*Warning* Pinkbike content but interesting – Who Owns a trail?

Who Owns a Trail?

Always thought if you rode it you rode it responsibly and if it was illegal it was fair game to change (though I’ve never done the latter cos I just don’t have those trail building skills nor the time)

An interesting article that entirely overlooks the opinion of the land owner. Maybe that omission says more about some trail builders than the rest of the article does.

Im well into that article, ive built dirt jumps for 15 years and fully appreciate work anyone else has put in.

In my current MTB area, there’s a common whinge that the local trails are being sanitised by the council, they are bridleways/footpaths after all, so the council are obligated to maintain them in such a way that that the relevant users have easy access to the country side.

Instead of whinging that “their” trails are being sanitised (it’s a joke isn’t it), they could put the time and effort into finding a secret spot, putting the time in making sure it’s not frequented by walkers/horses/rangers, then making what adjustments need be, then keeping it secret. Then their corner of paradise will always be there.

Screw the land owner too, just make sure they dont find out. If you do get caught out though, i do sort of expect the upmost respect and fair treatment of the land owner, even putting things back to what they were if they really, really want. This should of been scoped out though really.

then keeping it secret

Don’t post videos or photos on the Internet. Landowners may just stumble upon it
Don’t got riding in the snow! Like someone has in a nearby forest 🙄

Who Owns a trail?

whoever is KoM.

STRRRRRAAAAAAAAVVVVVAAAAA>

There are trails I know that few others do. I’ve discretely cleared them bit by bit so they are rideable in the entirity. Im not going to advertise them outside of my riding mates, not because im being selfish and wanting to keep them to my self, but because with increased use they will likely deteriorate and become a gopping mess, and end up ruined.
Besides, im not stopping anyone riding there, anyone can find them with a little investigation, thats how I found them in the first place.
There are a number places here where similar has been done by others, thats what Ive always done, got out there and discovered my own trails.
Theres a really good one that I discovered this winter, which if it EVER dries out will be rather fun.

Land of the free, eh?

Im just glad I dont live in the states. We are pretty lucky with all the trails (cheeky or otherwise) that we have here.

Indeed, theres a lot of restricted access in the land of the free!

There’s a particular trail I know that’s been tinkered with over the last year, in what I’m sure is public land. However, the TB’s who built this have not given much thought to the surroundings, instance they created a tabletop but dug a massive hole for the required dirt and just left the hole as is … I showed this trail to a youngster down my road who was quite ‘blown away’ with the trail and decided to amend and add some more stuff. He add a 1/2m jump right at the cross roads of where the trail intersects a public footpath. It was promplty knocked down and he was gutted, he was moaning to me I empathised with him until I saw where he had placed the jump and had to explain to him the dangers of where he built this jump.

I’m of the same opinion of bigyinn though….there’s a lot of trails that get cut up and never recover.. However, every time I raise the topic with the riding group abt doing some maintenance no one seems interested…

No simple rules are there… Frinstance, the semi-official tolerated trails near mine I consider to be open season, but when it’s a proper “secret trail” I consider it don’t dig don’t ride, and also don’t-dig-someone-else’s-trail (unless it’s ****ed).

But when local eejits built jumps actually on a well used public footpath near my house (complete with a borrow pit in the trail) I booted them all down and backfilled the holes as much as I could, because that’s just ridiculous.

Education, thats all thats needed.