Forrestry Commision Route Grading

MartinGT

Who in the FC grades the routes?

Please, please let me do it because its clear they dont have ANY criteria they stick to,

Went to Sherwood Pines today and did the Red route, its doesnt have any technical climbs, descents, no berms, switchback etc and the length is short.

Now I aint willy waving, its a great route and still would of had fun if it wasnt so busy (my own fault on a BH) but its no way a red when you compare to Dalby, Whinlatter or any of the 7Stanes.

abductee

Totally agree with that. The grading is all over the place. What we need is a list of all the red graded trails in order of difficulty so that peeps have some idea what to expect. In the trail master suppliment in MBUK it gives trails a score out of 3 but then grades most of them as 3 and then qualifies the score with things like difficult, medium difficult and for experienced riders so its not much help as a starting point. In any case it's only one persons opinion and someone who is comfortable with big air but not with rocks may grade it differently to someone who favours the opposite.

I think a forum like this is a good opportunity for getting a list of trail centres ordered by technical difficulty (not physical effort). Here's a start on the list from my limited experience. Let the arguments commence.

Glentress
Cwm Carn Twrch
Dalby
Llandegla (black)
FODCA
Cannock
Sherwood pines
Hamsterley

fyldesmurf

In my opinion if its rollable its redbut if you have to take air it should be black.

sniper68

MartinGT wrote:

Who in the FC grades the routes?



Now I aint willy waving, its a great route and still would of had fun if it wasnt so busy (my own fault on a BH) but its no way a red when you compare to Dalby, Whinlatter or any of the 7Stanes.

Dalby red is easy compared to the Welsh/Scottish/Whinlatter .The Scottish reds are double black diamond compared to Dalby.Personally i think Dalby is blue at best.I think it gets a red-grade because of the length.Sherwood Pines,the last time i went was a very easy green IMO.

abductee

No need for the willy waving as pointed out by martinGT. Simply put your Welch /Scottish trails in order of what you consider the most difficult by adding them to the correct position in the list that I posted. most difficult at the top and easiest at the bottom. You can put the black ones at the top of the list if they are more difficult than the red but lets start from the assumption that it will be red unless stated otherwise. I guess the glentress blue will beat some red routes but I can't place it in the list myself because I haven't ridden it. I will be interested to hear about the greens that you consider more technical than Sherwood Pines however.

MartinGT

ibbo68 I totally agree, although Dlaby has off camber routes and some decent rocky descents, its the length that I enjoy (ooo matron).

I just wish it was a standard grading so I know what to expect really.

abductee

OK so a lot of Dalby is not very technical but if you put all the best bits into 5 miles you would probably come a way with a different impression? The bit that irks me is the fairly long section of flat fire road at the top right hand corner on the map.

But lets not criticise the routes. They are what they are. A beginner would find the easier routes entertaining and the harder routes impossible. A rad dude with sick skillz would find all the reds boring and go to france or whsitler. The point of grading them is so that you know what to expect and can choose a route that matches your ability. As you said grading them all red is unhelpful but here on interweb we are in a position to see through the muddied waters and expose these trails for what they are.

Put em on the list in order of difficulty goddamit.

BurtonM

Its all down to personal opinion. One person cannot create a list of routes in technical order. For one, youve named glentress at the top, which i dont agree with, saying as its a piece of p155.

MartinGT

I think GT is relativley easy and did all of it in the large chain ring. But, like I said, I aint willy waving.

What my main point is, who grades these and whats the criteria because they are different at each place you go?

When you snowboard / ski you relativley know a red will be steep in places and a black the same with some mogules etc.

