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What do you reckon?
We were out in'th ills the other night, and I've never ridden in conditions like it. Everything is absolutely saturated! There's a degree of squidgyness the ground doesn't even seem to reach in the middle of winter. May be something to do with the temperature?
But large sections of our normal stuff is just completely unridable. We shouldered our bikes and sank over our ankles in filth, for sections we should be blasting through at this time of year. In a couple of cases the trail had disappeared completely due to land-slips, and collapsed riverbanks. 😯 Needless to say, it absolutely bucketed down for most of the ride
I honestly don't think I've ever seen conditions underfoot/wheel this bad. Ever. We were meant to be out riding last night too, but abandoned it, as we just couldn't be arsed with it
How's it on your local trails? As bad?
It's a mixture by us. But the hardest stuff is BWs that have been churned up by horses in the wet but are now rock hard. You could just about blast thru the wet stuff but the rock hard version is more of a challenge, at least for me and my old HT!
hard work last night, that's for sure. shame. still fun tho innit?
We're drying out pretty well here (Dales) considering, but last night was my first ride on one set of tracks this year (real life has denied me of much riding so far), and the change from months and months of downpoor was remarkable. trails washed out with thin narrow gulleys carved by what must have been shed loads of water, but barely visible from thriving undergrowth. And with the soluble soil washed out many of the trails are now just loose stones 6 inches deep.
Its also showing in the over grown state of the trails, they really have not been used this year, I'm gonna have to get a trail saw/machette. My hands got laserated by brambles.
I had a very soggy end to the ride. Sitting above Shaw Mills I looked back towards home. Dark clouds of doom. Looked over my shoulder towards Harrogate. Sunny. No choice but to put my head down and plough into the rain. Which was refreshing to begin with. But after 10 minutes or so, not so much.
Well I'm not sure it is, I've seen worse.
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Its much the same on stuff round here - the regular cycle of flooding/drying out has just torn things apart and made alot of areas just plain miserable to ride on...Also its the impact of the farmers driving their cattle etc down some of the routes which has just destroyed the riding, basically all regular wear and tear seems to be increased by a factor of 10.
I would also add that choosing to continue riding through these conditions has meant that my bike looks about five years older than this time last year. Rubbish.
The worst thing is the amount of vegetation that has sprung up. Face high nettles and bramble shoots. Trails obscured by bracken and bushes so you cant see the bike and rocks greasier than winter.
It's rough out there I tell thee.
We knocked it on the head early last night due to the biblical rain that came in and knocked us sideways.
Was actually quite funny.
Its still fun in parts Nicko, but I was getting pretty bored with getting off the bike yet again as the front wheel sank up to the axle in a 'puddle'.
At one point, we were splashing through some sodden singletrack and and I uttered the immortal line 'this stuff would be great in the summer'. It was then pointed out to me that it was the 1st August, so technically....
Wednesday evenings ride was a right shitfest, thankfully the pub at the end of this route has alloy chairs and a hose so we rinsed the bikes & the chairs off 😀
TBH what is slightly depressing is the depth of mud at this time of year, some sections saw my pedals slapping into the mud at the bottom of the stroke.
Its a good workout though!
No idea. I've given up on mountain biking, bought a road bike instead. 😉
I have to say the north dales have been getting a pasting even today my favourite weather site -
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/observations/?tab=map&map=Rainfall
shows us just about getting away with it again.
I will see how Norwood trails are this weekend... (not widly optomistic if I'm honest)
Drac can you keep the trails round your way in that condition for another 5 weeks for me?
Thats why i've been riding my road bike loads, I cannot be arsed anymore dragging my bike through crud. 😥
I'll see what we can do Overshoot but ermm it's always rains in the North apparently.
Yep, forgot the brambles wrapped in bracken. I look like a self harm victim with lacerations over all my inner arm/elbow.
Drac - Moderator
I'll see what we can do Overshoot but ermm it's always rains in the North apparently.
Tell me about it, I'm in the North West and have had a lot less rain than family who live in the south west!
BTW where was that shot taken?
Some trails round my way are o.k.
Others are in the worst condition I have ever seen, yes. Grassy areas are pretty waterlogged and trails impeneterable due to brambles / nettles. 🙁
Friend took it at Simonside, I've not been out for weeks but hope to fix that tomorrow.
Local Chilterns trails are a bog in the main. Today was a revelation though after two months of hating it. Didn't try to go fast or stay clean. Just went out, got filthy and enjoyed every minute of it. Conditions on the ground are worse than winter but that appears to be the hand we have been dealt this summer.
