Grade Red

cooldad

Stevo 666 wrote:

ddraver wrote:

Think how much money OnePlanet must make selling 6" Carbon Sant Cruz's to rich people from Manchester who have read MBR and think they need to spend at least 5000 to ride a black run

(I'm not picking on Llandegla, it's just used to be one of my locals, and is a particularly good example)

Yep, had to smile when I saw a bloke with his Nomad at the Bedgebury caff last weekend. Talk about bringing a machine gun to a knife fight

Thing is most people only have one bike, so short of not riding some places, not much choice really.

Anonymous

surreyxc wrote:

Very true, trail centres are a new thing,

Not really. I reckon trail centres have been around as long, or longer than most of the riders here.
I don't remember any "gradings" in the very early days though, because they were designed to be really tough, and it was expected that a mountain biker could actually ride.
These days, every pleb barely out of stabilisers is catered for.

welshkev

yeehaamcgee wrote:

surreyxc wrote:

Very true, trail centres are a new thing,

Not really. I reckon trail centres have been around as long, or longer than most of the riders here.
I don't remember any "gradings" in the very early days though, because they were designed to be really tough, and it was expected that a mountain biker could actually ride.
These days, every pleb barely out of stabilisers is catered for.

agreed

riding was just riding then...if you could ride it great, if you couldn't you either fell off or walked down

bluehelmet

Northwind wrote:

Some are just plain wrong... Kielder with its blue graded trail that also says "If you're in an invalid carriage make sure the batteries are fully charged".

Just so you know Northwind that statement refers to the Lakeside Way - a trail aimed at cyclists, walkers, horseriders, etc not any of the MTB routes...

timpop

cooldad wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Yep, had to smile when I saw a bloke with his Nomad at the Bedgebury caff last weekend. Talk about bringing a machine gun to a knife fight

Thing is most people only have one bike, so short of not riding some places, not much choice really.

Like me, I only have one bike (Spicy) and I'll ride it anywhere. If you're going to fight you might as well kick some butt. :P
Anyways, I'm liking the british climbing grade idea. It could work.

supersonic

Sometimes grading takes in to count the severity of climbs. Some are judged on the hardest obstacle. Either way, it is difficult to compare one trail to another using this limited system.

I think the grading system needs expanding, or at least trails to have a short description ie grading the general trail, the climbs, descent and obstacles.

I also think you can have fun on trails that some my find a bit flat and easy - justride balls out! Drift around all the corners, do endo turns if you can and so on - sometimes these trails have outright speed on their side.

Northwind

bluehelmet wrote:

Just so you know Northwind that statement refers to the Lakeside Way - a trail aimed at cyclists, walkers, horseriders, etc not any of the MTB routes...

Lakeside Way is listed as an mtb trail and is on their mtb trail map! And it's given a mtb grading of blue, despite being a textbook green route. This sort of misgrading is just plain stupid tbh, Deadwater red has some reasonably challenging stuff on it for a red so having a misgraded trail encourages people to think "Well blues are piss-easy so I'll be fine on a red". It's one thing to have variation in grades across different places but not at the same location.

AMcK wrote:

I agree with Stevo666 - this is Kent, not Wales... and the grading takes that into context.

Makes absolutely no sense to me tbh. Gradient is only part of difficulty. Dalbeattie's very flat but earns its grade. Carron Valley has a decent sized hill and doesn't.

Northwind

lesz42 wrote:

just because a trail is easy, does not mean its fun? the true blue at llandegla is fun, and its not technical as such

Aye, that's the trick isn't it. Glentress's blue is absolutely superb, in fact maybe the most succesful trail in the forest. It's not difficult but it's an absolute blast. Blue doesn't have to mean dumbed down and boring.

Anonymous

supersonic wrote:

I also think you can have fun on trails that some my find a bit flat and easy

Absolutely, but that doesn't mean the trail deserves a higher grading.

Richie63

some good points here and as I said I did enjoy Bedgebury and did ride it quite fast but the point was why have a grade of red. I found this in my opinion misleading and at no point would I have thought oh this is Kent I have to adjust my concept of a red route.

Fair enough it can be fun and challenging to ride it fast but so can driving down a motorway at high speed both essentially easy things to do as long as you concentrate. But the skill level to accomplish a decent graded red route is not about peddling fast on the flat.

As for people who are over biked there are others under biked - for instance when I go to PORC this weekend I'll only be on the hardtail I had at Bedgebury but I'll make the most of it

weescott

yeehaamcgee wrote:

How about a letter and a colour, such a C RED.
Letters, let's arbitrarily say, A-D designate the physical demands of the trail, and the colour represents the grading. Grading is to be decided by riders, so when a new trail opens, or is about to open, someone like the Wrecking crew, or similar groups of riders with a great deal of experiences of various trails check it out and rate it.

