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Just back from Glentress,course looked great. Any idea when we can ride it and which bits will be removed
Never, is really the answer I’m afraid. They used some normal trails, some shortcuts they’ll want to close, some walking paths, bridges that are temporary, trails in the wrong direction (probably, tends to happen with race courses), salmon ladder and gap aren’t staying, etc, etc. You might be able to do some bits, but nothing you’d be able to really call the course
Sorry
Yeah, I thought the good bits of the race course were being removed after the event as they weren't suitable for a trail centre...the race tracks are unlikely to stay as complete tracks as some of it uses existing infrastructure but going the wrong way.
A real shame as it looked a great course.
It really is an absolutely appalling situation that they’ve built what was a very well received, world class course that could easily have been kept with some adjustments for the rest of the year and could easily have been seen as a contender to appear on the world circuit regularly is being almost entirely ripped out over the next few weeks.
I was reading an interview with Evie Richards yesterday and she was singing the praises of the course and the crowds (I was there for the juniors and the short track, it was epic!).
The bit of the interview that really hit was
“I’m just so happy that all my friends and family are here. With the medals for Charlie, me and Tom, I really hope we can inspire the next generation.
“Because it would be great if we can keep this course and get more riders coming up in the UK. It’s really great having it here.”
And she’s right, this course could have become the focal point for British XC mountain biking, in fact the argument could be made that given the millions of pounds spent building it, it really SHOULD have become that. It beggars belief that it’s just being ripped out after the week of worldwide exposure. I can only imagine the level of disappointment there will be with the inevitable wave of tourists that come to ride some of it over the next few months/year only to find it’s been completely ripped out.
It interferes with all the lower trails though doesn't it?
Like keep the course and disrupt trails suitable for everyone sounds like a shit idea.
They should however keep the bit I built and it should be named "what prick dug these roots out"
Not counting all the new stuff up behind the trail centre that is entirely new, the half of the course on the forest side of the road was almost entirely built on walking trails or was new (the off camber root traverse to the Burn gap), the last bit of the descent from just above the Salmon Ladder down to the road used a lot of the last bit of the Falla Brae descent. All of what was disrupted could have easily been re-routed at a fraction of what it cost to build the course.
Whose decision was it to build/remove the course?
My understanding (and I’m willing to be proven wrong here) is that Forestry Scotland flat out refused to allow a permanent course or even to maintain the start/finish arena area as part of the new trailhead.
It seems to me like a relatively recent change of command at FC Scotland, in the last few years they have gone to actively promoting ‘tourist use’ of the forests to pulling back or offloading almost all of their commitments in that area.
The forest lodges business was spun off and then sold, at Glentress, the trail centre has been criminally under-utilised and neglected after the 9+ million was spent on it, trail development has either stalled completely or been scaled back significantly.
As an interested party on the outside looking in, it appears that FC is falling back on their ‘we make tree mulch for paper’ business model and is abandoning other aspects of the forests..
I would love the course to be kept as much as possible and perhaps the bits that are a bit too much for everyday trail centre mothballed so they could be brought back for future events. Put wooden fences around certain features to make them impossible to ride and maybe fill in the gap jump to make it a table top instead which could then be dug out for future events (they did a huge amount of material removal to make it in the first place). The forest side of the track will be almost impossible to keep as it's just not going to survive much more riding, especially through a Scottish winter plus the aforementioned clashes with existing walking routes and bike trails.
It does feel like a huge chance for XC racing to have a great facility and inspire the next generation, hopefully there will be a FLS review and the opportunities assessed.
It's not long on the forest side and you could see that it was built to be removed, features immediately after the salmon ladder had lots of wood which will be dragged out easily.
I haven't looked to see the long term plan for the end of what was the red/black. It was always fun but the course has basically seen it taken apart.
Can you just imagine the carnage when all the have a go heroes decided to try the gap jump on the way back the car park? You’d need to set up a permanent ambulance post there.
