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So I normally get all ethical and environmentally conscious and try and avoid riding loamy woodsy cheeky singletrack trails in winter to avoid trashing them. Helped by living on the edge of the Peaks so I have plenty of rocky options to play on instead.
I went out with a group yesterday and a mate of a mate showed us some of his cheeky trails - Forestry Commission plantation, pretty damn steep and loose and drifty as anything - described as "EWS stuff" by the mate in question who has ridden (and done OK in) a few rounds of it. The trails seemed not to be so much built as ridden in, and every bike passage cut a bigger hole in the dirt. From the looks of the area, once one trail gets bollixed, a new one gets hacked out a few feet to the side of it.
Being possibly the only rider in the group who does the ethical thing* I got dropped like a stone and spent quite a lot of time mincing or surfing down the hill on my face - not the usual state of affairs, and I'm not impressed with myself for having let my skills slip so far.
So do I have a point by avoiding such trails, or should I just get on with carving public(ish) land to bits in pursuit of my hobby? When I was upright I was having a lot of fun, and compared to the damage done when the hill gets clear felled, the presence of a few tyre tracks is a very minor thing. However I still have an issue with the sustainability of such an approach.
Thoughts?
*that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!
It's a commercial forestry plantation, it's going to get smashed to bits when it's harvested anyway.
It's a commercial forestry plantation, it's going to get smashed to bits when it's harvested anyway
This. Have you seen the mess they make when they harvest or thin?
From your description, this is my normal riding spot. The trails are actually taken care of by trail builders, with maintenance carried out as well. So long as there aren't huge numbers of riders (like races) in really poor conditions, they're fine, and even then sometimes it will improve the trail by bedding it in.
It only becomes a problem when the trails, or more accurately the riders, come into contact with other users of the path; for example if there's a kicker installed to boot you over a walking path for instance.
That'd never happen though would it?
Locally the trails are destroyed by the horses round here, so trying to pick a line through the trough created by others is minimal damage to what it has sustained already.
I'm an environmental scientist and I don't give a rats ass about plantation monoculture. Best place for mtbers to ride like that IMO.
I've just come back from a ride in Puddletown Forest, which was logged (mostly thinning actually) in the last few weeks. The trail of destruction left by the machines is worse than anything MTBers could achieve, short of putting in an uplift and insisting every rider within 100 miles come and spend a weekend riding mud spikes through the forest after a period of very wet weather.
As scienceofficer says, plantation monoculture is the best place for us to ride - there's no real ecology to damage.
If the trail builders don't mind then go for it. You can always offer to give them a hand.
Many trails need a certain amount of tyres to make them permanent, whether due to greenery overgrowing, or simply enough traffic to wear them down to suitable base (roots, rocks). Trails I have built began as utter sloppy muddy slip fests and are starting to firm up after becoming more busy. Tyre tracks encourage rain to run through the trails and erodes the sloppy layers of mud around them. Yes, this results in pools of mud, but they're easy to deal with.
I'd always ride anything in any conditions. I have accepted that the trails we ride change over time and now view this as evolution rather than damage 🙂 I know a lot of you ride flat stuff that really bogs up...I say the key to finding better riding surfaces is go find the steep!
I've just spent a few hours today tidying up a sneaky trail in an FC forest. Riding them is the best thing as it then shows up where a bit of work needs doing. I keep it minimal and just clean the slop off and the odd drainage ditch here and there.
Get out and enjoy the carnage as there's usually some mug like me who'll sort it out eventually ?
I live in the north UK. If I only rode non-boggy trails I'd be on the bike once a year.
It's only soil. Can you break it?
If we build them faster than the fc can find and flatten them we'll always have fun stuff to ride
We did a load over the last couple of days, pretty much all off-piste and all fun. But different rules in Scotland 🙂
It's only soil. Can you break it?
Actually yes.