Good idea. Or even red, double red, black, double black. I'm sure Laggan black used to be double black a few years ago. Nowadays its just a black, ride it on a HT and MTFU.

skaffen

yeehaamcgee wrote:

How about a letter and a colour, such a C RED.
Letters, let's arbitrarily say, A-D designate the physical demands of the trail, and the colour represents the grading.

I think you also need some way to distinguish between types of route as well, as a 30 mile XC course with monstrous climbs can be just as "hard" as a 10 mile DH course which is gentle climbs but drops and jumps all the way down. So something like Red D2 would be a medium DH course, with a low technical level, whereas a Red D5 would be generally a medium difficulty but have some harder technical features. Similarly a Black X5 course may be a really hard, technical 30 mile XC route, but you know it's not going to have any 6 foot drop-offs along the way. So basically [General] [Type] [Technical].

Keeping the general rating as based on the colour system is a good idea as it would let people unaware of the system get a basic idea of the difficulty as well.

Anonymous

skaffen, way overcomplicated, so much so I snoozed off whilst reading, as though you were trying to explain the rules of some role playing board game fantasy geekness or something.

If you know of any 10 mile DH courses in the UK, then I'm sure the UCI would love to hear about it.

Northwind

We have this amazing system in place already for judging length of a route- printing the length. Course that doesn't tell you the whole thing but it's a good start. Route profiles are better still.

skaffen

yeehaamcgee wrote:

way overcomplicated

So basically, adding an X or a D to the system you'd suggested (a colour and a number), makes it "way over complicated"? That seems to be a pretty fine balance between acceptable and unacceptable...

As for 10 mile DH courses, I know a few trails that are that length and are primarily downhill courses. There's not tons of lift-serviced trails in the UK so often you need to do the uphill bits as well...

cooldad

Just ride the farker and stop thinking about it.
Brechta has a simple system - before the (not very really) scary bits they have signs saying Araf.

ddraver

Splitting routes up into Trails and DH tracks would solve skaffens problem...

Leave the DH tracks out of it as most "easy ones" are automatically Blacks at most TC's

Anonymous

skaffen wrote:

As for 10 mile DH courses, I know a few trails that are that length and are primarily downhill courses.

Bollocks - that's not a DH course.

So something like Red D2 would be a medium DH course, with a low technical level, whereas a Red D5 would be generally a medium difficulty but have some harder technical features. Similarly a Black X5 course may be a really hard, technical 30 mile XC route, but you know it's not going to have any 6 foot drop-offs along the way

^^THAT, is unecesarilly complex. At a glance, I cannot fathom what the hell is going on.
A Red that is more technically challenging than a black, no way, too complex, and just random.

weescott

The longest XC descent in the UK is about 4.3miles. Sounds like you don't know the difference between DH and total descent in an XC trail.

skaffen

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Bollocks - that's not a DH course.

I'd class anything with large table tops and drop-offs as a DH course, if there's a 4 mile uphill section to get to the start of the downhill, that doesn't make it any less of a downhill, especially if you turn up on a hardtail.

yeehaamcgee wrote:

^^THAT, is unecesarilly complex. At a glance, I cannot fathom what the hell is going on. A Red that is more technically challenging than a black, no way, too complex, and just random.

Where did I say that a Red would be more difficult than a black? I said a Red D5 would be harder than a Red D2, and that a Black X5 course would be a really hard XC course (ie. harder than a Black X3).

I don't think it's too ridiculous to differentiate between different types of trails. I'll happily ride a 40 mile XC course, that my friends who prefer downhill stuff would hate, and vice versa with a downhill course.

Anonymous

skaffen, you're talking absolute and complete nonsense, so from now on, I shall practice my right to ignore you.

Northwind

skaffen wrote:

I'd class anything with large table tops and drop-offs as a DH course, if there's a 4 mile uphill section to get to the start of the downhill, that doesn't make it any less of a downhill, especially if you turn up on a hardtail.

Regardless of what you class it as, even if we say you're right that's still not a 4 mile DH course! It's either a 4 hour uphill with a DH course at the end, or it's a 4 hour XC ride with an awesome descent in it.

paul.skibum

In BC trail grading is supposedly fairly consistent. In our resort we have a sorted trail crew who try to build the trails so that they are mirrored between grades - so we have a blue berms and jumps fest which basically mirrors its black opposite number (Superstar and Rockstar). Similarly LTG is a singletrack root and drop off fest which can be compared to Flow a black version with bigger roots and drops.

