Are there too many trails now?

OTOH there's actually a really good argument for continuous building and abandonment. Five Year Plan at Glentress was built as an experiment on those lines- instead of trying to keep ancient trails in good condition, while also handling the "it's old and boring" "now it's too sanitised" "something changed and NOTHING WILL EVER BE GOOD AGAIN", they decided to see what happened if we built a relatively quick, tough but unarmoured trail without compromising much for longterm. Meant it's a lot steeper than we'd normally build (because steep means wear) and while it was well built it's all just as-dug, not a gram of imported material. It's been allowed to evolve and change and only had minor repairs and modifications where it was needed.

And then, once it got clapped out, we'd just build another one and close it.

It kind of failed dismally as an experiment, partly because there was one eye on having it officially replace the old Boundary Trail, and in the end we kinda made it too hard for that, it's way out of "glentress black" grade. So it never had main-trail traffic. And it just lasted so much better than expected, we built it for the 2014 EWS and as the name suggests, 5 years was the expectation. It's a bit up in the air right now because of wind damage, as is the boundary as a whole.

But as an alternative for "make it so well armoured it lasts forever" and "dig it up completely and resurface it every so often" there's a lot going for it. It allows a fuller trail lifecycle too. Especially since the construction method means it barely leaves a mark.

Or, take Falla Brae at Glentress as a counterpoint. Very very old, and now at a point where it's just really difficult to keep it in good shape, while also retaining its character. Cornercutting's a constant, drainage is really difficult, and the nature of the trail means it's really hard to restore (basically, fixing a trail mostly means digging it up and building another bit of trail that hopefully feels the same, and that's really hard to do with teh more natural feeling stuff) The new ending that's been put on it since the worlds is really good, better really than what was there before but it feels really intrusive to a lot of people. If it wasn't for the good game blue taking traffic off it, it'd be far worse. But now, with teh new alternative descent it'll probably do much better. People who like that sort of thing will ride it, people who like new school and going as fast as you can will do the twitcher.

What a timely thread. Time to have your say.

https://dmbins.com/blog/uk-trails-project-we-need-your-help

Under the DMBINS banner but they're looking for input from everywhere in the UK.