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Rode the NF trail for the first time in a few years this week and was disappointed. The climb wasn’t bad, and I remembered the large chunk of forest road around the top, but the rest was a bit pants. It felt like it hadn’t seen any lovin’ for ages. The surface was badly worn, puddles everywhere (due to poor drainage/wear) and the boardwalk, well...the top section was closed, there were numerous broken slats in other bits and then a huge (6-8 slat) hole in the lower bit. I mentioned this to the chaps in the bike shop who said ‘yeah we know, it’s been like that for 2 or 3 days’. One of them went to tell the Forestry folk. I thought that was fairly shit. The damaged bit was a real wheel swallower and I’d have expected a pretty rapid fix. Otherwise it’s opening up litigation, and no one wants that. Have they given up on it as a route, or lacking any resource? Shame.
It certainly lacks resource. TBH ongoing maintenance of boardwalks will be a complete PITA compared to regular trail for the reasons you mention, because bits do rot/snap and get busted by deadfall, and it makes the section essentially unrideable and dangerous to folk who aren't paying attention - so I'd be unsurprised to see the section near Moor Top closed and folk diverted onto the fire road instead.
First climb of the NF is good value, haven't ridden any of the other sections for yonks. Too much better stuff to play on.
Oh, and the Grizedale rangers (or the ones I've had dealings with) seem a friendly bunch, and as they reply to emails from random MTBers and chase up stuff which turns out not to be their responsibility, I reckon they'll get back to you if you drop them a line.
Obviously, they can't ride the NF every day looking for problems, so are reliant on people letting them know if there are issues.
Don't know if they have a bunch of volunteers to do work on it, if not they should. It's very time consuming to repair properly and if there's only a couple of rangers itll be low on their list.
Whinlatter has a regular volunteer maintenance day to keep on top of their trails.
Yeah I'm one of the Whinners guys. The main reason ours exists is that Paul the ranger is an MTBer and puts the time in to coordinate us volunteers.
Seemingly he has no similar bike mad opposite number down at grizedale, so only emergency repairs are done and the FC continue with the policy of not replacing aging boardwalk sections. Like all government departments the FC has had swingeing cuts under the current government (narrowly avoiding privatisation) so current MTB provision depends on volunteers to maintain, and occasional a bit of scope/budget creep when felling or contractors are in for other work.
Andy_k Not sure if you can answer this one regarding Whinlatter but here goes.
Why is it that FC Whinlatter don't embrace the development of additional trails and lines through the Forest, like has been done on other FC sites? There was a number of great lines but for what ever reason they are now obstructed with felled trees crossing the entrances, stopping entry.
Had a conversation with a ranger at whinlatter last year and what came across was noat positive for mtb'ing.