[Closed] Leigh Woods Forestry Work

They're harvesting a lot of trees along the gorge, replanting with native species. Twelve weeks work at best, closing the train line, not sure about the tow path. It's going to look different for some time and several unofficial trails are likely to get mashed. Some of the trees they're replanting with are unique to the area, so there are likely to be areas fenced off for ages.

As above, sounds like they're going to be causing some serious changes to the likes of picnic bench and the ones on the other side, as well as the clamping down of the new stuff that sprung up over the last few months, it'll be quite a difference i fear when it reopens, especially with winter weather on the way after it's complete.

Thanks, that's useful. I guess that area could do with some time to recover from a summers worth of heavy usage anyway, just hope it's not an end to the more interesting trails longer term.

Whilst it's dry there's always Belmont, or Flax Bourton, not too far away from LW/AC, i've tended to just avoid the place for the last few months due to the weird stuff going on and stuck to playing up at North Nibley and the surrounding area, or trips to FoD and so on.

Where is / whats the stuff at Flax Bourten?

Is that Bourton Combe? lot of stuff over there

Rocky Horror was still open when I popped there mid week but was surprised to see all that other stuff closed. Shame but just have to sit it out and see what it looks like when it’s all finished.

Need to try Bourton Combe and Nibley for other areas not too far away and also get to the Mendips.

Bourton Combe and Rowberrow on the mendips are the places to go for me right now, great spots

Somebody is stealing all the trees from 50 Acre Wood now. Next to no damage to the official trail thus far.

There were there with heavy machinery cutting down trees in 50a last week when I went round it on a day off. Lots of twigs and branches everywhere all over the trail - kind of at the top left after the first climb from the main entrance in. That area seems quite sparse anyway so taking more trees is making it even more open.

Rowberrow also being felled at the moment and the trails officially closed.  You can still get through the main fire roads if on a longer jaunt.

Went round Leigh Woods last night - it’s all looking a bit sad at the moment. The logging doesn’t look to have been done very carefully in terms of damage done to the hillside. More and more areas seem to have been effected.

I just don’t get it - previously they made noises about vast areas being SSI and bikes potentially disturbing wildlife / ground fauna etc. Then they drive massive caterpillar tracked vehicles through the whole lot ripping trees down Willy Nilly. So say because they want to replace them with more traditional local species - the woodland is going to take ages to get back anywhere near how mature it was - and all the displaced wildlife is going to take some time to re- establish itself.

I suspect we're going to be hearing more and more about the carbon neutral by 2030 target once covid and Brexit are less newsworthy. Probably best to get a project like cutting down half the trees near Bristol out of the way before anyone points to an eco-contradiction. Agree that it's sad, I've known some of those trees a very long time.

Everywhere is felling just now, Leigh Woods, 50 Acre, FoD @ Dowies/Murdochs, FoD @ Mallards, lots of talk about non-native species and so on, with progress for habitat, but they've bludgeoned the areas so not sure how they're going to bring it back to what they stated.

Can anyone who works with the FC actually explain how they can justify their complaints about bikes damaging the local environment, sensitive areas and so on (if we exclude the shit trails that shouldn't be built) - some of these trails have been there for years and not moved etc.

I'd like to understand how they can, with a straight face, make these complaints whilst a huge caterpiller digger traipses through the woods, literally ripping up trees - invasive or not.

If someone could share a real reason, and also explain why it is the case we can't go back in and find a compromise whereby we can build a eco-sensitive trail that suits everyone, in a safe way, I'd really appreciate it!

Seems to work in Canada and the US quite happily, with trail builders actually working to some degree of governance and training in many cases - so why can't we do similar in the UK where we can have some decent trails routing around the fledgling new trees etc.

I'm genuinely stumped (no pun intended)*.

*well, maybe a little.

Also noticed last night that they've taken a digger to Pill Path and scraped out all the mud and deeper puddles. Whilst its great (although still pretty muddy) it did strike me that if they make it tooooooo clean, we'll have another Bristol/Bath bike path situation on our hands. Least when its muddy, the scotes tend to not want to hang around.

