Hannah suggests we don’t need miles of new trails to become better riders.
When it comes to bike infrastructure and mountain biking facilities we usually think of new trails. Perhaps a whole trail centre with routes of different gradings, a café, a car park, a bike wash… Or we hope for pump tracks in our local park, carefully sculpted by people who know the difference between a pump track and a pavement. Creating angles and sweeping curves that will propel us forward or into the air just the right amount.
This article was published in Singletrack World magazine Issue 158
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Trails are great, but you don’t need to be going somewhere to be getting somewhere. Working away on a skill without travelling from A to B gives the repetition and energy reserves needed to progress. In half an hour you can nail a jump. In an hour, you can move up a level, or start to add in a trick, or some style. Instead of pedalling along, dead sailing over a feature, and carrying on until the next time you’re passing (and dead sailor it again), you can stop and get it right.
It strikes me that we don’t always need as much as a whole trail or pump track. Yes, those things are nice. But, really, little more than a big pile of dirt in a sloping corner of the park could be enough to give hours of fun and skills progression.
Recently I had the opportunity to ride some jumps just like this. A slope that leads into a small hill. Not even a hill, just a lump with kickers of increasing sizes dug into it. Roll through the lowest line, do it again until it feels right, move a metre to the left. A slightly larger kicker this time, built as a table. Clear it, clear it again, clear it comfortably. Stop here, or move on to the next one: a mini gap. Case it. Push back round and up. Clear it, clear it easily.
Finally a step up. I need to go back to get this one… but the point is made. Fancy facilities are great but, like a camera, the best one is the one you have. It surely wouldn’t take that much to provide the mountain bike equivalent of a sandpit in the corner of many a park. Let the kids bring the shovels and shape their own fun – adults too. A pile of infinite possibility and, with it, responsibility. This dirt is yours – sculpt it for your needs, rebuild and repair it too. Show up knowing you might have to shovel before you can shred. Put something in to get something back.
Once upon a time, we had wastelands for this kind of thing. Industrial or demolition site leftovers where kids would clamber around doing whatever kids do until it was time to go home for tea. Changing attitudes, ever more intensive development, and perhaps a greater notion of health and safety have eroded these unsanctioned opportunities.
Now, everything is Official. Pre-fabricated risk-assessed fun. Designed and built. Budgeted, monitored. Fenced off, fenced in. Boxed off from the connection that comes with creation and responsibility. For sure, there is a need for these spaces too, but without a magic money tree to fund them through the tabs of their life cycle spreadsheets, they’ll remain as infrequent landmarks, not part of the landscape.
Perhaps we could all have a heap more fun – literally – at a nice bottom-line-friendly price. Just tip us a couple of lorry loads of dirt down the park – behind the disused tennis courts or pitch-and-putt if you like, we’re not fussy. Let us roll, dig and shape our own path to progression. One step-up at a time.
