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http://singletrackmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/monday-morning-debrief-21/
Show us your worst examples of gravel trail killers....
half of cyb
That gravel is a nightmare to ride on. I can't see how with health and safety they can lay a dangerous surface on what is a legitimate cycle path.
Salisbury Plain, £500K of 'improvements'. This is the Northern perimeter track that's actually a byway.
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That's stuffs a dawdle on a Fatbike btw....
Why can't they spend the money on roads instead? Our road surface needs replacing. Putting aload of agrigrate down does nothing.
Not sanitisation exactly, more organised sabotage. This what is the bridleway at the top of Windy Hill (the big transmitter mast above the M62) looked like last Friday:
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Now, I grant that this particular bit of trail was a rutted, boggy mess (mostly due to the 'cheeky' MXers who ride it regularly) but I'm not sure that it's been repaired to the required standard, as they seem to have just dumped an old mill on top off it or something.
Lots of lovely shards of glass mixed in with all that random rubble:
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I consider my tubeless setup to have been thoroughly tested after riding down that lot. Can you get puncture-proof horses, I wonder?
[quote=mintimperial ]Not sanitisation exactly, but this what is the bridleway at the top of Windy Hill (the big transmitter mast above the M62) looked like last Friday:
Now, I grant that this particular bit of trail was a rutted, boggy mess (mostly due to the 'cheeky' MXers who ride it regularly) but I'm not sure that it's been repaired to the required standard, as they seem to have just dumped an old mill on top off it or something.
Lots of lovely shards of glass mixed in with all that random rubble:
I consider my tubeless setup to have been thoroughly tested after riding down that lot. Can you get puncture-proof horses, I wonder?
That's worth reporting
Hmm, yeah, you're right. Who would I report it to?
Congratulations to Devon County Council for over-engineering a bridleway tidy up and turning one mile of exhilarating twisty, downhill singletrack into an autobahn..
Before...
[url= http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7207/6978543411_b511d3e714_z.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/8308384@N06/6978543411/ ]Just About to Roll Over the Hill and Tackle Fishchowters...[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/8308384@N06/ ]Slugwash[/url], on Flickr
After....
[url= http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8122/8621753518_b150a63114_z.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/8308384@N06/8621753518/ ]They've ****ed Fishchowters # 2[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/8308384@N06/ ]Slugwash[/url], on Flickr
[quote=mintimperial ]Hmm, yeah, you're right. Who would I report it to?
start with the local Rights of Way officer
slugwash- they obviously got another country in to do that. Props to them but fack. Thats a job well done.
@nbt et al. How long has it been like that for does anyone know. Not been over that way in over 6 months & its still exactly the same.
Mintimperial,
I'd be wanting to see their license for tipping or exemption certificate, EA would be interested in that as its not been processed sufficiently.
Right. Reported to Rochdale Council Environmental Management, lets see what happens.
When this happened around our way I contacted mbr and singletrack to do a feature and highlight what I feel is the biggest threat to our sport.
Neither seemed that keen.
My next thought was to contact Clarkson from a drivers point of view, moaning that the countryside was smoother than our pot holed roads.
There are a lot of local bikers who have the opinion that 'I don't care,I don't ride there". They don't realise their favourite track could be next.
I've moaned to my local council and their response is that they have the money and have to spend it. This comes at a time when our local hospital is at threat of closure.
Someone in charge of MY taxes needs a good bollocking.
Spending the money is fine, can they not do it properly though? Just lazy.
[url= http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/pipehouse-lane-nr-bath-improved ]Pipehouse[/url]
A year or so on it is beginning to revert, but not a patch on what it was.
Argh!!!
@mintimperial, I was going to use that BW to join into a Marsden Loop that I do.
How much of the BW has been dumped on?
Cheers
Paul
Ride them as you find them. Life's too short
Thankfully not of my "good stuff" has been sanitised, however quite a lot of the wider tracks that had streams running down them during the recent rain has have had a load of gravel dumped on them. That'll last ages when the rain returns inevitably.
