Trail name etymology

Just been musing on this for a while, and I reckon one of the finest I know is up above Portman, near La Manga. The rather brilliantly named Cat Fight.

Lovely, fast, twisty singletrack, at close quarters with some monstrously sharp thorns. Hence, when you’ve done it, you look like you’ve been fighting cats.

So, your suggestions for great trail names, and the history thereof, if you please!

Dels Stump.

I don’t know who del was or where the stump was either.

stripes, describes the pattern left in your pants after getting down it the first time

Nail Trail.

A wee bit of woodland that was once booby-trapped with a bit of wood with nails in it.

“dogshit alley” – all over the country – origin obvious. 😥

There is a ‘blair witch’ trail near us: fairly flat (for devon!), close spaced smallish conifers that have all been trimmed right back to even let a bike or walker through, narrow trail that twists and turns back on iself several times over. Ride it in the dark on your own and the name makes sense.
I also named a trail on strava as “weasels ripped my flesh” cos I love zappa and that’s what my flesh looked like at the end. 😀

Locally “Bono” a twisty down hill thin ribbon of singletrack above a sunken road, why Bono? Cause it’s close to The Edge 🙂

And “cottaging” as the trail starts on the concrete pad where a dubious public toilet stood in the 70’s

there’s a PG in laguna hills – apparently it’s “parental guidance”, not “please god !” but I think the latter is more apt

(and no, I bloody haven’t)

somebody on here has a local one called teenage blowjob – not sure why

Theres a small Strava segment at Woburn called the Camels Gully. To start it you have to drop into a steep downhill pedal striking gulley, which bottoms out and goes up into an enormous upwards hump. Quite fitting.

Upper Quarry trail
Lower Quarry trail
Picnic Bench

Pretty imaginative round here… 🙂

Actually, Knicker Trail is ok – good, steep, tricky trail what used to have some knickers hanging up on it.

One self named – in fact other than people I told about it, i don’t think anyone else would even know it as this, let alone refer to it in this way.

Voyeurs.

It’s round the back of the army houses on porridge pot hill. A few years back, on an early evening / dusk ride i went along it, only to see at the upstairs window of one of the houses, an army wife closing the curtains in only her skimpies. She must have seen me, with 1200 lumens lit up on the front, yet she made no attempt to hide, or pull them closed to shield her, she just stood there. I often ride that trail but I’ve never seen it again, yet the name stuck.

The other is on Tunnel Hill – P45; built by a guy who’d just been made redundant and had time on his hands to do trail building. It’s still a great trail, 5+ years on (thanks, if you’re on here)

There’s also Belgian Bun on Tunnel Hill; not sure of the etymology there but I *think* it was built for a race, and the trail builders fuelled their work with a lunchtime bun. From Belgium. What I’m even less sure of is why it’s called Belgian Bun when ridden as a downhill, but when in reverse i believe it’s known as ‘Big T1ts’

[which thinking about it, could have been a name for Voyeurs as well]

gobbler’s gulch ,a layby north of bolton frequented by sensitive gentlemen .

the rib breaker….. for obvious reasons!

Scalextric

The trail to Jesus’s house.

Singletrack descent off Box Hill called “The Wife” because it goes on and on…

Track from top of Winey Hill is called “Vampire Ride” because you can here the screams from Chessigton World of Adventures on the other side of the fence.

Baghdad, Ho Chi Minh and Berlin Wall.

Apparently Berlin Wall was created around the time the wall fell, but I’ve no idea about the other two.

I named a trail in Croatia RockBushRock after a guy I guided down it described his feelings on reaching the bottom.

Just been musing on this for a while, and I reckon one of the finest I know is up above Portman, near La Manga. The rather brilliantly named Cat Fight.

Which one was this KotB? Where did it start?

Dead Mans Track in the Dyfi. So named after discovering…..yup!

There is a section of trail in South Africa where you ride along the escarpment looking down over a massive drop.

They call it “Great Wall My Chyna”.

“Chyna” is the South African slang for mate.

Woot! – The sound you make when you ride down it.

Hill of A Thousand Deaths – Self explanatory.

Hill of No Deaths Yet – Like Hill of A Thousand Deaths but steeper and with a cheeky low branch so you are concentrating a bit more.

G-String Bridge – Named after a teenage girl who was sunbathing down there wearing what appeared to be pink dental floss.

Dog Sprint Farm – Self explanatory.

…and from HTN

The Field of Despair – Self explanatory.

The Chin – So named because a member of this forum came to a halt after a chin / tree interface where most other people used their brakes.

Preparation H – Get it wrong and your seat will be driven 6” up your ‘arris.

