Surrey Hills organised downhill event

Anyone who builds a trail in the Surrey Hills without permission from the landowners is a complete arse.

I’m surprised mountain biking hasn’t been banned in the area yet. The fact that it is still allowed speaks volumes for the tolerance of those like the NT and the Bray family and volumes for the persistent stupidity and selfishness of the “trail” builders who are doing this, who should either grow up or f off, IMO.

Dear event ‘organisers’, support for your event seems to be errr, underwhelming, from your potential customer base!

From the potential customer base from STW that’s all. To be honest, many people who post on STW are of a, how would I put it, negative sneering perspective on life.
I have no affiliation with the organiser and don’t know him personally but ticket sales were swift from what I’ve heard through the grapevine. I’m not sure STW is the customer base.

Anyone who builds a trail in the Surrey Hills without permission from the landowners is a complete arse….the persistent stupidity and selfishness of the “trail” builders who are doing this, who should either grow up or f off, IMO.

Useful addition to the debate Mr Woppit. Perhaps I could ask you to grow up with your language and attitude please.

+1 Woppit. That ain’t gonna happen though.

Perhaps I could ask you to grow up with your language and attitude please.

You might not like being called an arse but otherwise he has a good point.

Th eproblem with building insenstive trails is that the people who do it often just move on if riding’s subsequently banned. The people who’ve been quietly poaching trails of a winters evening for years and operating under the radar lose out as they’re out on their arses too.

What happens if someone has a proper bad accident, e.g life changing or even death, on an ‘illegal’ trail on land owned by Mr X? Anyone they can sue? Anyone liable? Or just the fault of the rider?

You might not like being called an arse but otherwise he has a good point.

I don’t build trails so don’t take that personally

Th eproblem with building insenstive trails is that the people who do it often just move on if riding’s subsequently banned. The people who’ve been quietly poaching trails of a winters evening for years and operating under the radar lose out as they’re out on their arses too.

May have got the wrong end of the stick here but it sounds like you’re saying that only the builders are arses but the people who ride them aren’t. You can’t have it both ways, if you’re an arse for building, then you have to be an arse for riding also.

MrWoppit – how do you think the existing trails got there in the first place? Or are you a strictly fireroad rider?

I don’t build trails so don’t take that personally

ah, sorry, I thought being a trail pixie meant you did build trails.

I think there’s a difference between clearign a deer trail a bit or using an existing footpath to digging dirt and putting ‘obstacles’ in.

There’s loads of mtb’er built trails in my local woods (Stanmer park) and the only ones that ‘bother’ me slightly are where they’ve put obstacles in rather than just routing the trail towards ‘natural’ ones.

At Stanmer, it generally works and there’s not a huge amoutn of conflict fi you stay more than 200 yards from the car parks the dog walkers use (there’s even an mtb race each summer) but I can see that the rangers and/or other users would get pee’d off if there were too much hacking about of undergrowth or stupid building (as per the wild park a few years back).

I think there’s a difference between clearign a deer trail a bit or using an existing footpath to digging dirt and putting ‘obstacles’ in.

Tend to kinda agree. I have noticed over the years that trails following natural lines tend to get left alone (but not always). Trails built with obvious man-made structures tend to get knocked down much faster.

What happens if someone has a proper bad accident, e.g life changing or even death, on an ‘illegal’ trail on land owned by Mr X? Anyone they can sue? Anyone liable? Or just the fault of the rider?

If they permit access and the rider has an accident I imagine he could pursue the land owner as its his liability (unless there was a disclaimer on the land stating otherwise?).

If it was roots, loose earth then it could be reasonable argued and defended in court as ‘part of what you’d expect when entering such land’.

You may not expect a sudden man-made structure that drops 2ft etc suddenly. Again I’m using common sense but I can see why a landowner may get really upset about built structures.

What happens if someone has a proper bad accident, e.g life changing or even death, on an ‘illegal’ trail on land owned by Mr X? Anyone they can sue? Anyone liable? Or just the fault of the rider?

I guess that’s the problem with modern society and the american influence where you sue for anything and everything. Personally I accept the risks associated with biking and if i clatter into a tree then i would accept it as my fault for having a bit of fun in life.

Woppit – I’d be interested to see your cross country loop which i believe you deem as the best you’ve ever ridden. Apart from the usual pots, barrys and summer lightening i’d guess you probably use some of the non sanctioned but ignored trails. As someone who lives in peaslake i also know quite a few of the non biking locals. The main objection towards bikers are the people that hammer down the fireroads linking sections of trail. They walk on the fireroads with their dogs roaming around and therefore quite reasonably don’t want someone on a bike firing past them at 20-30mph. Those that use the trails through the woods cause them no issue at all. Maybe think about that next time you’re coming from the top of holmbury to do barrys without using a non sanctioned trail.

Good news IMO that this event has been cancelled.

What were Williams events thinking of.. 😯 showing the ranger the trails! what did they think would happen!!!

GA will come back to life – the ranger has been driving past it for 5 years on his way to the farm so can’t believe his has not seen it before….

