Braking bumps...

The Northern Monkey

why do people moan so much about them?

not much you can do... so learn to ride them.

that is all

discuss...

cat_with_no_tail

I don't moan about them (much), but I sort of see why some people do.

Did you not find that some of the ones on the Monkey Trail were horrible and spoiled the flow a bit? I've never had a problem with them before that day, but those were some of the worst I've come across. Made worse by the fact it was so dry and dusty.

The Northern Monkey

I didn't think the ones on the Monkey Trail were bad at all!
As long as you picked your line, you could pretty much float over them!
The dust was immense though, never seen anything like that...

What I was trying to get at, was people that seem to moan because the trail isn't motorway smooth for them.
I don't get that.... if they don't like it then why not help repair the trails?!

Some tech bits at Whinlatter have been spoiled a bit IMO due to the trail repairs... (i know they were needed to make the trail more accesible to others, but I find them a bit of a challenge!).

shx8000

Not an issue on a FS, but slow me right down on the hard tail. Maybe i'd be better with Spd's rather thn flats????

The Northern Monkey

shx8000 wrote:

Not an issue on a FS, but slow me right down on the hard tail. Maybe i'd be better with Spd's rather thn flats????

Funny... the lads behind me and Bails were all on FS and moaning like hell

oh, and I was riding flats


Either way, I don't think its to do with bike setup in that way... a rider should be able to adapt how they ride to the trail conditions, instead of blaming the trail its self.

shx8000

I'd not ridden properly in a fair few years and put on a few more pounds than strictly reasonable and not at all bike fit when I did the monkey trail on hardtail. 3 months on I've lost a lot of fat, been getting bike fit by using the spinning bike, so hopefully there's gonna be a noticable difference when I get back to the UK next month and head down to Cannock. Fingers crossed

The Northern Monkey

Aye its always nice getting back into it!
I've a bit gutted atm, sold my current forks and bought new ones, but due to a holiday next Friday, i'm not going to be able to ride for 3 weeks :shock:
Gonna be hell

cat_with_no_tail

The Northern Monkey wrote:

shx8000 wrote:

Not an issue on a FS, but slow me right down on the hard tail. Maybe i'd be better with Spd's rather thn flats????

Funny... the lads behind me and Bails were all on FS and moaning like hell

oh, and I was riding flats


Either way, I don't think its to do with bike setup in that way... a rider should be able to adapt how they ride to the trail conditions, instead of blaming the trail its self.

yeh, but that's kind of missing the point.

I go to a trail centre because I want to ride something that's man made, designed to be fast and flowing, with berms, jumps and other features you most likely never see (in 1 place) when I'm riding natural (technical) stuff 95% of the rest of the time.

It's alright saying your should adapt to the trail conditions, but that also includes riding it how it was designed to be ridden, and not dragging the brakes on every hint of something that's not a straight line.

shx8000

Well I've been training so hard out here to get fit, that on R&R I went and treated myself to a Trek Remedy 8 and took it straight up to Dalby Forest. Might have been in my head, but I definately felt loads faster. Hope so, as I hate making everyone else wait whilst I catch up every time we go out. I know they don't mind, but secretly I think they do lol.

ilovedirt

Braking bumps aren't too bad, however they annoy me in that they show that people have been abusing the trails (locking up their wheels etc) and that they're not properly maintained. Yeah you can ride over them (easy enough if you just unweight the bike), but at a trail centre that's supposed to be well maintained etc, they shouldn't be there. There's some bad ones in places at sherwood pines. Not surprising considering the amount of maintenance that goes on there (ie, none). And yeah i know i should go help maintain them, but i don't drive and i'm too far away to get up there any other way.

Kiblams

Not had a problem with braking bumps since I stuck suspension on the front of my bike, trying to scrub speed leading up to something techy while hitting braking bumps without suspension leads to achy thumbs for days after

It's crazy that the only reason I have to buy suspension for the trails I ride (trail centre reds) is braking bumps and not the actual trail obstacles themselves

The Northern Monkey

Cat With No Tail wrote:

The Northern Monkey wrote:

shx8000 wrote:

Not an issue on a FS, but slow me right down on the hard tail. Maybe i'd be better with Spd's rather thn flats????