Now, A red at trail centres should be the same shouldnt it? You should expect a decent but of climbing, some berms, a few undulations (sp), some switchbacks etc. A Black, some drops, technical descending etc

Agree?

abductee

Simple. If you think GT is easy and you only have experience of more difficult red trails then name them and put them on the list above Glentress I don't own the list I just put a few in the order I thought correct. If you disagree with the ones I have posted, put them in the order that you think is right. If we can get enough opinions it will all be correct in the end. In my first comment I said one persons opinion doesn't count for much but with the combined experience of the bike radar massive it should all come out in the wash.

abductee

Martin,

Yes I agree. This is the criteria outlined by the IMBA but it's interpretation is all over the place. So you can help each other by sharing your experience or accept that a red covers anything from easy to difficult.

http://www.imba.org.uk/WhereToRide/TrailGrades.html

trailpuppet

once upon a time when FE/C had to come up with some sort of grading system they looked to CTC for input, long before IMBA were invited to these shores(forests)
The CTC formula then was a simple distance away from civilisation and altitude formula. Hence GT "black" is not all that technical or difficult(for some)but is a long way from civilisation

I think(probably wrong)that Mabie was the first proper graded route, around 20yrs ago, preceeding CYB by some time. The Mabie route at that time consisted of mainly forest roads which on very heavy "all mountain" bikes with rigid forks and canti brakes was very exciting!!!!! The current route is 3rrd/4th generation.
John Taylor(CTC), retired FE gent who started it all died recently.

Then came CYB and the rest as they say is history. Shame nobody has really written the full evolution of trail centres. Something Daffyd Davies, Pete Laing and Karl Bartlett should get together and do.

Then came F&M and that was the catalyst for 7Stanes. A plan had been in place to upgrade Mabie and start a trail in Dalbeattie. Locals having lobbied FC/E to get things sorted on the back of CYB success. Money was in place for this but F&M interupted that scheme. The powers that be got together and the bigger picture was looked at and out of that evolved 7Stanes(to include GT).


Now back to grading.
Part of the problem is trailbuilders.
When they begin planning a trail they have no idea what is "on the ground" so to speak until they start felling trees and start digging. They then get all excited at finding the odd feature which can then be incorporated into the trail. i.e. The Slab at Dalbeattie, Caddon Bank at Inners. Then they decide to liven things up with the odd berm , jump, doubles etc...All well intentioned but they seem to forget who is going to ride theses "red" trails and don`t create chicken runs.

Trailbuilders are a strange breed and their mantra seems to be that trails have to be challenging but imo they are building trails to suit themselves rather than the punter. Instead they seem to be trying to outdo each other by creating bigger(and better??)"featues" on every new bit of trail. Even the BLUE at Gt is more REd than some reds?????????????

It will be difficult to come to some sort of consensus because all forests are different, with different elevations, soil/rock formations.
BUT someone needs to get all the trailbuilders together and sort it out.

I have had this discussion with my friend and local trailbuilder btw.

BurtonM

Nahh, a climb doesnt justify a grading at all, it could be a huge fireroad climb that most people can get up.
Its a mixture of technicality/height of ascent/the steepness of the descent etc etc
For example, The kielder black route is graded a black route for the up and over climb and descent. Its steep and technical from what i rid yesterday. Also the descents were fast and there were technical sections that hit you quite quickly.
Hamsterley black route imo is not a black grade. The Climbs are relatively easy for anyone with a little bit of fitness. The descents arent very technical, however two sections have roots which make them difficult on wet days.
Chopwell woods (a route near me) is graded black, however it is just basically a skills loop, very easy to do with little tasters of what a black route has to offer

trailpuppet

But therein lies the dilema for anyone grading a trail/feature etc.

Your Chopwell black may be easy for you and your mates but could well be impossible for me :oops:

That is where the problem is imo. When you get a DH champion "designing" and building a trail anything other than vertical becomes BLUE :?

Northwind

fyldesmurf wrote:

In my opinion if its rollable its redbut if you have to take air it should be black.

Mmm, it's not a bad start but it doesn't really work. Best example of this I can think of is Nevis Red- you never need to have both wheels off the ground but it's steep, fairly technical in places and very committed, with really bad landings if it goes wrong. Compare with Spooky Woods at Glentress, which is actually easiest ridden fast and jumpy. It's got much more air than you'll find on most red sections, but it's pretty easy.

And this is the real problem... There's no one standard for riding. Til I did Nevis, I was absolutely terrible at step downs, just a weird lack in my riding. I was happy riding parts of the actual Off Beat world cup downhill course, but the step sections on the red really pushed me to my limit on the first run down. For a lot of people, jumping is an achilles heel. Everyone's riding has some strong points and weak points.