From the williamns website

“IMPORTANT MESSAGE REGARDING THE SURREY STOMPER FIRST ROUND

Hi everyone
I wanted to let you all know about the events that happened earlier this week regarding the first round of the Surrey Stomper .
Unfortunately the local Ranmore Ranger had demolished most of the trails and has made such a fuss about events on the hill, that we have been forced to move the event to another location at the last minute,
Where this is hugely disappointing and inconvenient for all the time and effort spent on this on this, we are not going to let it ruin the series.
We are currently in talks with a couple of the estate owners in the same local area, which are also renowned for their steep tricky and fantastic trails, and will postpone slightly and kick things off again in a few weeks.
I will post the new area and date as soon as we get it cemented. Every thing else will be going ahead as planned.
Apologies to all, and let me know if you have any further questions on the usual lines.
Cheers”

Next stop Winterfold and destruction of those trails….

Gotama common courtesy would mean anchoring on your brakes when you see a walker and dog coast past then nail it after them. It gives face (and respect) to everyone then.

Hammering past- serious? If I was with someone who did that I’d make a bloody comment to slow down to them.

@Hora/Gotama: I guess some parents might want to go after someone if it was their 12yr old who had the accident.

Sure, we might see ourselves as responsible adults willing to take the hit (no pun intended) if we have a bad off. But a parent might see it differently.

Sure, we might see ourselves as responsible adults willing to take the hit (no pun intended) if we have a bad off. But a parent might see it differently.

If a parent takes their child down an illegal trail they have no moral right to see it differently. I do take my son down the steepest, hardest trails I can ride and take the view, inevitably, one day, he’s gonna have a big ‘off’. I should point out he’s better than me though!

Hora – Yes unfortunately. Quite a few people go very quickly down the fireroads and don’t slow down for walkers, particularly on the run from the top of pitch down to peaslake tea shop. Baffles me as there is one of the best runs in the whole area that cuts through the trees a mere 100 yards away from the road but i guess its unsanctioned 🙄 even though it has been there for as long as i can remember and the ranger clearly knows all about it and has no problem with it.

Spacemonkey – I can see where you are coming from and agree with the issue. I just think its a sad state of affairs and one which should not be an problem for the landowners that are good enough to let us ride on their property.

Pixie – I think monkey was probably talking about those kids where the parents don’t ride but let little Tarquin go off and ride his bike with friends/on his own. Tarquin tries the notorious gap jump and comes off worse for wear. Parents think biking is evil, the landowner has allowed a highly dangerous jump to be built and therefore sue.

Gotama

Fair point, hadn’t looked at it from that angle. If you’re called Tarquin then you deserve to have your face planted into a tree though 😛

I’m not just talking about the Tarquins of this world … more a case of parents that ride little or not at all and have no idea these kinds of jumps/gaps/drops etc even exist.

Haven’t read all the posts – but I want to say that I’ve been using Nirvana Cycles for about ten years and it’s an absolute jewel of a shop with great staff, and their shop rides are awesome. Everything an LBS should be.

Next stop Winterfold and destruction of those trails….

You won’t get McAllister on board in the first place!

If they permit access and the rider has an accident I imagine he could pursue the land owner as its his liability (unless there was a disclaimer on the land stating otherwise?).

Which is why I feel we need an “at your own risk” permit system in this country.

Some kind of notice on lands which says the land owner is absolved of any liability and the people using it are responsible for any recovery off the land if they get into trouble.

More land owners would be less objecting to MTB perhaps then.

NT is another matter as they fuss about conservation, but even the stuff highlighted by the press here is barely making an impact. Piling a few already existing logs on the ground for a jump is not chopping down trees. Taking in a digger and digging out big gap jumps, possibly cutting into roots is a big impact but I don’t see that here from the photos.

As for Winterfold… shshhh!

Sadly it will happen though, and when they see some of the stuff they, it’s going to be ballistic.

I’m afraid that this is going to run and run. The BBC are looking to run a story (they have been in some other local bikeshops asking questions) and the police are looking into the “destruction of protected woodland”. In retrospect it was somewhat naive to think that this event was going to run on the Ranmore cheeky trails.

I love riding the cheeky trails on Ranmore/White Down never mind Pitch/Winterfold etc…. but lets not give ourselves grief and flag up that they are there. A “blindeye” alround is a good compromise.

OOPS – better get up there today before the local constabulary move in!

Again I’m using common sense

is that a first for you Hora? how was it? liberating or a bit underwhelming?

So in summary, how do we get williams extreme events to eff off and stop trying to make money out of an event that isn’t needed or wanted and is just causing aggro in the area?

spacemonkey – Member

What happens if someone has a proper bad accident, e.g life changing or even death, on an ‘illegal’ trail on land owned by Mr X? Anyone they can sue? Anyone liable? Or just the fault of the rider?

You would have to show the landowner was negligent. That he had a duty of care towards the land user and that he failed in this duty.

If the landowner does not know about or has sanctioned the trails its very hard to see how anyone could sue.

As far as I am aware there has never been a case in the UK of of this

I can’t believe how short sighted the organisers of this event were to think they could run something on ‘barely tolerated’ trails on National Trust land.