Bum Squeak Bridge – Named after a person known to us as Mr Bum Squeak.

Lots of Surrey Hills stuff was/is named after albums or tracks. In the early and mid 90s, if you were the first Nirvana Cycles rider to clear something, you got to name it. So, lots of Captain Beefheart and Zappa stuff (one alternative to Barry Knows Best, back in the day, was Golden Birdies).

Regurgitator, one of the three trails ona teeny bit of FS leased lands below Deliverance on Leith Hill, was named by Joe Marshall of this forum. He rode up it on his muni after a build day and almost lost his lunch at the top. The two other trails: Crooked Furrow (Bit of a ditch when first built, ends close to the pub at Coldharbour, which brews its own beer, including a fine pint called Crooked Furrow). Third: Waggle Dance, because we had to move the trail bed to take account of a colony of ground nesting bees.

Ewok Village on Pitch hill – looked like an Ewok Village until it was chainsawed in about 2003. Graveyard shift – ends by the German graveyard above Holmbury.

Bastard climb – self explanatory.

China Pig (possibly also the Wife on previous post above) on Box Hill – again, another track name trail.

Scooby Do’s last porn flick – no particular reason for that name. narrow singletrack behind Druid’s Grove on Ranmore.

I could go on, but it’s getting boring. 🙂

Plenty of self-explanatory ones in and around Verbier like Vertigo and The Ultimate. Can’t remember how Spanish Inquisition got its name, but it’s ridiculously good, as are Brazilian, Jackass and Vortex to name a couple more. You’ll need http://www.bikeverbier.com to find and reach most of them though.

“Chyna” is the South African slang for mate.

Bit like the cockney rhyming slang then? 😉

(China plate – mate)

“No Dabs” in some woods near us, flat, mega rooty and you have to ride from one end to the other with, well you guessed it!

There is a trail named “Kona Drop Off” over in La Plagne. Rather exposed, the story goes that someone crashed and lost his bike to the mountain….

The North Shore has one called C**tbuster.

Singletrack descent off Box Hill called “The Wife” because it goes on and on…

Approach from the road oppo S&W then turn right? Thought that was China Pig like Bent Udder says. More appropriate name though as it really does go on and on.

The once-upon-a-time mecca that was Deliverance on Leith Hill.

Have probably seen more people crash there than anywhere else 😀 Me included1

“Surrender of Suarez” near me.

No idea why it’s called that so if someone can explain I’d be grateful.

I guess ‘Broken Elbow’ is self explanatory 🙁

other ones I’ve remembered:

Follow me – an inoquious flat looking bit of singletrack, that goes over a rocky outcrop (it looks like the person in front just dissapears) and drops about 10-12ft with a tigh right corner at the bottom!

Seagull – dead bird on the original trail

babymaker – apparently the builders mate was trying for a kid so the trail was some kind of shrine to the trail gods of fertility (rather than the usual shrines god of dicarded innertubes, dog poo bags or chain links i suppose). To my knowlage no ‘offerings’ have ever been left.

From Switchbacks Spain:
47 (later renamed 52) stiches: worst injury sustained
punctured lung: see above
hysterectomiser: see above
prodigal son: it’s on the way home
moody german b*******: self explanatory
mikes vagina: originaly mikes gash as he had a cut on his arm that looked a bit like a you-know-what.

somebody on here has a local one called teenage blowjob – not sure why

brilliant at the time, but probably ot as good as you remember it?

“Princess Diana’s Seatbelt”

That’s just off the edge of Leith Hill near the tower. Certain death.

The Porn Trail.

Sadly no longer. Bloody internet…

The local BMX track used to have a berm called ‘ballbag berm’ after a mate of mine got it all wrong, went out the back of the berm, landed on the back wheel which proceeded to pull his ballbag through the brace on the seat stays 😯

wrecker – Member
The North Shore has one called C**tbuster.

And another called “Severed Dick” I believe…….
Here it is

Nelson BC has one called “legalize it”. Kinda fitted with my experience of the town 🙂

There’s one near us called “post.” I was told it was because it has a concrete post in the middle of it. I could never quite understand it as I never actually saw the post (only ever rode there at night) Until the day I hit the bastard thing.

‘Nailing ruts, nailing sluts’ is one in Mid Wales. Brilliant name.

Few in Grizedale but probably the best one is Grandad, Dad and the Dentist as the name for Moor Lane into Satterthwaite. The name came from last section ripping teeth off chainrings, hence the Dentist. The 2 sections above it were known as the dentists Dad and the dentists Grandad, shortened to Grandad, Dad and the dentist

Handjob … because a few years ago on it I went OTB and broke a wrist.