I can't see that happening whatever the path surface. The Bristol Bath path attacks are all at in the population centres, near to home and lots of traffic to choose from. The pill path is a very different beast

They need mopeds for the pill path - there were some muggings of nice bikes a while back weren’t there?

Or a dinghy.

I like the AC area as there are fewer and fewer places that seem to have decent tree coverage. I haven't been for a while but if Leigh Woods and 50 Acre Woods are ravaged that is a real shame. Going for a ride in the woods seems harder and harder not to mention completely different problems which have ravaged the trees around popular riding spots in South Wales.

Are there still muggings happening on the bike path? Some of the ones in the more distant past sounded particularly horrific!

Yep still happening around the crap areas near fishponds tunnel and Mangotsfield station.

There were 2 mounted police officers patrolling the path today, not in the area where the muggings occurred sadly

Took a moment to stop and grab a photo of the bottom of Picnic Bench - for those who know, thats the WC line on the left.

Can't say we'll see it lasting for much longer, unless the FC are going to look the other way and allow the more established trails to remain and be fixed.

The sad truth is that Bristol really is a city of cycling, lots of biking going on, but pretty much the poorest MTB tracks or support for them, yes you have Nova and Yer Tiz, but they have been set up as family trails, they're greens touching on blue and nothing really progressed there in a long time, 50 acre is pretty boring, and around the city it's all the same elsewhere, unsanctioned trails that aren't really up to much, Belmont is good for a play, but only open half the year, Bristol could really do with some motivation to push the areas like the old picnic bench sites to use its potential, instead of pushing people over to FoD, or Mendips, or Quantocks all the time.

Wasn’t there a rumour a while ago that they where looking at Leigh woods for more official trails ?

I’m guessing the national trust and FC stopped that.

Its a tricky one. The amazing summer weather coupled with enforced time off work while staying close to home meant I rode the picnic bench trails a lot this year thoroughly enjoyed it. There were so many options, and I found a several I'd never ridden before. The official trails were pretty busy but only a handful of people on the off-piste. if those trails became official they'd firstly be sanitised, they'd also be much busier, and would likely get destroyed very quickly. Having them cheeky keeps the balance about right IMO, but it would be nice to have a few more official options.

The sad truth is that Bristol really is a city of cycling, lots of biking going on, but pretty much the poorest MTB tracks or support for them, yes you have Nova and Yer Tiz, but they have been set up as family trails,.

Come and help us;

https://www.ridebristol.org

The armoured trails at AC and LW were built about a year before I left Bristol 8 years ago. It certainly made all year all weather riding possible but the character of the existing LW trails were destroyed so I went elsewhere in the summer. Bristol is so lucky to have trails so close to the city centre. There is nothing where I live now.

dogbone
Full Member
The sad truth is that Bristol really is a city of cycling, lots of biking going on, but pretty much the poorest MTB tracks or support for them, yes you have Nova and Yer Tiz, but they have been set up as family trails,.

Come and help us;

https://www.ridebristol.org/blockquote >

I will try if i get the chance to help out on any dig days, but i don't really use the trails in all honesty, but with my daughter getting into biking i thought about using it, and dig days is a good time to have a play as well.

It's a shame they've also turned North Road into a no parking area, means you have the golf course parking, which fills up fast, not sure where you park now when that's filled, summer will be interesting!

 

Hey guys, has anyone been riding these again recently, are they still viable or completely written off from the works?

There's a comment from a recent rider in here, sounds like they are ride-able if a bit messy: https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/how-do-i-ride-steep-and-sloppy-trails/

I popped down a few days ago and the linking trail was very gloopy and and super slippery so I didn't do any of the steep stuff. Plenty of tyre marks visible from the top so people are riding it. I'm waiting for dry weather.

There's definitely lines appearing in Picnic bench but they're pretty lethal at the moment and seem to not have any flow because of the need to traverse all the tree waste.

Seems to be two distinct lines, one which seems to follow the WC line is an off camber rooty bit of fun with a couple of very natural berms - but given I piled in without knowing what was there, it wasn't easy to ride. A bit of line walking would make it better - but its almost impossible to walk back up.