Funny... the lads behind me and Bails were all on FS and moaning like hell

oh, and I was riding flats


Either way, I don't think its to do with bike setup in that way... a rider should be able to adapt how they ride to the trail conditions, instead of blaming the trail its self.

yeh, but that's kind of missing the point.

I go to a trail centre because I want to ride something that's man made, designed to be fast and flowing, with berms, jumps and other features you most likely never see (in 1 place) when I'm riding natural (technical) stuff 95% of the rest of the time.

It's alright saying your should adapt to the trail conditions, but that also includes riding it how it was designed to be ridden, and not dragging the brakes on every hint of something that's not a straight line.

Yea I know what you mean, they wouldn't be there if people could brake properly... I'd guess that its the people that can't brake properly that do the moaning!

Kiblams

I have been trying to figure out in my head why braking bumps don't become longer than they are, as this would be much less 'jolting' on the bike. The way I see it, when entering the braking bump at speed your tyres leave the ground, and if braking this will cause your wheel to stop rotating. So when the tyre strikes the back edge of the 'hole' as it lands it should wear down the earth and reduce the angle of it, or am I thinking about this all wrong?

Anonymous

Braking bumps are just a part of riding up to a point, btu they can get completely out of hand.
In Les Gets for example, they're hub-deep, which is stupid, and forces you to have to slow down dramatically.

In Llandegla, they're far less obtrusive, but they're right on the corners, meaning you can't take the corners flat out any more - your wheel just isn't in contact with the ground enough to rail the turn.

Northwind

ilovedirt wrote:

Braking bumps aren't too bad, however they annoy me in that they show that people have been abusing the trails (locking up their wheels etc) and that they're not properly maintained. Yeah you can ride over them (easy enough if you just unweight the bike), but at a trail centre that's supposed to be well maintained etc, they shouldn't be there.

Oh come on, be realistic. We opened a new section of trail on the red at glentress less than a month ago, it had braking bumps on it within a week because people can't go round flat corners without skidding. The amount of work that goes into repairing and maintaining trail centres is immense but the amount of effort needed to damage them is tiny. We spend more of our time either repairing braking bumps, or rerouting trail sections to remove the feature that caused the braking bumps, or doing wholesale rebuilds or reroutes like on Magic Mushroom (and everyone says SANITISING when we do that)

Even at glentress- which has as strong a trail surface as you'll find anywhere in the world, the only way to make it more durable would be to rock pitch it or metal it- the rate of damage is pretty amazing. (1) On any less hardened trail like Cannock etc, or most older trails, things are even worse. These days new trails are generally designed with less gradient and less features purely to reduce the risk of people skidding, but even then people will do it- one day we were walking off site, literally 10 minutes since reopening a section and some total cock intentionally slid right through the new bit that 30 people had spent all morning digging out, building up and whacking down. Because skids are cool

I think you've got to ask yourself why you think you can expect smooth trails, it's an amazing thing that these places exist at all, and they're mostly free to enter, if you want full time maintenance it's got to come out of someone's pocket.

Doesn't help when MBUK runs an article on skid turns mind. But if you want to complain about braking bumps, and you're not already in a volunteer trailbuilding group, you know what to do

(1) Whistler and Fort William's lift assists use a constant repair approach, they build lighter trails that will wear out far faster but take less time to repair. Which works but then Whistler has full time maintenance crews whereas fort william has only about 10km of trails to maintain with lots of rocks. Most trail centres can't do either of these.

Northwind

Ah, so anyway. We hate braking bumps because:

1) You sometimes can't ride the trail as it's supposed to be ridden
2) They hold water which both causes damage and causes crap to get in our eyes
3) They cause people in front of you to ride erratically
4) Sometimes they appear in the middle of bloody berms, which can be a bit alarming when you're leaned over
5) There is no 5
6) On the rare occasions that they're actually in a suitable braking zone, you end up having to brake earlier or take a wrong line in order to brake without making them worse
7) Fixing them takes time out of trailbuilders' diaries which would otherwise be used making more awesome
8) Rigid forks don't like braking bumps
9) They look terrible
10) Avoiding them in the first place means building trails that are generally less interesting

The Northern Monkey

Totally agree, there's nothing that can be done about it (although I have seen some German trails using old artificial ski surface just before a corner... seems to do the job) so put up with it instead of bloody moaning!!