Northwind

I agree that the gradings are broken though... So here's an order of places I've been, I like this idea. Obviously reflects my own skillset, I find Drumlanrig and Nevis's steepness challenging.

Nevis Red (which I consider to be black, really, because the toughest parts lack chicken runs)
Glentress "secrets"
Drumlanrig black
Glentress black
Witches Trials at Nevis Range (red, lots of tedium, some great descents, an evil black option)
Innerleithen red
Drumlanrig red
Glentress red
Glentress blue (car park downwards- Electric Blue, Good Game etc)
Glentress blue (car park and upwards- Betty Blue and Blue Velvet)

I've seperated out the glentress blues as they're really 2 completely seperate selfcontained trails with very different characters.

I've also skipped out 10 Under The Ben as it's so poor for 9/10ths of its distance and though the other 1/10th is great, it can be incorporated into the Witches Trials, there's really no reason to ride the whole thing. So I'd add that to the Witches.

GT black is a tricky one... Because it's so inconsistent, the "main red" from the Goat Trail to Redemption is really a tough red rather than a solid black, in my book. But, the last 3 descents (the Wormhole, Double X and the Bitch) and the seperate descent Zoom or Bust are much harder, and properly black.

Northwind

trailpuppet wrote:

Now back to grading.
Part of the problem is trailbuilders.
When they begin planning a trail they have no idea what is "on the ground" so to speak until they start felling trees and start digging. They then get all excited at finding the odd feature which can then be incorporated into the trail. i.e. The Slab at Dalbeattie, Caddon Bank at Inners. Then they decide to liven things up with the odd berm , jump, doubles etc...All well intentioned but they seem to forget who is going to ride theses "red" trails and don`t create chicken runs.

Trailbuilders are a strange breed and their mantra seems to be that trails have to be challenging but imo they are building trails to suit themselves rather than the punter.

Mmm. For some that's definately true, it couldn't be more obvious at Nevis Red that they built something they liked rather than really building a red, they found some ace bits of rock that are amazing to ride and just fitted them into the red. Could even be called irresponsible, that, but it makes for good riding

But it's not always true though, Andy at Glentress goes to great pains to design trails to be appropriate for the grading, for example, and to revise bits that don't work and act on feedback (removing the planned river gap from Mushroom Pie, and removing the bit most people couldn't ride from Pie Run, being good examples). And he's a hell of a rider, there's no question that he only builds things to challenge himself.

Northwind

One last post... I split this all up as it was going to be too big!

Simple colour gradings I think are just not good enough to give a real picture. A grading with a description is good but still very subjective. I thought about this a while back and it seems like some sort of expanded grading would work better, maybe colours as an overall plus keywords to give a better sense of the trail.

For instance- Spooky Woods at Glentress would be described:
Red- fast, jumps, berms, and perhaps "non-mandatory air" or "air but with chicken runs"
Nevis red might be
Red- technical, rocky, steep, boardwalks
Caddon Bank at Innerleithen would be tough but "fast, steep, large drops with chicken runs" would sort of do it.

Obviously not choosing from a set list, that'd be too limiting, more just coming up with something that works for each location.

Also, more places need to review their grades as time goes on, an early UK black grading is now not very black by modern standards. Innerleithen did this, they reviewed the whole black and changed it to make it red with black options, very effective.

BurtonM

Rather than give it just a colour. Adapt the colour/shape grading
Like some trails i heard are now being refered to as double black diamond, for elite mtbers. That would clear up confusion, lets just say circle stood for very technical and triangle stood for steep climbs. you could classify a trail as black triangle ( black graded for steep climbs) or black circle ( black graded for technical sections)
The only problem is, is that the f***ers cant get the grading right in the first place

trailpuppet

But it's not always true though, Andy at Glentress goes to great pains to design trails to be appropriate for the grading, for example, and to revise bits that don't work and act on feedback (removing the planned river gap from Mushroom Pie, and removing the bit most people couldn't ride from Pie Run, being good examples). And he's a hell of a rider, there's no question that he only builds things to challenge himself.

