[Closed] How do I build a trail

Work out who owns it, what the history and access situation in here and is it likely to attack traps, screw up other access or get flattened?

I should have said its in Scotand, sorry.  Its completely within a Regional park.  As far as i know, its the FC who own the forrest part.  Access is only via a fire road, as for the rest, i doubt it, but it is posible i suppose.  The wood is scheduled to be harvested every 35-50 yrs and about 1/4 was taken 3 yrs ago, so prolly a while before any more gets taken.  The part that was harvested has been replanted, so i wont go near that.

I should have said its in Scotand, sorry.

Yeah still need to know who your dealing with before digging.

Good rules don't bring crap in, think about drainage etc

theres a fair few trails within the boundaries of the regional park already, some mtb only some off road bike too.  Good idea about the drainage though, hadnt thought about that - there is LOTS of rain in this part of the counrty.

Now wasnt there a thread a while back about which mattocks were de rigueur?

You've probably seen this already?

https://www.imba-europe.org/resources/trail-building-and-development

Paul, get up there with a rake, rake out a line that you think looks decent, not too much work, just something you can follow, and put as many corners in as you can get away with. Ride it. If it works, spray paint the trees so you can find it after the wind covers it in pine needles, then dig in whatever features you want.

And repeat til you have a few descents. Done.

Where you live, I'd forget landowners, just get on with it. That's what I do, 20 miles doon the road.

Best if luck mate. If he fancy seeing how I do it, gimme a shout and I'll show you the bed stuff I've built above fairlie, it's primo.

If you hunt online you'll find the FC guidelines for trails.

Basically stuff like

no wooden features.

No gap jumps

Everything must be rollable

And a few others.

We've been building on FC land and so long as we've followed the rules they're happy, probably helps that it's clearfell that we've been building on too.

And don't cut any trees.

A pretty good way is to get along to a volunteer group, if you have one. The techniques used to build/maintain a trail centre trail aren't the same as what you use to build a locals' trail but some of the tricks and logic is, how to deal with water, how to use gradient and maintain flow and remove speed and that.

Or, if you're pretty confident nobody else is going to notice, you can just go and dick about. Not everyone'll agree, but forest plantations aren't "nature", they're factories, and if you build something, hate it, and scratch it out it'll be gone in a year. And it all becomes irrelevant when they harvest anyway. So there's a limit to how wrong you can go unless you build something deadly.

Or, if you’re pretty confident nobody else is going to notice, you can just go and dick about. Not everyone’ll agree, but forest plantations aren’t “nature”, they’re factories, and if you build something, hate it, and scratch it out it’ll be gone in a year. And it all becomes irrelevant when they harvest anyway. So there’s a limit to how wrong you can go unless you build something deadly.

100% this, there's areas all over the country that look like they've been ****in napalmed and left to die, does my tits in the way the leave it, and folks on here want to hang you for building 'in someone's garden' gimme a break.

Anyway, I know 2 guys who have been building up your way somewhere, not sure where exactly, but I can give you their Instagram tags on a pm if ye want, I'm sure they'd be glad of the extra hands?.

Scotland just gives you open access right of way, not free right to dig. Like anywhere it's someone's land and technically any digging and certainly chopping down trees without permission and it's criminal damage.

That's the legal response at least on a public forum 😉

Anyway, current trend down south is loam trails and doesn't seem to take much more than a rake or even just tyres to cut lines in, and they're little harm. Gone if not used and nature takes over.

I just kick the dirt with my shoes and take a small pruning saw to clear any low branches. If it works, then ride it to shape the trail. Mark Weir swears by this method.

Why do you need to dig a trail at all?  People were riding MTB long before trail centres existed and very few people were carving up the land to do it.  IMHO trail centres serve a number of purposes:

1. They establish a route for others to follow (are you expecting random other people to ride your route)

2. They reinforce that route to manage drainage and high traffic (see 1)

3. They design in “features”, most of those features replicate (or exaggerate) things which happen somewhere in nature but can be placed where convenient or safer or to stop people deviating from the preferred route (see 1)

4. They have an element of risk assessment/risk management and the difficulty grading to encourage or discourage people as necessary (see 1)

5. They remove or manage hazards.  You are not going to chop down a tree or presumably erect a fence to keep people out the way.  Sometimes removing hazards makes a route easier - but you can pick your route.