Also stone "bridges" have been built over some of the streams, with dirt on top. These bridges have been built on top of a plastic tube.
Where there was a little stream to hop over/ride through there is now a 2mx2m area of ankle deep mud OVER THE BRIDGE that takes an age to dry out. That was well thought out then.
I think the crux of the matter is the people who do these "improvements" know **** all about sustainable trail design and building. It's purely a money spending and ticking a box exercise for them.
How much of the BW has been dumped on?
A good few hundred metres, but you can ride round it pretty easily, don't let it put you off. It's just the very top section so far although they're clearly intending to go quite a way down it by the looks of things.
A real shame - couldn't they have left the big rocks in and done their gravel tomfoolery on top? at least it would stand half a chance of getting back to how it was...
the resurfacing that takes place around our way (East Surrey/Surrey Hills) is driven by horse riders as far as I can see. One glorious trail in Farley Heath got clobbered, even though there was a parallel sandy bridleway running paralell 200 metres away! Farewell narrow gulley almost shoulder height - so much fun!
Langley Vale got resurfaced recently too - thankfully the rain is cutting through back to the chalk and I can report from yesterday's ride that its starting to be fun again 😀
TM
The Outwood Trail is currently being "improved".
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I can see the need for a commuter "dry line" but to carpet the whole thing with a 10ft x 1 1/2 mile strip of gravel is a bit OTT.
A local trail to me (Bleedin' Lisa) was sanitized about 8 years ago, with a bit of judicious assistance from, ahem, the unknown dog walker the trail has been reinstated to its former glory by rainwater diversions during heavy down pours to assist the gullying and step forming process.
One bits so good now that my really gobby, thinks-he's-a-riding-god friend was reduced to shaken, pale, silence after trying to follow me through at the "conservative" speeds I ride at.
Unfortunately the water company are now going to be working across it [s]so I[/s] so the unknown dog walker will have to start back at square one.
Swinley!
deeside railway got sanitised recently - from boggy mess to tarmac footpath ....
its most excellent to commute to work on without getting clarted and speedy to boot.
not all bad - they did ruin tyrebagger though. - ill let bruneep post his photos from there. "wheel chair accessable" was the line used.
A few years back Janet Street Porter was moaning about the sanitisation of the approach to a mountain in wales.
So its not just us bikers who don't like it.
A few years back Janet Street Porter was moaning about the sanitisation of the approach to a mountain in wales.
So its not just us bikers who don't like it.
Horses too then.
This is the before photo:
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There isn't actually an after photo yet because the path has been closed after some serious rain damage for around six months or so now. I post it to reassure those who think that any sort of gravelled surface is going to last very long. Until it rained properly, this was a singletrack bridleway that had been 'restored' numerous times with a combination of gravel and weird fibrous cloth stuff - most of it ended up half a mile down the lane at the bottom along with a fair bit of the tarmac surface of the lane itself. 😉
God only knows what they'll do when they get round to restoring it... 😉
I feel some sympathy for the people in charge of managing these routes when confronted by mountain bikers.
They get moaned at because a trail is a lumpy unrideable mess, so they put down a lovely smooth gravel path. Then they get moaned at because it's too easy. They must sometimes think we're being deliberately difficult, and as a user group we can be a little bit "goldilocks".
It's too difficult, it's too easy, it's too lumpy, it's too smooth, as a user group we can encompass opinions ranging from "trail centers are too smooth", to outrage that people have been braking and leaving bumps!
I wouldn't like to try and keep us happy, we're a bunch of asshats. (Not me, of course, but the rest of you. 😉 )
And let's not forget, they don't only cater to us, they have to cater to at least some access for EVERYONE, right down to the unsteady on their feet or in a wheelchair. Someone wheeling Granny to the viewpoint doesn't relish the challenge of slippery roots and rock drop offs.