Not too bad in South/West Yorkshire. Been riding to work all week and trails are drying pretty well.Not done anything really gnarly and it does look a bit soggy here and there off piste. Effin nettles and brambles are unbelievable. I'm sure they see my skinny legs comin and bend out onto the trail. Missus is well pi££ed off...jumpy legs all night
Been close to tears over the crapness of this summer, we've just had a week of pretty decent weather which has just about dried things up but the weather forecast is for more wet weather FFS.
Roll on another dry winter...
Lucky enough to have a fair bit of rocky/man-made stuff round here (South Wales) which is all running well again in the dry(er) conditions we've had more recently. I'm staying away from lower-lying/poorly draining natural sections, but they also happen to be sections of tight singletrack that the undergrowth 'claims' in high summer, so I'm used to leaving them alone for a couple of months at this time of year.
I suppose I'm lucky to have that choice...
Utterly rubbish round here too, especialy on routes popular with horsey types.
I've a 13 mile 'soft-road' route (i.e. mostly farm tracks, byways and c-roads etc) that I do regulalry in the evenings just for a quick blast. Decided to ass on about four miles of bridleway that croses a small valley (steep down, steep up) then decends alllong the valley and back up the other side. Took almost two and a half hours! Ankle deep mud and hoof prints, and hore shit everywhere. I was in such a mood by the time I passed the next stables what when someone said hi I alsmost lost it and comited a dirty protest!
What was singletrack last year is now an 8ft wide four mile long bog!
But it does seem odd, some tracks are bone dry, others just 50m away are under water despite being on a hillside! The grounds just so saturated it's litterlay running out the sides of the hill and down the trail!
Managed a 75km ride off-road from Settle->Kirkby Stephen yesterday. No rain 😉
Had cold feet for the first 3 hours, on August 2nd!!!
Mainly dryish BWs, 'self-harmed' on inner elbows though.
Felt a bit harder than it should.
things actually pretty alright down in the sunny south west. 8)
Odd conditions in the Leicestershire (Charnwood to be exact) area.
Anything on a slope (yes slope) is basically fine, hardpack in places.
However the flatter woodsier sections are a shitfest. They finally dried out for approximately 24 hours last weekend before the rain came back this week.
To make matters worse we have had loads of trees come down and the "forest managers" (I use the term loosely) have come in with big machinery and taken them away turning the already wet ground in the a flat features less mud bog.
Some of the calmer steeper trails have actually been improved by the erosion though.
Riding around Dorset this week, trails done so far non too shabby.
Trails not bad where I am but many have become quite obscured due to the above and the fact less people are using them.The worst thing is the amount of vegetation that has sprung up. Face high nettles and bramble shoots.
My shins have some very strange scratch patterns on them as a result.
Chilterns trails are pretty awful at the moment, some nice dry bits but inevitably joined together by ribbons of mud which are gradually getting overgrown in some places and in others are getting turned into wider and wider mudbaths by the horseists trying to get round the mud. I'm just about to go out for a ride with with my secateurs to do some sneaky pruning to try to retrieve some of the more overgrown trails.
My local is pretty wet and muddy, but to be fair, it always is at the slightest drop of rain. Great for honing the skills, though some places with huge slop is very difficult to ride in.
Suck it up 😉
Surrey hills seemed pretty good to me last night 😀
Yep - it's been just about as bad as anything I have seen in winter. Rode a couple of weeks ago and as above pedals hitting the ground at bottom of the stroke making it near unrideable. Cracked some weeks ago and put my mud tyres back on (though t.b.f. that was followed by that nice week we had so I'm claiming the credit for that).
Off soon for a quick pre-weekend bimble. Let's see what's out there today...
We did Mam tor and chapel gate last sunday. All the trails were pretty dry considering. Everything was defintely rideable. Bit sticky in places but no worse than it has been previous years. Stream crossing are a bit wider.The area does drain very well though.
I was expecting a nightmare on the local clay last night - first time I've tried a local one for ages - and I was very surprised to find it all fairly dry!
What were you all expecting when you bought mountain bikes? Did the omens of impending greenhouse gas related apocalypse make you think you'd be riding in something like the mojave desert by now? It's Britain ffs, it gets muddy, that's why we have nobbly tyres.
Bone dry at Swinley now.
...It's Britain ffs, it gets muddy, that's why we have [s]nobbly tyres[/s] other things to get on with while the conditions are a bit shitty...
mountain bikes are ace, but so are road bikes, running, canoes, climbing, surfing, reading a book, diy, baking, etc. etc.
It was dire before we went away, to the point I stopped even bothing going out I was so fed up & just stuck to the road bike. The trails were worse than they had been all winter.