Would take minimal effort to fence off the gap jump and leave the B and C lines for public use.. or as mentioned fill it in as a tabletop, put a removable bridge across it.. there are a bunch of options that would add minimal cost to what has already been spent rather than just throwing it all away..
The bottom part of the Falla Brae descent was screaming out for extensive work anyway as it was in a terrible state. Obviously the Salmon Ladder couldn’t be left, would have to be fenced off but again, B/C lines looked pretty tame Red route standard, no reason to pull out the wooden features afterwards, nothing there that you can’t find of similar standard elsewhere in the Tweed Valley.
Im not saying it wouldn’t take some work and some thought but surely that’s a better route forward than just pulling it all out after the week of global exposure it’s had..
I was stood.at the gap jump for the men's and thought it was really well built the landing was slightly below the take off and even worryingly slow riders going in seemed to float it. The steep slope in would put enough folk off.
Interestingly there seemed three lines there but only two were used, the middle line looked as scary as the gap if not more so.
There has not been "millions spent" on the champs course.
The entire budget for putting the World Champs on in the Tweed Valley was only around £1.4m IIRC. The World Champs organiser (ESO in the case of Tweed Valley), get a fixed amount of money to run the local events which includes everything needed to run that event (trail work, event infrastructure, staffing, etc.), with all ticket money going to the national organiser (I want to say Event Scotland, but it was possibly a champs specific company/partnership formed by the relevant partners).
There has also been the additional money for the new trails, but the figures for that also includes a lot of groundwork and the additional parking.
The start/finish straight was never planned to remain. It was a UCI requirement, but out with an international race, it's just a big long wide section with little practical use.
The Glentress trails were planned before the Champs, so the trail plans had to be changed slightly to accommodate the Champs. The key thing changed/delayed, was the skills area, which has not yet been built. The plan is for it to be created along the start/finish straight area, so the straight could be recreated fairly easily if required.
As for the stuff on the Falla Brae side, the old waymarked trails were due for de-waymarking anyway, as the new trails should keep you on the opposite side of the valley. Which left the option for the Champs builders to destroy the existing trails to create something special for the event.
If I'm honest, I do suspect the Champs has allowed the main builder to build stuff that he's always wanted to build, yet would never have been allowed to in all the time he's done work for FCS/FLS 🙂
There should have been a legacy planned for the event, but AFAIK it was never part of the winning bid, so no funding/budget was allocated to it. There are some people trying to get some form of legacy, which will most likely to be waymarking of the XCM route, but I'm not sure the relevant landowners will be too keen on that.
FC won't be wanting to keep any of it as they'll be left holding the can to pay for the upkeep...I think it is a ridiculous waste of an opportunity but given how much trails cost to build and maintain and the lack of funding streams to support that, I can see why FC aren't trying to keep it.
It is a serious waste though - given how amazingly successful this appears to have been, it does may be sad to see very little will be left as a legacy. It isn't a surprise when FC are involved though.
Met some guys riding the xcm route today but even that is not really sensible for mortals given the golfie. (Given that pheobe Gale said she would be keen to ride anytime at the golfie on an xc bike and she's a handy rider)
I'd say a wooden bridge to fill in the gap jump to aid its retention would be a good idea.
Unfortunately we live in a world of blame culture so when someone hurts themselves, the FC are scared of being sued
I think the waymarking of the XCM route would be great, even if it was only a leaflet/GPXfile/website rather than physical signage.
I was at the talks last week and found the course designers chat very interesting and honest. It certainly sounds like he had a number of challenges! Given that the course was the minimum length allowed under UCI rules and the fact that the trails were admittedly built to last only the event, I wonder just how limited the allocated budget was.
Its a massive shame that there's no legacy from the event, especially given the disruption to recreational forest users and added delay to the new trail development, which has now missed the main school holiday period.
One thing did strike me, and that was the lack of local excitement compared with Tweedlove- its just seeemed a bit flat. Many locals I found felt the same.
The XCM looks epic and I miss a the Selkirk marathons . The gpx is out there. I'm just trying to get the courage to take my XC bike to Golfie.
Real shame a lot of it is going. It would be a great bonus to the trails and have a permanent world class XCO course.
