forbid it – merely point out the worst affected bits to be avoided. So their reasoning was that if the rangers did not say no they were perfectly OK to run the event. A couple of hundred mountainbikes over the same trails in a short length of time caused huge damage to paths that many locals simply avoid in winter. Facebook posts saying ” what a wonderful muddy ride” they really did not like it when it was pointed out their wonderful muddy ride wrecked our trails. Fortunately the outcry and opposition they got made them reconsider and it was only a one off. they did not repair afterwards despite saying they would.

Just because you can does not mean you should

the guidance does say something about avoiding muddy bits and carry over them if unavoidable

Didn’t the “North Shore” freeride thing evolve out of building platforms to bridge areas that were too wet to ride pretty much year round?

Always strikes me a weird that the US claims to be the Land Of The Free yet places so many restrictions on what you can do there. Add in that their National Parks seem to be treated as heavily designed and manicured golf courses, with everything undisturbed and picture-perfect, and it’s a tough one to get my brain around.

Yep.

This was an eye-opener for me.

But then they have that much space they can afford to compartmentalise more.

I’m on my fourth trip this year to the USA and luckily I’ve been rained on for about 3 seconds in Moab. That’s it. We’ve also never struggled to find interesting areas to ride that feel wild enough.

As for this country; laughable – I have to deal with rain and wet trails most days – the Forestry, motorbikes and horses do far more damage. But it’s all superficial. Earth will bugger us all of eventually. Trails will just grow over.

Add in that their National Parks seem to be treated as heavily designed and manicured golf courses, with everything undisturbed and picture-perfect, and it’s a tough one to get my brain around.

I think the point of wilderness designations is that human impact should be kept to an absolute minimum, in other words, the area should be like it was before humans set foot, as much as possible. A golf course is the exact opposite of this.

hols2
I think the point of wilderness designations is that human impact should be kept to an absolute minimum, in other words, the area should be like it was before humans set foot, as much as possible.

That’s a zoo, not wilderness.

Wilderness would allow humans so long as they lived off the land. We are part of the environment too.

That’s a zoo, not wilderness.

A zoo is an animal prison, build and run by humans. Wilderness is untouched by humans, as far as that is possible. I don’t think the fights over snowmobile and ATV access in U.S. national parks have anything to do with living off the land or being part of the environment.

I really couldn’t give a flying duck what the yanks do.

hols2
…I don’t think the fights over snowmobile and ATV access in U.S. national parks have anything to do with living off the land …

I don’t think I implied that either.

However it probably does qualify as wilderness, after all, they did a pretty good job of exterminating the original inhabitants.

I think we should be careful with using the word “damage” when what we really me is “a bit muddy”…

All trails wear out, as do all mountains, 5 million years ago Norfolk was not flat! Where our trails have a huge useage (peaks, lakes etc) then i can see why we would need to limit the erosion (erosion not damage) simpy to make access to these trails easy for all, but realistically, the countryside is muddy, it’s not chocolate box picturesque perfect.

Wear the right shoes fit the right tyres and us humans can go anywhere. No, you won’t be able to get out of your white leather faux by four and walk in your high heals, but that’s not how the countryside is, or has ever been.

(as mentioned, certain parts will need to be paved or improved, as for example access for wheelchair or disability users is important, and no we shouldn’t ‘needlessly’ erode our countryside, but to say it’s damaged is eronious in the most part imo)

I’m with maxtorque – it is a lot more eroded, damaged and semi-permanent (in human lifetime terms not geological time) once covered in concrete or tarmac. A muddy track vanishes very quickly if you leave it alone.

If you’re concerned about the damage bikes do to tracks, ride a fatbike. It repairs the grooves left by lesser bikes.

Wjhen you see a path go from a foot wide to ten foot wide, see the soil be stripped down to bedrock with huge gullies 3 or 4 foot deep – that is damage.

Then its gets repaired with rock slabs, then people ride along side it, then the water runnoff stripps all the supporting soil from the slabbing and the slabbing collapses leaving 4 ft steps – thats damage.

Wjhen you see a path go from a foot wide to ten foot wide, see the soil be stripped down to bedrock with huge gullies 3 or 4 foot deep – that is damage.

So lucky we’ve never seen this happen near us. Plenty of foot and bike flow in places, but it just slops up and turns to a quagmire. Trees stop people going wide, so the trail stays put, albeit sloppy. Not many exposed trails round here though.

Only exception is where cars / trucks / tractors force their way down some tracks, hitting foilage and vegetation and leaving the ruts of doom at the trail edges.

Worth sayinmg that there are a fair few springs around too, and they never allow the trails to dry out, so even in the peak of summer there are a couple of bogs that are permanent mud traps.

I suppose it shows the power of trees in soil management. Go trees!