Which is all good. But for the rest of the trail centres who do not have the luxury of their own personal trail fixer what is the answer?. For those of us in the West it is a bit annoying to see all the erosion, wear and tear being ignored and all the effort being directed to the "best trail centre" etc. If Mabie, Dalbeattie and in particular Ae had someone like Andy taking care of them we would all be happy. Chris Ross has a good team over in Kirry tho.

The Pie run bit is a good example of poor trailbuilding actually. If you mean that rooty bit in the middle that eroded away to something which became quite dangerous to ride. The first rule of riding roots is to ride the square on, not on the diagonal which was/is the only way you could/can do it. I could do it easy enough but most of the people I ride with could`nt and I have seen some nasty injuries at that point in the past. Never really understood the point of Pie Run. What am I missing?

I happen to ride with everyone from beginners to people much better than me so get to see where the easy/difficult bits are.

Each trail actually needs separate grading for each section. ie a forest road is not black is it? But it could be if it is 10mls from civilization with no mobile phone reception or shelter.

But the Worm Hole entrance could easily be described as Black, but the forest road section blue green.

Get the idea?

stumpyjon

Been discussed before but we need the same sort of grading system as climbing. One grade describes the overall character and strenuousness of the route and the other describes the level of techincal feature.

As it stands at the moment I don't think just grading the routes on their technical features alone is appropriate. Ride W2 at Afan, both parts, White's and The Wall are firmly red in character, string them together and I think you do get a black. Because of the level of fatigue the final descents are much more difficult than if you ride each trail seperately.

Northwind

OK, a little off topic but...

trailpuppet wrote:

The Pie run bit is a good example of poor trailbuilding actually. If you mean that rooty bit in the middle that eroded away to something which became quite dangerous to ride. The first rule of riding roots is to ride the square on, not on the diagonal which was/is the only way you could/can do it. I could do it easy enough but most of the people I ride with could`nt and I have seen some nasty injuries at that point in the past. Never really understood the point of Pie Run. What am I missing?

Well, 2 things. First of all, Pie Run is all volunteer built, though under Andy's supervision of course, so it didn't draw FC effort away from the other Stanes other than a load of hardcore, a little diesel for the wagon and petrol for the whacker plate and some broken macleods, and some of his saturday mornings of course.

The point of it was that a lot of people were using the fire road there to avoid climbing back up to the matrix, they'd bypass the whole lot and just go and do mushroom pie after hitsquad hill. Fire road descending is bad, so Pie Run was put in as an alternative. It was also designed to give a bit more variety, as GT does lack roots etc a bit, and since it's handbuilt they had that option of keeping the trees close. Personally, I love both Pie Run and Mushroom Pie, and they've been popular additions.

I do agree that the section we fixed ("That Bit", it was called) wasn't the best idea. Before my time so I don't know the full story, but apparently it was almost removed when the trail was built but, as you can't put roots back it was left in awaiting assessment in use and feedback. After it became obviously a troublespot, (though not an accident hotspot, funnilly enough) it was removed. Ironically, when we took out the bad section we got criticised on here and STW for "trail sanitising". But, the other trouble sections on the trail (the right hander with the root step in the middle, and the lefthander with all the roots and the rock in the middle) likewise would have been torn out, but were built "on probation" and proved to be fine, and nice bits of trail. So, it's a bit of give and take.

The thing is, Glentress needs constant attention, not because it's the best but because it's so busy, even with the standard of the surfacing it still takes a beating. So it wouldn't be realistic to leave it as built, which you can get away with much more at Ae, Kirroughtree etc. But I agree that Ae's been badly neglected, the FC just aren't putting in the effort there that it needs (even GT has to fight for development now- approval is hard to get even when the resources are there.) It's a shame. TBH I think the FC are their own worst enemies in some ways.

BullFreerider

I went to sherwood pines the other week, and the DH was graded as a "three-dotted" orange!! and every jump can be rolled, and the surfaces all even. I think the main reason for this is that in FC land, its not just the MTBers, you get families etc. Therefore i think they are over-grading them to put off the leisure cyclists from riding down them, getting ran down by us, and blaming the FC for it. 7stanes and the like dont have this problem as they are MTB- specific centres.