Still, I think it showed the area to be an amazing place to ride. I go there a fair bit but met many first timers riding on Friday and Sunday who were really impressed by the whole thing, event, riding, local towns. If you had any involvement - you can be really proud - It was amazing!
Seems such a pointless waste of time, money and. Effort just for one race.
Seems such a pointless waste of time, money and. Effort just for one race.
really?
What about the junior, U23, relay and e bike races?
What about the local businesses who have maxed their income from hosting teams and visitors? What about the inspiring stories from race winners and those overcoming adversity? What about our young champions of the future? What about the Tweed Valley shining on the global stage as one of the world's best biking venues, and the opportunities that will follow on the future?
What about this week the UCI announcing South of Scotland as one of only 26 officially recognised Bike Regions /Cities in the world (announced the same week as Montreal and Leogang)? What about all those visitors who will want to come back, or TV viewers who now want to stay?
What about the inward investment businesses who are now thinking about Tweed Valley as a globally important player in the world biking scene?
What about the seven figure investment in GT masterplan which, although not directly dependent on UCI, secured it's investment partly as a result of the status the world champs brought to the forest?
What about the hundreds of local business and suppliers who have been directly contracted by UCI or ESO to build or deliver part of the event who now have that kudos as a flag to wave?
I'm afraid your comment is ill informef and daft
I was told that when the Iranian female rider first saw the gap jump she just said no way. In fact she had doubts about all the technical features. She was taken under the wing of local riders and was just floating over the gap.
I'm pretty gutted by the lack of legacy planning tbh- not even the lack of legacy, I expect that where the existing trails were modified we're going to end up with an anti-legacy of it being put back worse than it was. There was an opportunity here that wasn't taken and that's always an easy thing to be negative about. Quite often I just think, wish they'd never put that bid in. Don't think I'm alone!
But, equally, doing it this way had some huge advantages for the actual build and routeplanning, as soon as you start to think about things like running trails only in the "correct" direction, crossings and junctions and public safety and such, it puts big constraints on what and where you can physically do and adds a ton of variables that might bite you all the way through the project, and also building permanent is almost always more work than building temporary. Like, basically everywhere you see a bit of tree in the track, they'd built something cool, quickly, that almost certainly they couldn't have done if it'd had to be permanent. I'll be honest, I'm not into xc racing in the slightest, so apart from the dh the event just passed me by but as a digger seeing the way the trails were remixed and had a new vision basically on top of it for different events was a joy- even if some of it's sad too.
But basically nobody involved wants to rip up trails now! But, building from the start with the knowledge it won't remain really changed the project. For good and for bad, and it's easy to forget the good stuff the morning after. And, to be fair, the chalets closures and new trails were already going to be a massive impact on the centre, and then covid etc threw all the plans up in the air so it probably doubly paid off in the end. Was it realistic for every possible opprtunity and benefit of the chalet stuff AND the worlds stuff to be exploited and retained? Doubt it. Could more have been? Yeah probably. But if you make that call wrong it bites you bad.
It'll be interesting to see if stuff remains after the "has to be removed" and "needs to be rebuilt back to the old trail standard" has been done- I think for the same reasons as above, there might be more left than people expect, and if so I reckon we'll see it quietly come back into usefulness while nobody's looking. Not the massive signature features but the lines in the dirt. But that's a "wait and see". There's a fine legacy in the valley of "stuff that was built for a race then was closed and was never to be reopened" after all, or old race trails that were genuinely abandoned but were an easy recommissioning project.
Legacy's interesting, I think almost anyone that thinks they can predict exactly how it'll end up today- good or bad- is pretty much showing they're not qualified to have an opinion. Trails are more organic than that.
I’d say a wooden bridge to fill in the gap jump to aid its retention would be a good idea.
Just double check MVdP knows when it's been taken out again.
On the one hand, I don't think that the XCO track has to remain as it was. One of the cool things about mtb races, especially somewhere like Glentress where you have loads of trails in close proximity, is that you can just run tape across open areas to link sections and create a unique course that you only get the chance to ride it in it's entirety if you enter the event.
