[Closed] Forest of Ae shut from Mondays to Fridays

Apparently felling to cut out and stop the spread of disease unfortunately 🙁

Is going to be near total removal of Forest it seems.

🙁

Great, another vast swathe of countryside that'll be left looking like it's been carpet bombed.

Should open up the hillside for cubb et al to build at will. Every cloud and all that.

Why is it that they can cut down so much timber. Yet the rest of the country has TPO on one tree in their garden.

I guess the FC are earning money off the timber? Nant and Afan are ruined.

I guess the FC are earning money off the timber?

Err, what else do you think they did with the trees😂

Why is it that they can cut down so much timber.

Its a conifer plantation which is a crop and needs to be harvested like any other crop.

https://scotland.forestry.gov.uk/news-releases/felling-operations-to-tackle-tree-disease-at-mabie-ae-forests

I wish had been shut 2 weeks ago, would have saved me from a very dull ride

I thought it was decent.. especially that alan watts bit at the end.

The waymarked XC route is pretty poor imo but the dh and offpiste is absolutely superb,hope it's not too affected by this.

A fair amount of the bike trails are in more diverse forest from memory, the downhill hill didn't feel just like FC green desert and there's some old FC growth down in the valley that I think is probably dougies, and doesn't seem to be in the harvest line?

I don't think I've ever pedalled so much on trail centre "descents" before.

Had some okay bits in places but zero flow.  I've not been for years and I remember it being more technical and interesting.

Still shame to see the felling, one of the things that did stand out whenever I visited the place was how nice some of the mixed woodland was.

I think this will end up a bit of a blessing for the good tracks, it's easier to see the lay of the land for building, and get in before it's replanted.

Signed, Nobeer the optimist.

Whilst wee bro Frazer has been in hospital getting his back fixed Callum has been out reclaiming some of the Enduro trails:

https://www.yooying.com/p/1903017535412287184_592337289

If all the Ae XC Trail “haters” cared to vent your frustrations towards Ae FCS management maybe, just maybe you could make a difference.....  be constructive, describe what you like and want to see in a trail. Remember, this trail was “designed” in 2001/2 and unlike GT etc has had next to no new trail works other than 22Bends(Turbine money, a chance missed imo)

D&G 7Stanes trails will be allowed to die at the expense of GT/Inners... D&G is the poorest area in the U.K. therefore FCS, Scot Gov and U.K. Gov should be doing something!!!!!   On that note the marketing manager of one of our local hotels is looking into cycling as a niche offering, a chat with her is on the offing....

https://en-gb.facebook.com/pg/AeBikeshopandCafe/posts/

PS. We/most of us locals have given up hope of getting anything done btw.....

John, no one is interested in investing in trail centres now, as you'll know as well as anyone. The future for MTBers is the golfie model IMO, which needs a lot of willing hands, a willing attitude on both sides and local community buy in too.

We've had a couple of local private estates tried to get stuff going, but they see it as a revenue stream, which it never will be, there's no money in MTBing.

Wind farms have promised big money for another farm out by new cumnock, bugger all will come of it. So pissed off with it all that it justifies us just to build our own stuff now, legally or not. Hey ho.

The downside is that there's no real new family or beginners stuff.

We’ve taken a kicking this year with all the felling works due to FC finding larch disease in the forest. The contractors haven’t finished yet and just last weekend the top section of four of our tues night favourites were wiped out with tonnes of logs felled over the trails.

What we do have at Ae though is a passionate group of bikers/builders who won’t allow our natural lines to die. We’re up for the challenge of getting every single trail back up and running ( and some) just as soon as the contractors have their harvest off site.

The Car Park and Cafe are heaving at the weekends and our night rides are as busy as ever( 40+ last week!). If you can’t find descents to put a smile on your face you’re not trying hard enough to find them.

no one is interested in investing in trail centres now, as you’ll know as well as anyone. The future for MTBers is the golfie model IMO

Model? What "model" is that? It's taken 25 years for tweed valley trail builders/bike businesses to stop bitching (quite so much) and backstabbing each other and finally realise they're are all ultimately reading from the same page.

From what I've seen and heard Welsh trail centres and bike parks seem to be doing a lot of things well. As does Glentress (IMO). Not everyone wants to climb 3000ft up dull fireroads just to drag their brakes and skid their super grippy tyres down tight handcut trails consisting of furrows, rock and root gardens. Good luck enjoying a ride there with your non enduro friends, family or young kids.

Back on topic. Other than the DH tracks Ae has never really been somewhere I've been keen to ride and I definitely wouldn't drag a beginner round. It's not because it's a trail centre. it's becase the trails aren't very good. Hopefully some good can come of the felling. Good luck with it NC/Trekster etc.

geex- you wont find us disagreeing about the graded trails though for absolute beginners the green route up the valley is fantastic. There’s been talk from FC about a new blue climb to take the pain and monotony out of the fireroad ascent but this hill is also affected by larch disease. As you say hopefully some good will come out of this.

Despite all the folk who dislike Ae, I quite like it.