I think a likley effect is to drive us on to footpaths tbh
IMW santising makes it crap to ride and not much easier to walk as it is still up a steep hill in the countryside
It winds me up all this sanitizing - there are mountains in the Lakes that you could take a wheel chair up. Now I'm all for equal rights, but that's taking it a touch too far.
Fortunately the weather is so gash, that give it a winter or two and as has been said before, it reverts back to it's previous state, sometimes even better.
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http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Travel/Pix/pictures/2011/12/2/1322837780701/Mountain-biking-in-Wales-007.jp g"/> [/img]
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Mmm... sadly I also feel some sympathy for councils who have to manage routes, I suspect they look for inspiration by google-ing mountain bike trials and get pictures like the ones above, and probably think ‘well our section of trail isn’t as steep but clearly that’s what mountain bikers need/like’ and build nice wide trail smoothed over with compacted gravel.
I wouldn't like to try and keep us happy, we're a bunch of asshats. (Not me, of course, but the rest of you. )
That's fine, because basically 'they' don't give a stuff what we say or think . Keeping mountain bikers happy is so far down the agenda that it may as well not be on it at all. So actually your sympathy for 'the people in charge of managing these routes' is somewhat wasted.
Regardless of everything written above, the usage of our tax money should be put to better ends. No one on the planet would prioritise smoothing out the countryside over keeping a hospital open.
In defence of councils, I've been mostly pleased with trail sanitation done round Hertfordshire. Several trails that were pretty un-ridable for a reasonable proportion of the year have been made rideable. Tend to look fairly hideous when first done, but after a couple of years it's hard to remember what they were like before.
Regardless of everything written above, the usage of our tax money should be put to better ends. No one on the planet would prioritise smoothing out the countryside over keeping a hospital open
Personally I'd prioritise trail smoothing over say buying special ambulances for fatties, but that's just the inner fascist in me 🙂
I think it's different pools of money anyway - trails are council tax, NHS central taxation. Could be wrong though.
No one on the planet would prioritise smoothing out the countryside over keeping a hospital open.
I doubt anyone has, I'm pretty sure they're different budgets.
[i]don't it always seem to go
that you don't know what you got til it's gone
they paved paradise
and put up a parking lot[/i]
why don't they just sanitise a strip of it? half for the wheelchairs, half for the xc core gnarr riders.
and I'd take gravel over sand anyway - bleedin horsey landowners putting it down for their bleedin 'orses.
Plus I blame all the complaints on people having too much suspension and too big tyres. Drag that old rigid muddy fox courier out of the shed with a set of 1.75 tyres and it will all seem gnarly enough again.
Time for big motocross skids folks!
ha ha. Or tell a bunch of MXers to go ride those trails.
Brrraaappp
[quote=zippykona ]Regardless of everything written above, the usage of our tax money should be put to better ends. No one on the planet would prioritise smoothing out the countryside over keeping a hospital open.
Making the countryside easier/more accessible to ALL of the public has a measurable impact on longer term health statistics.
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Dollywaggon to Grisedale Tarn Lowey?
That kind of sanitisation is OK by me, but maybe they could adjust the location of the drainage channels a bit!!!
@mintimperial I came across the same 'resurfacing' at Windy Hill last weekend. Absolute vandalism and dangerous! I reported it to Rochdale Council who sent it to Natural England. They replied straight away and said they were aware and were working with the landowner to get it sorted but had been hampered by poor weather recently. Sounded as if they were enforcing against the person that did it, hope so!
@ esther (& @ mintimperial). Well done, would suggest going for the hatrick (hattrick?) and report it to the Environment Agency Waste Team 0800 80 70 60. That's not recycling or materials re-use it's fly tipping.
Mintimperial - that isn't actually the bridleway, the bridleway is off to the left of that shot around the other side of the small hill.
Earlier this year i spoke to the chap who was driving that digger, he's bought the old ruin in the valley bottom and was going to renovate it and the first step was to build a road into the site. He owns that land (or did) and it is private. He was going to fence it and signpost the bridleway. It does seem like its all been abandoned since then though and the digger burnt out.
