I like someone's sig I read recently. "If no one could ride it, there wouldn't be a trail there. Just because you can't ride doesn't mean that someone can't." Or something to that effect.
This explains a lot. It's amazing the little "short cuts" racers will take to save a few hundredths of a second.
We host an Enduro out here every year and there are fun twisty trails that now have new lines cutting accross some of the "S" turns. Love the race and most of the racers are not to blame.... but there's always a few that think their race result is more important than keeping trails as they are.
There is nothing wrong with having a bypass on technical features and planning them can avoid a lot of messes where people go all over, but yeah in this case it isn't really clear what the heck is going on.
I agree that it has become more necessary to put bypasses on tech features. Especially on popular trails. More and more recreational riders are out there and they don't have the skills to ride some of the more difficult features or knowledge of trail etiquette to not braid trails.
The rule (yes, I'm calling it a rule) is simple.
Stay on the trail.
If the trail has features you can't ride, walk it! Don't change it, don't ride off trail to go around it.
If you want to change a trail, join the trail crew and put in your 2 cents.
One nice thing about trails in the Northeast is there usually plenty of deadfall lying around to drag over to block off and obscure braids. Much easier to work with than big rocks.
Yeahbut... two days later, the same (or other) gomers have then taken the time to un-block the braid.
I don't get it. It would take them more time to try and ride the existing trail a couple times/session it to get it down than it would to drag everything back out of the way of "their" trail.
well messing with a trail is one thing, but there's nothing wrong with having a "b!tch line"
sorry, i mean a B line. it's better than widening the existing trail to double track
People have actually altered stunts to be easier in our town, mind you these are already off the main lines. On a trail fully dedicated to FR this has also occurred.
I've come across a few splits on the trail I ride. I think most of the times it's because there's a tree that's nearly in the center of the trail, and some people choose to go left around the tree and some choose right. There's no daunting obstacles that people are avoiding.
I can't imagine that people straying from the "correct" path has any effect on how much you enjoy your ride.
I've come across a few splits on the trail I ride. I think most of the times it's because there's a tree that's nearly in the center of the trail, and some people choose to go left around the tree and some choose right. There's no daunting obstacles that people are avoiding.
I can't imagine that people straying from the "correct" path has any effect on how much you enjoy your ride.
Trial purity can be overdone, I believe, but braiding spreads trails out and if left unchecked in heavily ridden areas turns the woods into a jumble of varicose veins. That's why I work to hide and block many of them
I'm new to riding and I kinda go into it thinking "Well I got myself into this mess gotta keep going" Would totally walk it through if I couldn't handle it. Kinda seems like the right thing to do.
An old friend of mine once got knocked out on a downhill corner because someone decided to walk back up. Don't ask me why that would ever seem like an intelligent idea. My poor bud had to spend the night in the hospital and get his cat scanned to make sure he was okay.
A B-route is one thing, you have a line going over a feature and a line around it. That's fine both are valid options. I have always found the worst mess is formed not by people trying to avoid obstacles but by people playing on them. You have a section of trail with a few obstacles close together and people line up, hit the jump/drop/whatever and then pull off into the woods to watch their buddy do it. Then ride around up through the woods to do it again. Maybe cut through to one on the other side of the switch back. Before you know it people have stitched every feature together in an infinite number of ways until all your left with is trees rocks and bare dirt in a large area. It was so bad at nam that they actually had to build stone walls along both sides of the trail in paces to keep people on the trial.
I don't know anything about the trail in the OP above but there are many good reasons why that braid may be a problem. There is a lot of opposition to mountain bike trails all over North America. Getting permission to build them or to ride on existing trails can be very difficult and in a lot of cases, impossible. In my own experience, I've had trails shut down for a braid no bigger than the one shown.
Let's try a hypothetical situation similar to one that happened to me, using the photo above.
The owner of Property B has given permission for me to put a trail across his property that is the only access to a larger trail system on public land. He was reluctant, but finally agreed that if I stayed within 10 feet of his property line, the trail could go through.
People riding on the trail decided to go around the difficult section and rode-in the braid you see.
The owner of Property A comes out and sees the trail running through his land. He gets in touch with Property B and threatens to sue him for allowing bikers to ride on his land. He may or may not have a case against Property B but Property B isn't going to take the chance. He was reluctant to have the trail there in the first place. Property B denies access to his land and effectively shuts down the whole trail system.
A lot of people didn't get what the big deal was and thought both property owners were being dicks, but it's their land and they can be dicks about it if they want.
In my case if the braid had gone to the right instead of the left it would have encroached on a "riparian zone" on a salmon bearing stream and the landowner would have been in all kinds of trouble with the federal government's ministry of the environment.
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