6. They try to separate high speed cyclists from other land users to avoid conflict.  You have no right to do that.

7. They build in structures which make it easier to cross boggy ground.  Unless you are going to invest a lot of money and effort any diy structure becomes a rotten pallet in a few months and is just litter.  Munching through axel deep mud used to a fun part of MTB!

does that matter? Well I think the LLaTNP camping is a good example of how large land managers handle the situation when people abuse their rights under the Land Reform Act - if cyclists get a reputation for building whatever they want wherever they want don’t be surprised if the F.C. start pushing for controls on where MTBs can ride.  Don’t be surprised if walking (and possibly even horse riding) groups get annoyed and at some future point the LRA removes the right to cycle other than on designated routes.  And even if that doesn’t happen those of us north of the border often point and laugh at English land access rules and say “see you can trust the people to access land responsibly”, if the F.C. and others are going to meetings going “no you can’t and there a lot fewer of them” you make it almost impossible for England to catch up.

just ride the route picking your way through the trees over the features you want.  If you ride it regularly a path with evolve.  Painting trees is probably the least offensive suggestion above, and even that is not in the spirit of the law.  It might be helpful though if you think others will start to follow your tracks because if there are an infinite number of tracks then it’s a mess.

I listen to the Vital MTB podcast and they recently had a couple of enduro riders from Marin on. Their opinion was that trail building doesn't have to use a load of tools, they like to just use the terrain, flag a course and ride it in. If you want catch berms then ride the corner until a catch forms. I reckon that there's something to that approach.

I just kick the dirt with my shoes and take a small pruning saw to clear any low branches. If it works, then ride it to shape the trail. Mark Weir swears by this method.

Actually he's one of the riders who was on the podcast!

Do what Nobeer says and don't build anything out of wood.  And thank the gods not everyone thinks like Poly.

https://www.adventure-journal.com/2018/05/culture-mountain-biking-gone-astray/

Poly does raise some very valid points though...

The comments and the comment mention Pony's reminds me of the article link, although us-based some of it rings true over here as well.

"Scotland just gives you open access right of way, not free right to dig. Like anywhere it’s someone’s land"

If it's the FC then it's our land.

Afternoon all,

thanks for all the inputs, much appreciated.

to be clear, i have no intention of cutting down trees or buidling whoops  (showing my age there).  I just fancy makeing a path to challenge my riding ability (which is very little, truth be told) and to enjoy the hills on my bike 🙂  I suppose other people could use it if they find it, but im not exactly in a metropolis and i woudnt think it would be worth travelling to.  I think i will take a wee wander up again tomorrow and see whats what.

cheers,

paul

<p>Paul, I get the impression you are very local to me, is that Regional Park Muirshiel perchance?</p><p></p><p>If you want a hand with anything I'm game for some wee trails.</p>

If it’s the FC then it’s our land.

Some FC is only managed by them, not owned. Besides, Crown Estate is technically ours too, but they definitely go ape shit at digging round Swinley 😉 (or Natural England at least would).

As said though, trails don't have to be dug, at least not in the way some of Surrey Hills digging has been going, and locally my way it seems people are finally learning that natural can be awesome. Plenty of natural features about for the jumps and drops. Though local pixies do actually still do some work, but it's subtle to the extent you don't realise. i.e. bit of clearance, covering up shortcuts, trail creep lines or potential to drift onto a footpath. Just no big dig 10ft gap drops that will get the NIMBYs or landowner upset.

If there is digging and it's not legit, best advice is stop posting it on social media. So much is getting shut down and things kicking off because of way too much advertisement. Big names are guilty of this too.

Hey squirrelking, I've sent you a pm...