We are up for a few days in a week or so, does anybody know how much of the normal red trail is open on a weekend please ?

Really enjoy the 'off-piste' stuff at Ae, turn down for what & IVO are the highlights for me. Last time I went (summer) a lot of the tracks were unrideable due to the felling. It's also been really, really quiet too, but perhaps that is just because people ride the trail centre (or the better natural stuff!).

Can anyone confirm what tracks are/aren't rideable at the moment? Or is Trailforks the best place to look still?

It's a lot closer than Innerleithen for me so I hope it can bounce back from this!

Model? What “model”

Er, the model of loads of unofficial trails and the FC not destroying them.

Good luck enjoying a ride there with your non enduro friends, family or young kids.

I did mention this in my post 'The downside is that there’s no real new family or beginners stuff.', but do carry on.

My point was you have a rather simplified view of over 25 years of trail evolution and acceptance at Caberston to get to where it is now.

Yeah. it wasn't hugely obvious whether you were on about private estates,  a windfarm in Cumnock or your idealistic "model" with your last paragraph.

Thing is... there actually is (and has been for a looong time) money to be made from mtb participation. particualrly from families and beginners. Scottish FC just aren't particularly good at it.

I don't get the bad comments about Ae.  It's a trail centre, you have to accept fire road climbs, don't you?  The main descents are quite good fun, IMHO.  The cafe ain't bad, either.

Fire road climbs are fine if you're climbing to get to something good. It was more the uphill descents and badly spaced/designed jumps I didn't really rate. some of the newer bits are bettter.

My point was you have a rather simplified view of over 25 years of trail evolution and acceptance at Caberston to get to where it is now.

Simplified, yes, I won't disagree, but I'm only interested in the end result as opposed to how we actually got there, I have no real interest in the politics of it all, It's been very successful, and works very well.

There probably is money to be made, but it's tough, and there are far easier ways to make money from land. A local estate charged 25 quid a year for a 'membership' to ride their trails, I paid for a few years, as to be fair they had invested a bit of time and money, and there was a feeling it was going to grow into something good, they even at one point, albeit they had nowhere near enough trails to justify it, had a race planned on the SES calendar.

They never got much more than 50 odd people paying, the livery on the estate pays in excess of 6 figures, god knows how much they make off the shooting, so it's kinda died on it's arse sadly.

At least Ae has some very good folks doing some blinding work, best of luck to them.

Kelburn?

but I’m only interested in the end result as opposed to how we actually got there, I have no real interest in the politics of it all

I'm not going to bother even...

I prefer to think along the lines of " there is no such thing as a bad trail center or bike park, only a bad state of mind"

The main thing is that we are out on our bikes getting fitter...and enjoying the craic with yer biking buddies... 🙂

Aye geex,  that's the one. They built 2 descents, none of them longer than 90 seconds, promised the earth in terms of more descents, then did bugger all. I genuinely believe they thought they could just wing it, and it would work.

Was an odd set up, got guys from Edinburgh to build it, then hired a Swiss guy who claimed to have built stuff all over the alps,  in reality, all he did was build shite tracks. Locals sorted his mess.

Yeah, That does sound pretty stupid.
I used to live 10 miles from Largs and loved a piss about at the old skool DH track that ended in the park in the town. Playing on that kicker after the little road gap thing trying to out long jump each other and still make the corner after was imense fun. There were some pretty rad bits further down too IIRC. Guess that's mostly grown over by now and re-claimed by the dog walkers, eh? (it wasn't exactly well maintained then - 15 years back)

Largs DH track comes and goes, you get a spell where the young team spend a summer building, then the cows wreck it and so it goes on.

There's some good stuff up on the moor from west kilbride over back of fairlie, and into kelburn, finish on Largs DH, decent riding, awesome views, as you'll know.

Where'd ye live? I was born n bred in saltcoats for my sins.

I reckon Ae has probably become the place I ride most in the last couple of years. The main red trail is abysmal and I never go near it. There’s a wealth of off piste well away from the dh stuff that’s amazing if you know where to go.

Lochwinnoch in the main street entertained regularly bi aw the Rangers heid the baws 😉

It was a good wee town apart from those fannies. Handy for Glasgow and the motorway and actually had pretty good natural and road riding from the door. Seems a loooong time ago now. I was East Coast born and brought up but growing up half of Irvine was related to me from my Nana's side so spent a lot of time in Ayrshire.

Aye, we've our faur share of wallopers!. Gimme a shout when ye fancy a return to your auld stomping ground, be glad to show you about sir.

Cheers man. That would be pretty sweet.

👌🏻

RobinL- I’m told the red route is open at weekends but with diversions where trees are being felled.

jonnym92- the Quarry and Von Ryan’s are clear on Green Hill, Rambo/ First Blood and the Muddy Fox on the next hill along and as well as the ‘97, Shredder, Alan Potts... a few of the trails around rainbow road have been opened up again. Callum or Frazer in the Shop will advise further

Thanks nc21 ..... did wonder if I'd ever get an answer 😉