I believe that other resorts in BC have similar ratings and if you can ride all the blues here you'd be good to go everywhere else.

The way it should be obviously.

Oh and the trail crew try to build our trails with a "gateway" kind of start point which is basically supposed to be a "the trail is this hard" feature telling you if you cant ride that then the rest of the route may not be suited to you. Good idea I think - the wooden ladder to a 6ft drop off definitely dissuaded me!

AMcK

Northwind wrote:

AMcK wrote:

I agree with Stevo666 - this is Kent, not Wales... and the grading takes that into context.

Makes absolutely no sense to me tbh. Gradient is only part of difficulty. Dalbeattie's very flat but earns its grade. Carron Valley has a decent sized hill and doesn't.

Yeah, fair point - it was poorly expressed. Trying to post quickly before a work meeting...

But the rest of my post tries to explain what I'm getting at - Bedgebury isn't a dedicated trail centre - it has a broad variety of visitors, and one of the attractions for families etc are the various cycle trails. In that context, a red is a good indicator for all visiting on what they can/can't attempt.

It may oversell the trail to the likes of most on this forum - it's obviously not a red grade in the same way that The Wall is, for example. But Afan is aimed at a different, more specialised crowd, as well as the usual terrain, gradient, technical aspects, length to consider. Our universal grading system should take that into account too, perhaps (which would downgrade Bedgebury, but elevate it above the family pootle). I doubt there is a system that will work for absolutely everyone.

Personally, I enjoy a blast round the Bedge, mainly because there's naff all else where I live. As such, the grading doesn't come into for me really, but I can see the point being made for those travelling from further afield specifically to ride it.

That said, there's plenty of online footage around to check out most trails before committing to a visit.

AMcK

Richie63 wrote:

for instance when I go to PORC this weekend I'll only be on the hardtail I had at Bedgebury but I'll make the most of it

Have you checked out PORC before you go? If you're looking for xc singletrack, this isn't the place - you can ride the 4x/DH and freeride bits and there's loads of little side routes to find. But that's it, it's down, then ride back to the top and head down again.

Apparently, there was a bit of singletrack years back, but we couldn't find it when we were there on Bank Holiday weekend - we suspect it's not been maintained. If you want singletrack, you're better off going a little out of your way to Peaslake/Surrey Hills instead.

If the 4x and DH is your thing, a quick internet check on Bedgebury beforehand would have shown you it wasn't for you!!

Stevo_666

AMcK wrote:

Personally, I enjoy a blast round the Bedge, mainly because there's naff all else where I live. As such, the grading doesn't come into for me really, but I can see the point being made for those travelling from further afield specifically to ride it.

Exactly - Northerners and Welshies are spoilt compared to us lot in Kent. I'm buying a runabout to go a bit further afield on the MTB.

Anonymous

Stevo 666 wrote:

AMcK wrote:

Personally, I enjoy a blast round the Bedge, mainly because there's naff all else where I live. As such, the grading doesn't come into for me really, but I can see the point being made for those travelling from further afield specifically to ride it.

Exactly - Northerners and Welshies are spoilt compared to us lot in Kent. I'm buying a runabout to go a bit further afield on the MTB.

If that is the case, then it's still no reason to give flat, boring trails a higher rating.

AMcK

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

AMcK wrote:

Personally, I enjoy a blast round the Bedge, mainly because there's naff all else where I live. As such, the grading doesn't come into for me really, but I can see the point being made for those travelling from further afield specifically to ride it.

Exactly - Northerners and Welshies are spoilt compared to us lot in Kent. I'm buying a runabout to go a bit further afield on the MTB.

If that is the case, then it's still no reason to give flat, boring trails a higher rating.

That's not what we're saying though, is it?

Stevo_666

No it isn't

About Yehaa's point, there'll probably never be a right answer. Depends what people are used to, so if you come from the flat boring SE a red that he would call a red might look like a black to you or me. And the other way round as Richie found out the other day.

In any event, ski resorts have had massively differing standards of run grading between different countries/resorts for donkeys years and its not caused big problems.

AMcK

I can see the point he (and others make) - and in the broader context of UK trails, and red/black trails I've ridden elsewhere, Bedgebury isn't a red. it's oversold.

I'm not saying it should be a red because I enjoy it, or because there's nothing else, either. It can be purple, or yellow with blue spots for all I care.

But in the local context for the variety of folks visiting Bedgebury, it needs a grading to discern it from the more general, family friendly trails.

Local context it works - national context, it's oversold.