It looks like a lot of time, money, and effort went into building some of those features (which include A,B, and sometimes even C lines). It seems like a massive waste that these features can't be incorporated into permanent trails in the future.
Don't agree with the "obviously the salmon ladder must be removed" comments.
It's not obvious at all, there are ways and means.
Dalby had numerous very steep rolls/drops built for the world cup round - not quite as big but similar commitment required. They all remain 15 or so years later - well marked at black/expert lines and with B lines, but still there!
It's a big shame given just how successful the event has been, and how the world's very best have praised it, that nothing will remain of the course at all!
None of the freestyle BMX or trails stuff is going to remain either I’d it? Temporary stuff gets built for comps all the time, it’s just the way of it. Building that course to withstand even a winter worth of riding would have totally changed the feel of the natural sections.
Keeping a WC track is no guarantee of future races either. Fort William retained its World Champs track from 2007 but don’t think it’s attracted another similar race since. Cathrin Braes from the Commonweath Games is the same.
Legacy facilities where none existed can be great, the Chris Hoy velodrome is a perfect example but it’s not like Glentress is short of trails, with more coming. All the racing was a brilliant showcase and my hope is that it spurs on the next generation of riders, not just racers. I fear the support from the governing bodies and other stakeholders just won’t be there. I understand medal numbers are an easy measurable metric but doesn’t really reflect real progress in getting new riders out there.
Many locals I found felt the same.
I will agree with that. It was weird, considering I live in Peebles, step off the highstreet and there was heehaw going on. Like yeah it was busy but nothing compared to Beltane or tweed love.
That's not to say it wasn't a success but it was surprisingly "out of town"
It was also bloody depressing how many fit cyclists were about, the average cyclist age in Peebles must have dropped 20years and cut 20kg!
- I think for the same reasons as above, there might be more left than people expect, and if so I reckon we’ll see it quietly come back into usefulness while nobody’s looking
Can't help but think the same.
Also, with all the other trails on offer at GT is a permanently waymarked short XC loop really what people want? Suspect after a short period of novelty it would get little day to day riding.
A better legacy is whether it's usable as a world class event venue again. That certainly doesn't need a permanent waymarked trail, I think almost every event I've ever raced at GT has used some course configurations that are impossible to ride on a day to day basis, but it doesn't stop them being used for an event. Space for start/finish is likely biggest issue, but does a WC event require the same wide, straight start/finish as a champs? There must be other spaces that can happen in.
but it’s not like Glentress is short of trails, with more coming.
let’s hope they are decent and not more gruffalo and family trails like many other centres in England and wales have done
I can see that a permanent xco house would have been a great legacy. Like the 2012 Olympic course. But building something permanent would have cost way more and needed to be located differently so it didn’t cut across existing tails
What I saw of the course was some huge engineered features that would be a safety challenge to leave. I’d say they were a step beyond anything at Dalbey. Plus creative taping of existing trails and wooded areas. Take away the harder features and there isn’t much left
Oh and the promotion of the area worked. I’ll be back with my bike. I met lots of locals out shouting support for Isla
BBC reporting at the event had one of the commentators mention this was the first xc course with gap jumps, previously had been table tops...
Unsure there are more trails coming, they are moving existing trails and building replacements...I think.
As has been mentioned most of the course was a mix of trails that have been built as part of the development (the open stuff before and after the start/finish. This will stay although it will be used as intended not as the race used it.
The stuff in the trees in the other side of the road is a mix of walkers paths and stuff specifically cut as other GT events do and these aren't armoured and won't take heavy traffic. The big features won't stay either. To many inexperienced riders at GT (it's great for the beginner) and those features are just a bit too gnarley even the B and C lines are brutal.
The guy on the trials motor bike dapped twice in quick succession on the C line round the Salmon Ladder
Given what other riding is available in the vicinity I think the course was pretty pants anyway
Not for a race course it wasn't...it was very good for the intended purpose.