This is a difficult position. Someone will own the land and therefore could well object to any trail being created. The challenge in this day and age is things like Strava and trailforks where a trail suddenly appears and one thing leads to another and you end up with a problem. Where FC are the landowner the issue with ‘wild trails’ is as soon as they are acknowledged or touched they are responsible for them, fiscally and legally. Ignoring them is one approach but that creates a separate set of issues. Worst case is a whole trail network suddenly becomes out of bounds by the landowner. So I don’t think anyone is against trails being developed it’s just the entitlement to do so and the acknowledgement that someone somewhere may be obliged to accept they exist and do something about them

<p>Strava and Trailforks should be used sensibly, unfortunately common sense often doesn't figure. Having spoken to Paul I think trails have already existed in that area albeit about 15 years ago so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that some subtle trails could be created.</p>

The FoD is a good example of cheeky trails that are subtle and tricky to find, but a lot of fun. I’ve only ridden them with the help of a mate who’d been riding them for years, and it was only a slight break in the trees off the side of a fire-road, with a trace of tyre tread, and a slightly lighter path showing in the dead larch needles with branches marking some corners that really give any clues. It’s easily possible to spend several hours riding in a fairly small part of the forest north of the bike centre, with hardly a soul to be seen, and nothing artificial on any of the trails, but still having challenges like natural drop-offs and fast runs slaloming through the trees in open areas.

Nobeer, dropped you a pm, cheers

As mentioned above, built structures (North Shore type stuff) is one thing that the FC will be very twitchy about, but there's probably other things too. Another would be trail exits, you don't want to take care about how a trail comes out onto other paths or forest roads, no high speed blind exits or the like. When it comes to general trailbuilding prinicples, try and avoid going down fall lines too much and as others have said be aware of drainage issues.

Squirrelking, have you ridden the stuff we've 'built' up Fairlie glen? Gimme a shout if ye haven't and fancy a wee ride. You're welcome to come too Paul, lots of new stuff since last time you were up the hill.

Euro -
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<div class=""><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8rem;">And thank the gods not everyone thinks like Poly.</span></div>
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<div>On many things in life I agree!  But on the idea that trail centres are for mass market riding and the issues it causes and a bit pointless for half a dozen people a year?</div>

Nobeer - nope, never made it up there, would be more than happy to come out for a spin though and lend a hand if anything needs doing.

Cool, I'll drop ye a PM next week, won't make it up this week as I've a 10k on wednesday in Ayr, and riding at Loch Doon on thu night.

Nobeer, count me in too please and I will try to come along, cheers.

Will do Paul.

I'd say go for a minimal impact approach - make a little changes as possible and steer clear of structures as that will be what starts to pee off the landowners, also make the entrance a little hard to find..

Walk the woods/land to get an idea of where you want to make the full trail. This lets you see any natural features you can add to your run, like steep bits, natural jumps, drops etc.   Also good to do this when its wet so you can see where the dryer areas are compared to those that get mushy and hold water - gonna be worse when some tyres blast through it. mark it out loosely with deadfall initially so you can remember your line ( it will change)

when making a line take a rake down the trail so you've can see where you're going (remove deadfall after) then just ride it in. maybe use a spade to shave some of the rougher bits.  If you have to take some branches off cut them in right up to the trunk of the tree so you don't leave any eye pokers!

Keep it tidy and this bits just personal opinion -  but try and make your trail seem as natural as possible and in keeping with its surrounding - don't dig big holes next to the trails  and cover your workings off trail with loose leaves etc just makes it look nicer if any non biker does find it. saves a grumble.

If you have to take some branches off cut them in right up to the trunk of the tree so you don’t leave any eye pokers!

also damages the wood if you leave them longer i'm told.

water management first followed by speed management. if there's a wet section do your best to avoid it as mentioned, cos it'll only get worse, and likely affect things further down too.

try to avoid making riders steer and brake/accelerate too much at the same time as this will increase wear and tear and as a result the need to maintain.

rake litter right away from the down side of the trail so water will 'sheet' off.

don't rely on narrow drainage channels as they only block and need clearing out.

have a fun!

Get and read this book!

https://www.imba.com/resource/trail-solutions

Though, don't take it all as gospel, the IMBA approach to water isn't that compatible with the UK