The bridleway is really overgrown so maybe a summer of riding that one instead will open it up?
When you come down from the antenna, instead of bearing right head straight on and your on the BW.
All I can say is thank heavens for two cr*p winters and pretty rotten summers. The sanitised bridleways round our way were filled with hard pack chalk stuff which when very wet turned to sludge and when slightly damp was like riding on slippery slime. Now with weathering they are nearly back down to the underlying original hardpack surface and nice and tricky. That's what I like about the money wasted on sanitising these bridleways - the weather always gets it back to something worth riding. Never thought I would look back on the last two years weather with 'glass half full' positive thoughts!
It's too difficult, it's too easy, it's too lumpy, it's too smooth, as a user group we can encompass opinions ranging from "trail centers are too smooth", to outrage that people have been braking and leaving bumps!
Do mountain bikers ever really moan about it being too difficult..?
That's a very depressing thought, and not one that I'm willing to entertain
[quote=yunki ]
Do mountain bikers ever really moan about it being too difficult..?
That's a very depressing thought, and not one that I'm willing to entertain
Define "mountain bikers". Bear in mind that the overwhelming majority of mountain bikes sold in this country will see nothing rougher than a canal towpath. Councils have a responsibility to encourage people to do more exercise and mountain biking (I mean the easy stuff) is a major part of that.
Making the countryside easier/more accessible to ALL of the public has a measurable impact on longer term health statistics.
There's loads of countryside which is already accessible to ALL of the public. I doubt very much that flattening a handful of trails which wheelchair users can't currently get down has any measurable effect on health statistics.
Anyway if they're going to spend money on this sort of thing then it should be on improving boggy messes which are currently accessible to NOBODY. I can think of plenty of those which nobody would complain about a bit of improvement on.
From our experience at Ride Sheffield I doubt any of the decisions made by the council really have mountain bikers in consideration at all. Works are generally driven by horse riders on bridleways. Unfortunately, the law doesn't give us any rights in comparison to almost any other user. If the law was changed to more accurately represent the proportion of users on the trail (we're now a pretty big lobby), that would be the only way I can see for us to be properly listened to. A long way off, though, I think. The kind of thing we're up against:
[url= http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=68011 ]Stanage causeway[/url]
[url= http://www.ridesheffield.org.uk/2013/04/Stanage-causeway-resurfacing-fiasco/ ]stanage causeway 2[/url]
I can think of plenty of those which nobody would complain about a bit of improvement on.
Yep. Use the [url= http://www.fixmystreet.com/ ]FixMyStreet website or app[/url], get stuff like this on their radar, and it's a win/win.
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From our experience at Ride Sheffield I doubt any of the decisions made by the council really have mountain bikers in consideration at all. Works are generally driven by horse riders on bridleways. Unfortunately, the law doesn't give us any rights in comparison to almost any other user. If the law was changed to more accurately represent the proportion of users on the trail (we're now a pretty big lobby), that would be the only way I can see for us to be properly listened to. A long way off, though, I think. The kind of thing we're up against:
With respect, 'we' want it gnarly/abit challenging however its for all users not just us. Don't forget there will be alot of mountain bikers who wont mind the sanitation. Not everyone is deep into the hobby.
I've ridden a few horses, its bloody harder than riding a bike. Taking new/green riders out on a horse- should be open to all, for everyone to try. Gnarly bits restrict newish horse riders somewhat. Nevermind general access.
We have LOTS of the Peaks to ride.
I could sort of see the argument about access, and yes 'hardcore' mountain bikers may be alone in wanting challenging paths, but as a walker and general outdoor enthusiast I don't want to walk along a 6ft wide motorway through the countryside that's completely unsympathetic to it's surroundings and lacking in any interest/character. This is what they've done in the Lakes in quite a few places.
Never mind the fact that most of it just turns into a loose sea of hardcore at the first good rainstorm, and dumps gravel all over the shop. Apart from anything else it's a very poor short-term use of public money.