And there lies the problem...most folk are now looking for flowy trails with some features for their recreational riding...anything that requires effort seems to get moaned about.
As a race course it worked very well, but if looking for a ride rather than race then there probably are more suitable trails.
Tiny course too, 4km or so. Hard work for the average rider to do given the steepness and technical nature.
I can see that a permanent xco house would have been a great legacy. Like the 2012 Olympic course.
Indeed, it's really put Essex on the map as a mountainbike nirvana.
Tiny course too, 4km or so. Hard work for the average rider to do given the steepness and technical nature.
I think that's surely the nub of it, take out the wide start/finish sections and most XC courses are really not all that long. More like a skills loop with a horrible hill.
onehundredthidiot
Full MemberTiny course too, 4km or so. Hard work for the average rider to do given the steepness and technical nature.
If the GT7 returns in future years we might all be glad if not much remains 🙂
The legacy is or should be the wider picture.
Xc riders prefer train to on longer rides not looping a 4km circuit.
Road crit riders do not train much on the short race circuits
Yes keep bits of the circuit, protect some sections to be used in the odd race , which will create demand for the race as well, just like GT7 had ,"that" descent.
The drone shots showed the surrounding hills showing how much riding is in the area. Volunteers who had not been to the area were enthralled with it and want to return.
In my view the legacy should be sign up the Marathon course, even split it into two halves. Maybe even sanitise those descents a bit for xc riders. Aka make them like Angry Sheep , fun for the less skilled as well.
Then further sign up and create a network of mtb trails criss crossing the area linking other towns
The rise of the Ebike is the future as well.
Glentress will always be Glentress a family oriented all weather trail centre with the extra off piste trails, it has it's place too. The salmon drop or whatever its called left for selfies! It's quite a site standing by it!
A massive disappointment that it was only used for one championship - and no legacy going forward in regards to a British XC World Cup round. We're in a 'golden era' for XC with riders winning Worlds, Olympics, World Cups - if we can't manage to get a round now, we likely never will.
I've always thought one of the requirements for hosting Worlds is that the course can be used for World Cups in the future; we've seen 'one off' venues for CX Worlds, that haven't been seen again....
Standing at the top of the salmon ladder looking down was the day I realised my hitherto undesired ambition to be a world champion XC rider were immediately crushed.
The course could be used again.
They'll block off the salmon drop and road gap, which could be unblocked again.
The rest of the stuff was a mix of existing and new trails plus some walkers trails. They won't be bulldozed, so there's no problem with using the exact same course in future, it's just not going to be open to the public in the way it was ridden in the race
On a related but slightly different note, the setup from the Trails arena has been saved from landfill and is now being kept by Clyde Cycles Park before it gets distributed to other clubs.
Utterly criminal that it was ever going to be just flung away in the first place, sounds like they weren't given much opportunity to grab it.
Legacy update here https://dmbins.com/blog/learning-legacy-lessons-a-balanced-view-from-dmbins-on-glentress-site-developments/
These two are particularly welcome, and to me are probably the best options that could have happened from the start, since (as I said earlier), I'm not really sure a permanent elite XC course actually adds anything to the wider GT trail network.
FLS will be applying for retrospective planning permission for the start/finish area to remain. This will be key for future ambitions to bring back world level XC racing to the Tweed Valley and Scotland. It is, by some distance, the most expensive piece of infrastructure to be installed for the XC world championships.
FLS are proposing to identify areas of land ‘sandbox areas’ that will have flexible planning permission to easily allow future large-scale events to create their own unique and event specific trail features. This will allow the event organiser to create features with their own unique character.
To be honest I was surprised that it wasn't earmarked as overflow parking.
FLS will be applying for retrospective planning permission for the start/finish area to remain.
But isn't that the area already earmarked for the replacement skills area?
There's a superbly cynical Instagram account documenting the shambles around the aftermath of the stuff at GT. I was wrong that they wouldn't actually destroy some of the bigger features but the Salmon Ladder was wrecked by a digger
https://instagram.com/glentress_legacy_watchdog?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==