Just got back from 2 weeks dry & dusty trails in the Alps & heading out this weekend, no doubt in the rain again.
I was hoping for a few nice months of warm (even hot) rides as we seemed to suffer from a very cold & wet winter this year as well, just to add insult to injury.
Pinning my hopes on autumn being great this time round.
It's Britain ffs, it gets muddy, that's why we have nobbly tyres.
Yeah right! We're all proper pansies in East Lancs. Proper delicate little flowers. Absolutely terrified of getting a bit mucky, we are!
But There's muddy, then there's totally unbridgeable calf-deep swamps. We did one 5km stretch the other night where we pushed/carried for the higher percentage. It took ****ing hours. A reasonable walk (I won't go as far as to say 'nice') ruined by having to carry a bike on my shoulder for most of it. One with the cables underneath the frame 🙁
Trails have dried out massively after 1 and a bit weeks of reasonly hot weather on the IOW. Even the claggy clay of Parkhurst Forest has returned to a rideable consistency.
Mudguards aff! 😀
All this time I thought binners was a boy!
I HATE this weather because I keep getting my nice white shorts dirty crikey
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I ve been riding a 'cheeky' super hardpacked coastal trail which has literally zero mud and dries out nearly as fast as tarmac. Just havent bothered with most of my other local trails as they will be waist deep in mud. Absolutely amazing full moon at dusk yesterday
edlong - Member
What were you all expecting when you bought mountain bikes? Did the omens of impending greenhouse gas related apocalypse make you think you'd be riding in something like the mojave desert by now? It's Britain ffs, it gets muddy, that's why we have nobbly tyres.
A sport involving less obnoxious ****s than football?
I ve been riding a 'cheeky' super hardpacked coastal trail which has literally zero mud and dries out nearly as fast as tarmac. Just havent bothered with most of my other local trails as they will be waist deep in mud. Absolutely amazing full moon at dusk yesterday
Odly I've been doing exactly the same! Figres that being 200ft up cliff it must dry well! Only downside is half a mile of beach and the steps up to it.
Well my first single track ride post-surgery was at Swinley ... in the rain. 🙁 Couldn't believe how mucky it was and the state of some of the trails was pretty dire too.
Mind you the previous day I had a brilliant XC ride in dry conditions but it necessitated having full body cover!
I guess I haven't missed much by being off the bike for 3 months. 🙂
You back in the saddle then CG? How was it? And ... no... you haven't missed much. Its been pretty dire, interspersed with very occassional lovliness
As well as thinking binners was a boy, I also thought she was from the North....
Waves to binners 🙂 Yes, I'm pootling along on the mtb. Road bike is ready and waiting for a dry interlude (that's wot I had the accident on).
crikey - nah, am a Southern wuss! Can't you tell? 😉
Was a bit dusty the other night, but I manged to cope ok 8)
After last nights ride, I would like to reappraise my initial assertion that the other week represented the worst conditions ever. After yet more bloody rain, everything truly is at complete saturation point. It was truly awful last night!! Like riding through porridge 🙁
Up here in the arctic tundra we've had a couple of thunderstorms which have kept the dust down for a few days now. Other than that the trails are lush. HTH. We do seem to have the jungle thing going on as well though. Who needs tattoos when you can join teh bramble self harm club?
Look on the bright side, no hosepipe bans anymore so you can wash yer bikes after getting them covered in glaur 🙂
Our village green has had permanent bogs/lakes in the middle of it for the last few of months.
I've never seen that before, even in winter, so it's got to be pretty bad.
I haven't bothered testing most of the trails though, sticking to the road 🙂
Surely you know your local trails well enough to be able to avoid the ones that will be permanent bogs/porridge/calf deep quagmires?
I don't mean that as a troll!
Binners, is there any riding in the Rammy area that isn't axle deep in filth?
What mud?
[url= http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7262/7710904720_080195b6d5_z.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/leecollis/7710904720/ ]Looking down The Street[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/leecollis/ ]Lee Collis[/url], on Flickr
Brown. Thats what we did. We planned the route so as not to end up sinking. Which made things pretty dull to be honest. Surfaced bridleways. You expect to be doing that in January. Not for the entire of August. Its depressing
Ransos - just replied to your other thread. You'll be fine with the route you're planning. Its properly surfaced and well drained
Got to say that I'm very pleased a guy at work has lent me a road bike, and I'd have never uttered those words previously! A lot of the trails I ride are very steep mud and roots so as soon as they get wet, there's no chance whatsoever of getting up them, and pretty small chance of getting down with any fun on the way. I was so looking forward to this summer after breaking my shoulder last year and spending so long off the bike!