So if any of you have had this s a result of the weather I am interested to hear your opinions and stories.
Wind too strong?
Trees falling down?
Trails becoming damaged?

or is it a midlands thing?

It’s a liability thing. Was anyone actually stopped…?

My local woods were open, had to break out the saw and clear sone windfall though.

Wrong sort of leaves.

No, wait, that’s the trains isn’t it.

The wind was strong.
Some trees fell down.
The trails were blocked.
My opinion….you have to cater for the lowest common denominator.Which in this case is relatively stupid people.

On Cannock Chase there have been genuine issues lately. Significant trees have fallen on the bike trails and a round the visitor centre which have then taken 48 hours worth of clearing.

Whilst it is impossible to stop all visitors I can understand the Forestry Commission in this case actively discouraging people from visiting during high risk conditions as there are those who A. Can’t use their common sense to avoid obvious hazards and B. Will try to take action in the event that they receive an injury or some wort if loss as a result if the conditions.

After months of to planning, Today I went to Cwmcarn to use the uplift service, get there and the guy had to cancel it due to ice on the road. absolutely gutted as id driven from the far side of Essex, but you cant change the weather. Thankfully i drove up a day earlier and rode at Afan yesterday so it was a complete waste of a trip. Certainly dont recommend pushing up at cwmcarn.

Less paper work in inspecting trees than in dead bodies.
Pretty normal to visually inspect busy areas after extreme weather.
I spend enough time in the woods to know when its too windy to be in there and go home.
There is always a certain amount of risk aversion, but maybe is better than wrong.

Haldon forest is closed because it’s a complete mess. I was out with the bowsaw for a few hours today and barely scratched the surface. There’s several sections that’ll take a day or two with a chainsaw to sort out…

Good luck with Haldon, that sounds like a handful!

Generally the only time I see closures is when it’s blocked by trees or when the car park is inaccessible. Saving people the hassle of heading up there to be disappointed and letting people do clearing work without loads of people being around.

Lots and lots of tree debris round the chase yesterday morning, more than likely they were putting people off travelling over for a barely rideable route and so they could cut the big bits up in peace as well as the liability side of things. A tree fell over in my parents neighbour’s garden that the trunk was about a foot wide so definitely a fairly high risk of injury

Thankfully i drove up a day earlier so at least a had a couple of days away from essex

Sounds good to me.

Just ride them anyway; climb over the deadfall. Then post a complaint on the forum.

Don’t get the wrong idea. It’s not a complaint so keep your knickers on.

Went to whinlatter a few weeks ago, proper windy, the bike where nearly blown away on the top of the south loop, got back to the car park and while sorting out gear out a massive branch came off smashed between two people carriers trashing the rear quarter and smashing the light cluster out of a Renault, we watched it happen and it could have killed someone easily, carpark staff where only letting people out when we left.
This week there where was a fallen tree, no biggie

Yes it’s normal for trails to be closed after severe weather.

Hurtwood Ranger (Surrey Hills) posted on fb / twitter that he was working hard to clear fallen trees and asked for people to report stuff if they found it. A year or so back a bridleway was blocked for a week by a fallen tree until it was cleared by a group of mtb-ers who had brought a saw.

Sorry, that was a joke. I posted a mild complaint about deadfall and closures at Haldon yesterday and got flamed. Peace.

To be fair I have seen some fairly large trees have come down on the trail at the Chase.

swinley had some issues this week…….

just look on it as a good opportunity to dig out the OS map and explore!

Or lend a hand and be rewarded in stock for the pile 😉

Llandegla was closed on Friday… We went on Saturday and there was plenty of fresh “snapped” trees around the forest.

cripes! Swinley looks well mental.

The stick man who likes places sticks across the trail certainly seems to have upped his game a bit there.

Looks like they’ve clearfelled the rest of that block and left a single line of trees? So file under “wtf did you think would happen”

Thing with windblow is, the ones that make it to the ground are obvious and troublesome enough but it’s the hangers that cause most trouble- far more dangerous, and harder and more dangerous to clear. Irony being lots of folks won’t even know they’re there so won’t understand why there’s a problem. Meanwhile if you’ve got hundreds of km of trails to check never mind clear, that doesn’t happen overnight.

Last I heard, one of the fireroad links on glentress red has been basically abandoned til they can get in with a harvester, which could be a while. They’ve already done amazing work to get most of the trails back to normal.

I saw this peach on the 7 Stanes facebook today, complaining about fallen trees and the lazy FC not fixing them:

“They are allowed 2 days off at christmas and 2 days off at new year.. Just like 90% of the population…. Any other time they should be out working, keeping the trails open..”

Seems like a good idea, no one wants a tree falling on their Audi in the carpark.

Looks like they’ve clearfelled the rest of that block and left a single line of trees? So file under “wtf did you think would happen”

spot on. It’s not actually Swinley, it’s Crowthorne woods on the Devil’s Highway past the Broadmoor car park. there cleared a load of trees as part of building a new visitor centre or something, but left a line I think as a screen. Not much of a screen now.

I was out over Tunnel Hill earlier, not much large stuff down there but loads of smaller twiggy brash, any of which could eat a mech or gear hanger no bother. Cleared a load but it’s still pretty blowy. Was then over the other side of the North Downs around Puttenham, Seale, etc. and there’s tonnes of big stuff down there. Quite unnerving in places the size of branches that have split off and fallen, even if the whole tree hasn’t come down.