This one - [url= http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/another-bridleway-ruined ]http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/another-bridleway-ruined[/url] after a year of rain has reverted to an unrideable mess as all the road chippings have washed down and piled up around a newly-formed gulley, so that was £15K not well spent. Same thing has now been done to another of my favourite bits; it will be interesting to see how that weathers. Strange thing in both cases is that they improved part of a trail rather than the whole thing, so it's not improving anyone's access.
Apart from anything else it's a very poor short-term use of public money.
That part I do sympathise with. Drainage should be the key focus in the main but for instance Roych Clough DOES need attention.
From our experience at Ride Sheffield I doubt any of the decisions made by the council really have mountain bikers in consideration at all. Works are generally driven by horse riders on bridleways. Unfortunately, the law doesn't give us any rights in comparison to almost any other user. If the law was changed to more accurately represent the proportion of users on the trail (we're now a pretty big lobby), that would be the only way I can see for us to be properly listened to. A long way off, though, I think. The kind of thing we're up against:
I struggle to think of mountain bikers as disadvantaged. Whatever the letter of the law the fact is we get to ride all the byeways, bridleways, and footpaths, and the paths that don't even officially exist, and then have a network of trail centres built specially for us that grant us privileged access, and then go onto private land and build our own trail centres usually without even dreaming of asking permission.
I think the fact of everything always going our way has created a sense among us that that is how it's supposed to be, so on the vanishingly tiny rare occasions something isn't exactly how we want (as an individual, we don't even know what we want as a group) it's somehow an outrage. Look at the fuss some kick up when the forestry damage a non-official cheeky trail in the course of simply doing their job.
Too much of a sense of entitlement growing among us, it's revoltingly "ramblerish".
With respect, 'we' want it gnarly/abit challenging however its for all users not just us. Don't forget there will be alot of mountain bikers who wont mind the sanitation. Not everyone is deep into the hobby.
Yes but they dont count 😉 Inexperienced users are unlikely to want to go up a bloody big hill then back down it prefering flatter /easier trails IME of taking them out.
I don't want to walk along a 6ft wide motorway through the countryside that's completely unsympathetic to it's surroundings and lacking in any interest/character. This is what they've done in the Lakes in quite a few places
THIS - they lok awful tbh and are not in charachter with the place. the outdoors is not a smooth path
Erosion is part and parcel of access and is caused more by rain than human action....you cannot realy fight it or prevent it.
Perhaps better to build [ like the walkers/horse riders equivalent of a trail centre] paths and routes they can access rather than doing this to the middle of the countryside?
MTBers do have plenty of options but what worries me is if they over sanitise we will just ride cheeky
esther, cheers for the update. Rochdale Council have acknowledge my query and presumably will pass it on as well, hopefully it'll add a bit more pressure to get it sorted.
muddydwarf, you're right, the bridleway needs signposting a bit better if that's not it! I've clearly never actually ridden the BW proper in my entire life and I've been down there loads of times...
Technicalities aside, RoW or not it's a bit dangerous and needs tidying up.
Having a 'debate' with some people over on the UKC thread about that Stanage 'improvement'. Oh dear.
http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=547397&new=7325651#x7325651
I wonder whether it would be possible to get DCC to reveal where the legal threat came from by means of a FOI request?
Mint imperial - you know where that track eventually crosses the remains of a drystone wall and turns right into a sunken lane?
That's the bridleway, it comes off the transmitter track just when that turns to the first right, and drops down and contours around the left of the hill that the track in your pic drops down. If you look off left from where you took the pic you'll see an old drystone wall - the BW is the other side of that. Very overgrown and faint now because we all go the other way!
Yeah, I just had a look with google maps, the BW line is clearly there but it's very faint where it breaks away from the track, no wonder I've never seen it. I'll take a proper look next time I'm up there.
On windy Hill that particular section is an absolute mess for most of the year. I suspect there is about one day a year where you won't sink up to your axles in boggy filth.
I'd think whatever they do up there, its not going to last 5 minutes anyway. God knows what that's going to look like after a winter though? Like the remains of a derelict mill that's half submerged in a swamp, I imagine
Define "mountain bikers".
