Today I blocked 5 strava shortcuts

If the trails in question were armoured then good man, as Northwind says shortcuting armoured trail destroys them quickly. At Gisburn we also spend a lit of time blocking shortcuts and now try to build in obstacles to discourage it, a tree on the inside of a corner or large rock, pile of logs etc.

We do have idiots who’ll still ride around them though, we have one rocky drop you have to go out of your way to ride, the main trail is straight. People still take the optional line and then ride down the mud on the steep banking, mental, ride the feature or use the chicken run.

Swinley is probably the worst (and best) example of people ‘creating’ lines/trails that are pretty obviously meant to reduce times.

There are a couple of short switchback climbs that to be honest are pretty easy anyway, but people have clearly tried to save a few seconds by creating a line that goes straight up, bypassing the 2 or 3 switchbacks.

What’s the point? If you can’t ride it then keep riding it until you can, when you can, keep riding it until you get faster…

Stick to bridleways if you want a straight line rather than destroying the wonderful trails people take time to create and maintain – adhoc maintenance by people like the OP is to be applauded. Also good to encourage people to ride through puddles on the trails rather than around them as that just widens them.

Making cheeky trails = good. Making straight lines to cut corners = bad.

I’m with the OP on this, I’ve blocked a few lines myself, I believe a lot of it is Strava driven though not all.

tragicallyhip – Member
I’m with the OP on this, I’ve blocked a few lines myself, I believe a lot of it is Strava driven though not all.

Good for you, I reckon it’s people not a phone app, I’ve never seen a website leaving tyre prints….

The worst thing I see out on the local trials here is racing, proper against the clock racing. Anything that can be straightened is, nothing else matters. After that people who can’t actually make the corners, it happens not everyone is a riding god, some come in too hot and skip things. Then there are badly built trails where people put stuff that ruins flow or just doesn’t match the trail in front or after it.

But then again it’s easier to blame strava

Quite a lots of the Bristol trails suffer this problem – net result is that slippery clay based mud gets dragged onto the armoured stone surface which gets heavily used and so pretty polished, and so can become pretty lethal.

Bear in mind many of the armoured trails are blue graded so are designed to be for all riders, not just leg shaving 29er race heads who seem permanently grumpy/lacking in social skills (who seem to be the worst culprits from what I have seen first hand)……..

Bear in mind many of the armoured trails are blue graded so are designed to be for all riders, not just leg shaving 29er race heads who seem permanently grumpy/lacking in social skills (who seem to be the worst culprits from what I have seen first hand)……..

Perhaps they need to head back to the green trails….

i find a bit of dirt on these trails makes them a bit less slippery than just wet polished stone.

For those blaming Strava. Do you also blame guns for killing people? or is it the person using the gun thats at fault?

For those blaming Strava. Do you also blame guns for killing people? or is it the person using the gun thats at fault?

I get your point, but its not really the same. Strava with Kom’s etc encourages certain people to ride unsociably and cut corners. Riders have always done it, but not as many as now because currently there is a carrot in front of them.

Guns don’t do that, if there was a strava esq website for killing people then that would be the same.

Assuming the OP is talking Ashton Court and Leigh woods armoured trails, then good work. There’s barely any tight corners there, so no excuse for not being able to ride around them. Like it or not, those trails are designed to be ridden like you’re on a Scalextric track.

And if they’re not challenging enough, then f-off and ride somewhere else, though I doubt the people responsible have the skills to ride the harder stuff in LW for instance, especially at this time of year.

If this was going on at Belmont Woods, then that’s pretty inexcusable too, and a sure sign of a lack of gnar skills.

For reference, the trails that the OP is taking about are properly built, armoured trails in areas that tend to get very muddy and trashed if ridden off well built trails due to the type of mud /drainage. I’m not sure that strava can really be blamed as people have always straightlined the trails but it certainly causes long term issues which then requires loads of work to fix.

This.

Funny how this debate seems to neatly divided into people who’ve never ridden the trails at Ashton Court, but disagree on principle, and local riders who want the trails kept twisty, interesting and (relatively) mud-free.

These trails are some of the busiest in the country [/url]and if everyone rode “their” line they’d be a complete **** eyesore. In fact that’s exactly what they used to be.

Funny how this debate seems to neatly divided into people who’ve never ridden the trails at Ashton Court, but disagree on principle, and local riders who want the trails kept twisty, interesting and (relatively) mud-free.

Perhaps some more info than “Bristol Trails” I HATE ****in STRAVA ****S THEY ARE WORSE THAN PIERS MORGAN would have helped the op…

build doubles on all the shortcut lines 🙂

Plenty on GNARRR left in this old dog. I would never touch any off piste/cheeky trails with anything other than rubber!
I’m talking armoured trails in AC and LW and I think I’ll carry on doing my bit.
Think the “Strava line” is just phrase but more likely to be laziness+ lack of skill.

I hope you had more that a few choice words with the idiot involved…

Idiot’s a bit harsh, I don’t think it was done maliciously, but equally wasn’t sensitive to the original trail builder’s character or to the local situation wrt the mod, etc. And they did some valuable work as well on this and other trails putting / clearing drainage channels where they’d silted up with mud and leaves.

An equal problem was publicising it on Facebook, particularly as other ‘features’ were being mooted too (like adding tabletops or doubles lower down) – the mod do read social media – which was where someone from TAG rather than me challenged them on the work, and so I believe had dialogue with them offline about the work TAG is trying to do to secure access to these areas. The FB page is now cleared of the ‘offending’ content which is another important part of the situation on the mod lands, we all have to be careful what goes into the public domain including strava, garmin, etc. to avoid pissing our friends at the mod off.

Well done op

For as long as there has been mountain biking, there have been bikers blocking off cut corners and generally keeping singletrack single (otherwise everything would be road width by now)

Does seem strata is making things worse

dick.

build doubles on all the shortcut lines

Something like this. I personally wouldn’t block any other lines as that’s somebody’s idea of biking fun but if their detours are causing damage to the main trail then something needs to be done. Either fashioning a little jump or two or even fortifying them up with rocks/boulders to make them potentially harder/slower and more sustainable. It might take a bit of time, but if you can be bothered to stop and block them, then it’s not a huge leap to be a little more constructive imo.

What a remarkably eloquent and worthwhile post lordmerchent.

With an ability like that may I suggest using your forehead for trail building purposes