Skidding at trail centres, why??

BigLee1

I try my best not to do it but while helping maintain my local trail centre , whinlatter, last saturday the amount of riders skidding on purpose did my head in especially over the bit I had just repaired :evil: There`s a lot of people out there who need to perfect their braking techniques!!!!!!

Is it just me who it bugs?

Anonymous

No, it also bugs the hell out of people who have to maintain the trails. But it has struck me too, that there's a large majority of riders who just don't know how to ride, in particularly, how to use their brakes.

bails87

Yep, very annoying. Probably a combination of not knowing how to ride, not knowing that skidding isn't a very effective way of slowing down, and not knowing that it damages the trails.

.blitz

It's easy to think that only inexperienced MTBrs skid, but a lot of riders skid into corners to provoke a slide and turn the bike more quickly.

1mancity2

yeehaamcgee wrote:

No, it also bugs the hell out of people who have to maintain the trails. But it has struck me too, that there's a large majority of riders who just don't know how to ride, in particularly, how to use their brakes.

This is so right, buy a bike, ride a trail centre then SKID and STAND in front of a section start in a big group patting each other.

I know we all started somewere but come on, look around and take notice of other riders and respect the time and effort people put into the trail.

Northwind

But cutties aren't really skids, you do it by unweighting the back of the bike so much that it doesn't do much damage... So that's not so bad. But most people can't actually do that, or don't really understand what the good riders are doing, so instead they just bang on the rear brake and think they look pro.

Drives me nuts, we spend half our time on fixes when we could be building cool new stuff. Also means sometimes we have to simplify sections of trail to preemptively avoid future wear, which makes it duller for everyone else :evil:

nwmlarge

skidding is fun!

Anonymous

Dafydd (of Coed y Brenin fame)'s trails seem to stand up very well indeed to wear and erosion, and when they do wear due to skidding, it tends to end up looking very natural, rather than brake bumps.
Unfortunately, I think his trail building techniques are very labour intensive.

There are still some trails in Coed y Brenin that are pretty much exactly in the same state now that they were in nearly 15 years ago (or more?!? I forget!), and they've changed very little over the years with little or no apparent maintenance. They've certainly never ever been smoothed out.
I used to suspect that maybe the bedrock or the ground conditions were softer in Glentress, after hearing about all the maintenance work, but it has occurred to me that the NEW sections of trail in coedy, seemingly built differently, are already wearing out.

BigLee1

nwmlarge wrote:

skidding is fun!

true but theres a time and a place!

nwmlarge

BigLee1 wrote:

nwmlarge wrote:

skidding is fun!

true but theres a time and a place!

on dirt where someone else will repair the trail ?

lostboysaint

yeehaamcgee wrote:

No, it also bugs the hell out of people who have to maintain the trails. But it has struck me too, that there's a large majority of riders who just don't know how to ride, in particularly, how to use their brakes.

That.

cooldad

nwmlarge wrote:

BigLee1 wrote:

nwmlarge wrote:

skidding is fun!

true but theres a time and a place!

on dirt where someone else will repair the trail ?

Stiff_Orange

I think skidding as form of "braking" appeals to those type of people who put a Loud exhaust on a Vauxhaul Corsa.
The extra noise makes them think they are going faster than they actually are.

Northwind

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Dafydd (of Coed y Brenin fame)'s trails seem to stand up very well indeed to wear and erosion, and when they do wear due to skidding, it tends to end up looking very natural, rather than brake bumps.
Unfortunately, I think his trail building techniques are very labour intensive.

Yep, definately... They wear in, rather than wearing out. For such a major trail centre CYB just feels lovely, far less "industrial" than most. I don't know what the CYB ground conditions are like, but some parts of glentress are basically roads built on top of a swamp (that's why my boots are mouldy!)

Largely it's traffic I think, according to the FC CYB gets 150000 visitors a year but apparently half of that is non-riders, GT gets 300000 and it's mostly riders (because most of Glentress forest is pretty grim, whereas CYB is properly pretty) And it's concentrated onto fewer trails too, since so few people ride the black and most visitors don't know how ace the blue is.

The other thing is, when we were at CYB I can't recall coming across any total fuds. Whereas GT is plastered with them. That's OK though, I'm happy with GT red being a fud-magnet if it helps better trails stay intact.

Anonymous

fud

I really don't know if it's the trailbuilding method, or the underlying terrain, but he did end up as a trail design/building consultant, travelling all over the globe to show people the "right" way to do it, apparently.
I haven't seen that Dafydd in over a decade, but I still occasionally run into the other Dafydd (and Sian) who used to run the cafe.

Apparently, Llandegla is now officially the busiest trail centre in Britain. Which must cause massive problems when they have basically one short-ish loop, and a hundred gazillion fuds a weekend wrecking it!

Northwind

I don't know what bits are original Davis but the best bits of CYB are just about perfect, and they feel old so I guess they're his. Nice feller too... Mind you, Pete Laing is a great digger too, and Andy Wardman (Andy at Glentress is a bloomin genius for blue routes, and I've watched his trails form thinking "That'll be s**t, we've ruined that," then ridden it and thought "I'm an idiot, this is brilliant").

