Stile End byway repair is dangerous

17 seconds into my video you will see the first of our group almost fall off the repaired descent on the Stile End byway (heading towards Sadgill). The last one in our group didn’t make the blind bend and fell 8ft head first into the jagged rocks of the stream. While his helmet saved him from serious head injuries, only cuts and a black eye, he suffered a nasty compound wrist fracture.

I’m all for riding to what’s in front of you but the way this track has been redesigned there is little room for error and the price you pay for getting it wrong is disasterous! I have just sent my first email of complaint about a trail to these email addresses: hq@lakedistrict.gov.uk, betterhighways.carlisle@cumbria.gov.uk

If you have had any issues with this section of trail it would be great if you could also let those responsible know. Hopefully then we can then get something changed for our benefit for once.

Where did the track go before, did you always ride down the stream? Excuse my ignorance i dont know the track

what exactly is the problem?

Sounds like a bad injury, hope he recovers. What improvements do you think needs to be made? From the video it just looks like a nice smooth bit of trail that encourages high speeds followed by a corner of doom.

e-mail of complaint? really?

what tomd said, really.

Short of ‘slow down’ signs what can they do?

that corner has always been a bit iffy. it suffered bad after heavy rain, it needed mending.
looks a bit dodgy but no worse than before.

trail design to encourage users to slow down. I’m not familiar with that bridleway, but it looks like they’ve resurfaced the first part then stone-pitched the bends? The smooth surface leading to the stone pitching does encourage higher speed, if previously it was rocky it would hav controllled riders speed so perhaps now they need to add some visual pinch points to make riders check their speed? We had a similar situation on the Pennine Bridleway above Hayfield, two people were hospitalised before the authorities accepted that the original design was wrong and rebuilt the trail closer to the suggestions we’d originally made

It’s a bridleway and not designed for MTB’s going fast, but for folk walking/cycling/horse-riding at a speed that they can stop easily if required.

Sorry for your mate etc.

Sympathies for your riding buddy but I’m having difficulty seeing much of a problem. From the video (it’s been a few months since I rode it) it doesn’t look very dangerous – just not engineered to be ridden at speed (which the approach is certainly conducive to) if it was a trail centre I could see your point but it looks fair for a boat.

<edit> but nbt makes a good point about if the council/whoever are resurfacing then being atleast sympathetic to use and the rest of the route would be a good idea.

Im not sure I get it…that’s not a mountain bike trail centre, and even if it was surely it’s the responsibility of the rider to look out for the trail ahead and stay in control? The bend looks fairly tight but looks pretty visible. I suppose they could run a fence along the edge so you can crash into that instead?

You went mountain biking and somebody fell off? Heavens.

It’s fine unless you think that BW maintenance is done with us in mind.

I didn’t like the off camber slanty waterbar a bit lower, but now I know it’s there, it will be fine next time.

x2 post

Sort of echo’ing those above, unfortunate injury, but to me looks grand that some folk have put the time & effort in to surface those lower bends as they do see a fair amount of use and a LOT of water.

I dont see what is wrong? Its a shared track so you should temper youre speed anyway and its in the Lakes. What should the trails have, warning road style signs?!

Looks fine to me, you should see how they “repair” the trails in the Peak!

I’d ditto all the above, sad to hear about the injury, but that looks fine?

little room for error and the price you pay for getting it wrong is disasterous!

The most exciting type of trail to ride IMO 🙂

And it’s not exactly singletrack, quite a lot of room for error?

Firstly, an email of complaint… yes. I have issues with the way this trail has been redesigned so have lodged my concerns with the authorities and also given them my suggestions. If we don’t let them know about how we feel there is no justification for complaining in the future when trails are repaired and ‘sanitised’ without our views being taken into consideration.

Previous to the repair the trail went in a different direction. At around 12 seconds in the video you will see some cones on the left at the top of the old trail that heads off under the wall on the left. The problem they were getting round was 4×4’s under cutting the wall, so it was rerouted. However in doing this they smoothed out the steep track (it looks a lot flatter on the video), which was previously covered in loose bolders and bedrock that naturally controlled your speed.

My suggestion was they bring the tight corners up one higher so there is an obviously visible right turn on the grass area just before the tree, prior to the steep, blind, off camber left hand bend.

Me and the group I was with are all experienced riders how know how to ride and this corner caught us all out. And we weren’t the only ones as there were plenty of tyre tracks heading off that corner.

putting corners in? you’ll never get KoM that way.

Flattyres – Member
17 seconds into my video you will see the first of our group almost fall off the repaired descent on the Stile End byway (heading towards Sadgill). The last one in our group didn’t make the blind bend and fell 8ft head first into the jagged rocks of the stream. While his helmet saved him from serious head injuries, only cuts and a black eye, he suffered a nasty compound wrist fracture.

If you thought it was that bad at the time, why didn’t you warn him?

[rant]
FFS. Really?

I’m currently sat here with a fractured hip because my front wheel slid out on a rock slab on a local trail. Am I complaining about that section of trail needing fixing, or that they need to fill in the ditch next to the slab that the wheel dropped into, or that they should build some trail feature to prevent me from hitting that section at 20mph? No – it’s a natural trail, not a trail centre.