Kiblams

The Northern Monkey wrote:

Totally agree, there's nothing that can be done about it (although I have seen some German trails using old artificial ski surface just before a corner... seems to do the job) so put up with it instead of bloody moaning!!

Hey! You started this damned thread asking for a discussion! :P

The Northern Monkey

I know!!

But I said I didn't mind them because there is nothing anyone can do about it!

Pretty sure thats what Northwind said! (in summary lol!)

Northwind

The Northern Monkey wrote:

Totally agree, there's nothing that can be done about it

Nah, there is. C***s could stop skidding.

The Northern Monkey

Northwind wrote:

The Northern Monkey wrote:

Totally agree, there's nothing that can be done about it

Nah, there is. C***s could stop skidding.

Never gonna happen though is it?

So my argument would be to learn to ride them!

Kiblams

Has anyone tried riding the trails while towing a rake behind them?

stumpyjon

I'd pretty much echo Northwind comments. We can't keep up with the damage the less skilled and idiots do to the trails. There's lots of people out using the trails that don't ride much (which is a good thing), you only get better through practice so if we want to welcome new people into our sport then it's something we have to live with. Right, that covers the less skilled and brings me onto the idiots. Also generally less skilled riders but think they know better than the trail builders. These people ride around trail features undermining the trail, dragging mud onto the armoured surface and moving obstructions intended to guide them down the trail. We're getting better at dealing with this latter group, trees on the inside of corners, continuing trail features for several metres either side of the trail but it beggars belief where some people will ride.

If you want to complain about braking bumps, and you're not already in a volunteer trailbuilding group, you know what to do.

Amen brother.

The Northern Monkey

but.... moaning about it isn't going to stop it happening is it!!

stumpyjon

The Northern Monkey wrote:

but.... moaning about it isn't going to stop it happening is it!!

Nope, you're right there, I went through the angry phase but am now resigned to the fact that people will ride where they want. Makes trail building more enjoyable in a perverse sort of way, makes you really think about where the line goes.

ste_t

I remember my first time at Llandegla when I first started out 3 years ago. Comparing it to how it was on my last visit last summer it was so much smoother when I first started. There were switchback descents that terrified me last year that I used to fly through, as newbies slamming the brakes on in fear had eroded them away.

It's great that so many more people have got into it in recent times, but such concentrated levels of inexperience will have a negative effect on the trails.

Northwind

Northern Monkey, pretty sure I just explained exactly what you CAN do about it rather than moaning, and what is already done to fix it.

The Northern Monkey

but i'm not moaning

Oh and... i would help out again at Gisburn. Its just I don't get as much time out on the bike as I'd like. As soon as I manage to get more miles in the saddle I will, but ATM is all about the riding!

Northwind

That's fair enough. I was mainly having a poke at ilovedirt who wants perfectly smooth trails made for him

I've got a bit of a love/hate thing about them. Like, at glentress, on pennel's vennel there's some big ones and really they're no bother at all, they sort of suit the trail and make it interesting. But on other bits they're just really intrusive and annoying. There's a sort of ultra-berm in the Essentials which has braking bumps forming halfway up and halfway round, wtf is that? By the time you're there all you have to do is not let go of the bars and you'll stay in the berm, why brake there? Let alone hard enough to lock up? And the bit on Magic Mushroom which we just rebuilt was really, really horrible in places, in the rain it was like riding through a stagnant pond and even in the dry it just made that bit of trail unlovable.

So I reckon it varies. Some are worth moaning about, some are fine.

peter413

I'm not really gonna argue braking bumps are fecking horrible but, they do and always will happen.

Even if you don't skid, they still form over time and it isn't always possible to stop yourself skidding if the surface is really loose. You can't say the surface is never loose because you aren't always there.

And BTW Northwind, we did kinda rush the Magic Mushroom work a bit. We didn't build as solid a base as possible and we didn't let it bed in before opening the trail so that won't have helped with the trail getting torn up so quick but then, when I went down it I think 4 days after it was opened, it was pretty torn up so the trail isn't really to blame about that.

Northwind

It's not the best surface we've ever done but it's still way stronger than you'll find round most of the country. And it's such a nothing corner as well, no reason at all for hard braking on it. Just before the trollbridge I totally understand but not on that top corner, it's just knobbers being knobby