They do seem to have fecked it up for everyone – if the Ranger in question is ‘anti-bike’ this is likely to lead to cheeky trails all over the area being demolished and, possibly, attempts made to prosecute those that built/maintain them.

Anyone been on whitedown in the last few days to see if the trails still there?

See Williams now advertising some Night floodlit event!

BOYCOTT them I say – none of this would have happened without.
The ranmore ranger was turning a blind eye until it became official…

Whitedown I believe is Wotton estate so NT ranger doesnt get that far hopefully – not that Wotton know for their pro-biking stance!!

Lynch them!

Who are Williams? Are they affiliated to Nirvana Cycles? I highly doubt it somehow – Nirvana are brilliant and have been putting (legit!) man-hours into the area for years whereas these Williams people seems like short-sighted douchetards. Shame on them for threatening to mess up a status quo which was keeping everyone relevant happy. F*** ’em with a pinecone. The risk now seems to be that all the stuff in the region may be threatened not just the two good trails we’ve already lost. Still I do oh so love riding Barry Knows Best and Yoghurt Pots ad nauseam.

It is exactly this kind of pure BS which is making me move towards climbing and away from mountain biking. Who bought tickets to this event? Why do you need to be timed and ranked to validate your experience on these trails – which are all about fun anyway, not pure speed? Cocks

Stupid think is the very same NT local team will happily put a 7k rubble path around Holmwood common – and they moan about 400m of trails!!

http://www.thisissurreytoday.co.uk/Residents-fight-pound-200k-path-common/story-13359618-detail/story.html

“The National Trust has an inherent interest in maintaining the environment but another goal is to get people out enjoying the countryside”

Who are Williams? Are they affiliated to Nirvana Cycles? I highly doubt it somehow

From their web site…

“In association with Nirvana Cycles of Westcott, Surrey”

The whole event is part of the “Nirvana Cycles Surrey Hills Gravity Enduro Series”. Though I have to admit I’ve not heard of it before.

I think it’s being somewhat unfair on Williams (and by implication Nirvana). Arguably there’s a short sightedness here, but look at the truths here and you’ll see the NT ranger is being way over the top, or at least maybe it’s the local press. Putting aside the lies, if it’s a case that the ranger doesn’t approve of the event then it’s the NT at fault for approving it without consulting him first!

What should have happened is a full consultation with all involved and they’d come back saying they can’t have it in that specific location, but perhaps they could set aside some land for approved use. As for existing trails, I seriously doubt the ranger never knew about them, or if he didn’t then he’s not doing much of a job to keep tabs on the land. But even then they were harmless. Cheeky perhaps, but walkers don’t use those kinds of trails, they don’t involve damage to the trees (despite what the press claims), and they’re generally in low use compared to the tourist trails on Holmbury.

The Ranger drives along the coach road several times a day to get to the NT offices at Landbarn farm, I walk my dog along there most days and always land rovers along there. – so must have seen the steep section over the roots on to the coach road. It has been there what, 4 years at least! Suspect he had to be seen to be doing something about it after NT approached. And the local press hacks going on about bandit trails etc.

making me move towards climbing and away from mountain biking

See you later then

From the Nirvana site:
“When WEE asked us to be one of the sponsors for the above event we said yes, on two conditions. One we don’t have any involvement in organising or arranging the event (too much hard work!) Two, full permission is gained from all the relevant landowners. I thought this would be a huge task but initially WEE proved me wrong. However, it has proved an unsurmountable task & the event will be postponed. See WEE website for details. One positive though was the local councils support & keeness for the event to take place, a pleasant surprise. These sort of events take place all over the country & all over the world but sadly…not Surrey!”

Good or bad news depending on your POV. I personally could do without it happening. Biker-public relations on the hills only seem to be getting worse.

I’ve also been on the receiving end of the mysterious ‘rude woman’ in Nirvana. I took a wheel in one weekday for some advice and she told me basically to go away. Haven’t been back since.

Why do you need to be timed and ranked to validate your experience on these trails – which are all about fun anyway, not pure speed? Cocks

Assume you’d also say the same to the elite downhill riders on the World Circuit, people participating in Polaris type events and anyone else who at weekends likes to enter competitive events?

What should have happened is a full consultation with all involved and they’d come back saying they can’t have it in that specific location, but perhaps they could set aside some land for approved use.

Williams Events had a meeting with Mole Valley District Council, The National Trust and English Heritage before any work began. Maps were pawed over, plans submitted and permission given. What then happened, after several weeks, was the local Ranger asked to see progress. Williams Events took the Ranger to the site to show said progress. The ‘mood’ that day was still positive from the Ranger but an email the following morning from the Ranger expressed he was not in favor of the event after all. The Nation Trust then withdrew permission following consultation with the Ranger.

It seems all a bit back to front to me – surely on site meetings with the ranger should have happened early on, especially with the hillside being as sensitive as they say? To have the local ranger not knowing where things were happening so late in day the suggests that the approvals didn’t come from the right places initially (if they did get actually ever exist….)

From what I’ve heard from elsewhere is that a provisional maybe had come from MVDC about using the dirt jumps but that still needed a lot more info, risk assessments etc, so nothing set in stone.