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Hora, I totally agree, but some of the recent works (eg the top bridleway from Fox Hagg in Rivelin) have made it increasingly dangerous for inexperienced cyclists with steep, very smooth tracks with no corners to moderate speed. Some minor technical difficulty and narrower trails is accepted to make things safer and easier for new riders not the other way round. Wider, faster trails increase speeds, likelyhood of crashes and trail user conflict. It doesn't have to be like that and a cooperative approach like that used by Sheffield Wildlife Trust and Ride Sheffield in Blacka Moor is testament to that.
I'm also not talking about making things gnarly per se all the time. The works to Stanage Causeway and to Houndkirk are disliked by all but horse riders and make a visually attractive place that is a recreational resource for a huge number of users, less attractive and less of an attraction to the people that use them most. I'm a walker, a cyclist and a climber and dislike much of the resurfacing work as a countryside user in general.
[quote=Bill Brady wrote on Facebook]
Right then, I realise the 'work' done on the top half of the Blue Pig has got a lot of riders hackles up so here is a scary concept. Put down your laptop and brew, pick up a spade and come and help me do some drainage work. I cover the Mary Towneley Loop through Calderdale so unfortunately don't cover a lot but even on some of my patch CMBC have done work without me knowing. Ive asked before on Singletrack for volunteers and the response was....er...none.
Please share on any other cycle related pages.
Mountain bikers, less typing, more action! Mobilize yourselves!
contact me at william.brady@lancashire.gov.uk
As usual there are mnay factors at work here - lack of funds at the appropriate time, lack of knowledge, lack of interest
Part of this can be placed firmly at the feet of mountain bikers. As a whole, we just don't have the organisation that horse riders, walkers and even 4*4 groups have. This has been evident for quite some time, and I don't have any answers as to what we can do about it - but the "problem" of "ruined" trails will continue to appear on a regular basis until such time as the MTB community can educate the people responsible so they realise that far from being ideal, the trail repairs they just did to Blue Pig are not sustainable (the gravel will wasg down the hill very quickly in stormy weather), visually unappealing (it sticks out like a sore thumb) and could well lead to increased trail conflict and possibly injury as people are tempted to inappropriate speed by the smooth, flat path.
The only way "they" will be eductaed is if "we" are prepared to put some time in. Join a local club or organisation. Join a national organisation. Ride Sheffield are doping brilliant work and it's to be hoped that the newly formed Ride Calderdale will be just as successful.
IMBA-UK has grown dormant, but CTC are working on the MTB scene - many of you will know (or at least know of) Colin Palmer, who's been steadily working to improve things for the best part of twenty years. If we can get more people to put in a little bit of time, we could suddenly have input into the LAF and Cycle User Groups of every council in the UK. From there, it's a short step to working with the councils to try to educate them
or we could just go out and ride bikes and wait for someone else to do it
Bill I would help if I was closer. Can do a stint at a weekend/or evening if it helps.
Imagine those who live IN Hebden, make money from there would love to help too.
@muddydwarf @mintimperial
Thanks for all the info. Rode the undamaged true BW early this morning.
Turn off is marked by a couple of large rocks.
A lovely section all the way across to the PBW. No wet feet, must be in good nick.
The repaired Pack Horse Road is much better with the slabs over the always boggy parts!!
Cheers
Paul
went over from Slack toward Lower Gorple Reservoir last night, the descent has been done with crush and run, totally ruined. Did the blue pig, top is a waste of time, ride the bottom while you can!
[url= https://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=53.768209,-2.081308&spn=0.011351,0.031371&t=h&z=16 ]https://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=53.768209,-2.081308&spn=0.011351,0.031371&t=h&z=16[/url]
Check this out!
http://twitter.yfrog.com/nu9b8paj?sa=0
http://twitter.yfrog.com/gyktlisj
Outwood Trail - Not sure who would want to use that... walkers... horse riders... cyclists?