I noticed a trail further along that seems to track the old 'left of the bench' trail at the bottom, but that appears to just be a properly steep slidy rooty slide of 20ft or so - didn't look all that pleasant - and didn't have a distinct line out.

The bigger problem with these trails is that they look horrific against the already horrific looking felled areas - and would need work to make them flow. I would wager that any trail building would be a no no, so who knows what will appear over the spring.

Nearly everything is ruined now to some degree either through the felling or just sheer weather and wetness. The Muddy Rut climb is basically 100ft of pure shoe eating slop, and fundemntally breaks any chance to loop some fun trails.

There's good enough riding along LW and down to river level for a fun couple hours if you know where to look - the issue IMO is that the ways back up are so ****ed from the forestry work and general lack of attention from the FC/NT that it sucks any element of enjoyment out of the ride - which is a real shame...!

Are the official family trails still there? I have a pair of 2 year olds desperate to get Kids Ride Shotgun seats abs do some ‘tracks on mummy and daddy’s bikes’.

zerocool - yes they are. A bit battered but still good.

With the weather we've had lately i'd say any lines being drawn into that area is from folk sliding on their arse down the hill, it'll take a lot of TLC to bring those trails back, they've properly flattened them, as above as well, the way back up is pretty poor as well or you have to go right round the hill, would be nice to turn that place into a bit more this year, but i dare say they'll be keeping their eye on any rebuilding, and someone will do something daft (or not even that daft!) to set them off sooner or later.

That area around picnic bench, both sides and at the bottom would be a good place to put some trails and features safely, wonder what the plan is for it, anyone know, was the reason for the flattening non natural species or the likes, can't remember, but by the state of it that must have been a bit of an excuse if it was.

Any conversation about trails in Leigh Woods is pretty pointless unless you've looked at this btw.

Leigh Woods SSSI

Edit, you might need to cut and paste this. The forum didn't seem to like the first link: https://naturalengland-defra.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/Defra::sites-of-special-scientific-interest-england?geometry=-2.703%2C51.459%2C-2.599%2C51.478

The blue bits are the SSSI. Most of the steeps in LW are in the SSSI. It's not absolutely impossible to build trails in the SSSI, and I bet we all ride some of them, but I'd say making them legit entails far far more bureaucracy than anyone has time for. Most of the Picnic Bench area seems to be outside the SSSI though, so at least it's only criminal damage you'd be up for! (I assume, I'm not a lawyer).

Basically Ride Bristol is the place to direct your efforts I reckon. Too much non-legit elsewhere won't evade the bulldozer.

Quick Google on why they're felling gives you this btw https://www.forestryengland.uk/article/forestry-operations-leigh-woods

Cheers all that’s super useful!

I’ll scope out a few then and see what they’re like, at least there are less trees to hit now if I run out of talent :D.

Bring on the drier months, not long now.

@jp4urio I wouldn't go so far as to say that - they've left a huge amount of wood on the ground and where it's steep and techy, it means any crash is fraught with danger as you'll inevitably land on a log or sticks that are very pointy.

I know this, mainly as one of the 'new' trails has caught me out twice last week and resulted in my very ungraceful double somersault OTB and a snapped brake lever.

I'll be getting back to figure out the lines (as its one of those trails where knowing them means it's easier to slither down), but the ruts down them are massive given all the rain in the last couple of months.

The tech level on those new trail lines has definitely gone up significantly - you need to pay attention.

Neil you’re not wrong haha! I hope you’re not too banged up. I hit them up for the first time a few days ago and koala’d most of them being totally honest.

The tech level is significantly above what I’m used to at FoD or the Quantocks, I’ve worked up to them for that reason as I’d heard they were pretty raw. I’ve got the skills to ride other natural stuff in the area in the slop and get off the ground but as you say the trails are a mix of wooden spears everywhere with rutted claggy lines through them at the moment. I also didn’t want to tear up the more embedded trails for those who can ride them properly, I couldn’t get enough grip to hold decent lines.

Quite a step up, everything in the immediate area is (fantastic and lucky to have) XC then its over the cliffs to steep/tech city!