If you know the trail then you know where you need to slow down. If you don’t know the trail then ride it at a pace that you can react to anything you see. It’s whingey idiots like you that mean many of the best trails end up being sanitised. Take some responsibility for your own actions. I suggest you stick to the blue runs at trail centres or take up golf.
[/rant]

I rode that twice last summer- first time solo to check the route before taking a group on it the following week. I didn’t have any issues there both times.

As said ^ in the Peak some of the repairs are over-zealous.

You should have ridden it before they did the work!! (About 30s in)
https://vimeo.com/51388564

I can kind of see what the OP is talking about. The “natural line”/eyeline does seem to head straight into that stream and his mate won’t be the last one to come a cropper there if nothing is done to change the track.

IMO of course.

It’s whingey idiots like you that mean many of the best trails end up being sanitised.

TBF to the OP it was much more fun (and arguably less dangerous with no fast blind bends) before sanitisation. It’s arguably the sanitisation that caused contributed to the crash.

there were plenty of tyre tracks heading off that corner.

if so that’s a bit worrying.

Just wait until they’ve double-sanitised them then!

I’d have ended up in the stream 🙂

qtip – not a whingey person asking for the trails to be sanitised. Quite the opposite in fact. I would have preffered them to make more of the trail more difficult. I realise repairs need to be made I just wish more areas did it a bit more like Roych Clough has been done.

Simon R – I didn’t warn him as the first guy was already stopped on the corner

hora – I’m glad you had no issues. I personally made it round the corner too. If I was on my own I wouldn’t have said anything. While most people will be ok I’m sure there will be quite a few more accidents here.

It’s whingey idiots like you that mean many of the best trails end up being sanitised.

What did your mother tell you about, not without having anything nice to say, shut up?

I can see why your friend came a cropper OP and hope he’s soon back on two wheels. I can easily picture myself skidding past that cornet. It does seem to be surprising.

However, it’s not a trail centre so we need to ride as though there’s something like that around every corner… I’m not saying we do, but…..

I’m not sure a letter of complaint is correct – suggestions maybe, an an explanation of what you think the problem is.

I can easily picture myself skidding past that cornet.

I never have any difficulty stopping for ice cream.

windydave13 – exactly my point, big fun boulders that slow you down. Naturally erroded trails have a way of generally getting harder as they get steeper. This fact should be recognised by the people responsible for maintaining the trails.

My points are:

a) Anything outside of a trail centre is not specifically designed for mountain biking and should be ridden accordingly (i.e. moderating your speed according to how far you can see ahead if you don’t know the trail). If you choose to ride natural trails then it is your responsibility to do so, and to accept the consequences without apportioning blame elsewhere if you do get it wrong.

b) A single complaint is often all it takes for those responsible to simply tarmac over a trail in the name of safety. While you are possibly right that a more technical, challenging trail might actually be safer due to reduced speeds, the general response to trail safety concerns is to turn them into roads.

makecoldplayhistory – yes you are right, definitely not written with a Daily Mail pen of rage 😉 Just told them what happened, with a link to the video, and my suggestion for improvements on how to build the trail with mountain bikers in mind too.

qtip – we do accept the consequences, which is why I have not in any way, shape or form mentioned litigation. Ride to what’s in front of you and it’s your fault if you get it wrong.

As for tarmacing, they pretty much have given how smooth the trail is. No it’s not a trail centre but it is a new built piece of trail that should take into account all the trail users. As pointed out above older, more naturally erroded trails tend to get harder as they get steeper, and do it in proportion to the steepness of the slope. This trail doesn’t. It’s smooth until the steepest point, where they then throw in a blind bend and instant step up in difficulty.

From my desk I can safely say I’d make the corner.

Okay, I’ve had a word with myself and rethought my position on this. If it had been a natural trail then I would stand by my comments but, as you said, this is a repaired section. I haven’t ridden the trail before/after repair so cannot comment on the suitability of the repair. I still think that you have to ride ‘natural’ trails with a particular mindset, and you have to expect things like this might catch you out, but since the issue is with a non-natural part of the trail then maybe it does warrant a letter.

To be honest, I’m not quite sure where I stand on the issue – the more I think about it the more confused I get! The section I crashed on this weekend was on flagstones, so another non-natural trail feature that was presumably put in at some point to avoid some other issue. The reason I crashed though was that I was riding the trail too fast for the conditions, or rather that I’d only ridden the trail once before and didn’t know that the flagstones are like ice if wet and I should have taken the line into the ditch next to them. My thought process was not that these flagstones shouldn’t have been put in on a section of trail that I might be hitting quite fast, or that if the previous bit of trail had been more technical then I would have natural been going slower and able to change line, but rather that I was an idiot.

Apologies for the whingey idiot comment – painkillers wearing off = grumpy qtip!

A little phrase popped into my head from Roadcraft:

‘always being able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear’

A small bad bend sign may be an idea if it really is a bit naughty though

made me think of the ‘gnarly gnarly gnarly’ video from a while back
hope the injured rider gets better soon

Thanks for the appology. Although no offence taken, I do ride natural trails expecting them to catch me out…..and I post stuff like this on the Singletrack forum expecting some abuse 😉