Llandegla must be growing like mad, they were only claiming 200000 in 2009. Never been... maybe I should get there before it becomes a smoking rut in the ground from all the friction.

dusk

a lot of people ride trails above their ability, they're good enough to ride the trail but not good enough to ride it well.

Cannock seems to be full of people going silly slow, wimping out of small obstacles and braking through entire smooth sections. I feel they would enjoy a less technical trail more but like to do the "hard" trail to make them feel like a big boy

sharky1029

I do sometimes skid on some of the trails in my local woods but only on corners which need it to get round a fairly badly flowing bit of track. However I am often maintaining the tracks there and digging and the trails which I skid on haven't needed maintainance yet. However as a form of braking it sucks and I don't do it at trail centres as it utterly destroys them usually.

BigChimping

Lighten up people the odd skid is quite fun! And who would want to ride their bike if you weren't allowed to skid?

tom_howard

BigChimping wrote:

Lighten up people the odd skid is quite fun! And who would want to ride their bike if you weren't allowed to skid?

True, but if 200,000 people do it on the same corners, it kinda ruins it for the rest of us who know how to use our brakes....

I'm off to Llandegla on Sunday (first timer), guess the main bike skill I'll be using is waiting?

bennett_346

I actively skid on trails, fail to see how it damages them anyway, the trails here are so groomed and smooth i'd rather they degraded into rough.

Anonymous

Tom Howard wrote:

BigChimping wrote:

Lighten up people the odd skid is quite fun! And who would want to ride their bike if you weren't allowed to skid?

True, but if 200,000 people do it on the same corners, it kinda ruins it for the rest of us who know how to use our brakes....

I'm off to Llandegla on Sunday (first timer), guess the main bike skill I'll be using is waiting?

There's rarely any waiting at Llandegla, on the trails themselves at least. It copes well with the incredible numbers.
As far as skidding goes, Les Gets in the alps is a perfect example of how skidding and over braking can ruin a trail

tom_howard

bennett_346 wrote:

I actively skid on trails, fail to see how it damages them anyway, the trails here are so groomed and smooth i'd rather they degraded into rough.

Nice to see you have a respect for the people who maintain the trails for you/the rest of us, stopping them from becoming rutted, soddened, boggy, slow messes in the winter, to never properly recover for the summer because you a) cant be a*sed to brake properly and b) couldnt care less.

Never come to my trails.

tom_howard

yeehaamcgee wrote:

As far as skidding goes, Les Gets in the alps is a perfect example of how skidding and over braking can ruin a trail

been there, done that, got the eyes shaken out of my sockets...

bennett_346

Tom Howard wrote:

bennett_346 wrote:

I actively skid on trails, fail to see how it damages them anyway, the trails here are so groomed and smooth i'd rather they degraded into rough.

Nice to see you have a respect for the people who maintain the trails for you/the rest of us, stopping them from becoming rutted, soddened, boggy, slow messes in the winter, to never properly recover for the summer because you a) cant be a*sed to brake properly and b) couldnt care less.

Never come to my trails.

Never seen a trail do anything apart from become rutted, if it becomes a boggy mess that just shows poor trail building and drainage to me.

Northwind

bennett's obviously a spaz, but, there's a wee bit of truth to it... Armoured trails are mostly rubbish when they're new (*), and rubbish when they're worn out... And only really good once they're worn in a bit. Trouble is skidding doesn't actually achieve that at all, it just rips them up, damages the surface and knackers the drainage, which requires them to be resurfaced more often keeping them in the boring smooth phase.

(* some trails do suit the smoothness but most don't. Some suit being quite smashed up too)

tom_howard

bennett_346 wrote:

Tom Howard wrote:

bennett_346 wrote:

I actively skid on trails, fail to see how it damages them anyway, the trails here are so groomed and smooth i'd rather they degraded into rough.

Nice to see you have a respect for the people who maintain the trails for you/the rest of us, stopping them from becoming rutted, soddened, boggy, slow messes in the winter, to never properly recover for the summer because you a) cant be a*sed to brake properly and b) couldnt care less.

Never come to my trails.

Never seen a trail do anything apart from become rutted, if it becomes a boggy mess that just shows poor trail building and drainage to me.

Im not suprised if you're hell bent on 'improving' them. even the best built trails will get destroyed if such excellent riders as yourself keep at it.

*AL*

bennett_346 wrote:

I actively skid on trails

Do you put a foot down and slide out the rear wheel, speedway stylee ?

bennett_346

*AL* wrote:

bennett_346 wrote:

I actively skid on trails

Do you put a foot down and slide out the rear wheel, speedway stylee ?

More into wheelie skids myself

Anonymous

What's a wheelie skid?

Stiff_Orange

yeehaamcgee wrote:

As far as skidding goes, Les Gets in the alps is a perfect example of how skidding and over braking can ruin a trail

Don't agree with everything you say on BR but a big +1 to this.

You don't have to go as far as Les Gets, the Labyrinth section at Swinley has been destroyed by these Fuds.