[fatdoc]

Well,

just as I was getting terminal depression over the weather, the 4 by 4 damage in the peak, the peak park questionaire being flooded by mxers and 4 by 4 users and getting a bit saddened by a bit of rather out of order DH digging on blakka (no.. i wont tell you where... it's best forgetten)

There IS some new light..

"after what seems like a life time i've actually started building"

http://www.trailblazerz.net/forums/showthread.php?p=31667#post31667


2 new flowing northshore courses are currently being erected at sherwood pines. the builder made the flow show (see site above).... Get in!!! One should be doable by me (ie: piss ) the other will have FBSF and bubba hurling themsleves off drops with abandon

time for a 2 ring front setup, bashguard and get the flats on the bike.... knew this all day XC wouldnt last forever!!!!!

[Bubba]

Fuck yes! 

That looks like the starting ramp going up - if Mr Fish builds at the same quality as at Rasen then it will be a lot of fun. I know the Pines is pretty flat but compared to Rasen it's a mountain

[bigphil]

This Rasen your on about Bubba.  That's not Willingham Woods at Market Rasen is it.  Cos that really is flat.

If so, where abouts is the north shore stuff, as my parents live near there and I can go and check it out.

[fatdoc]

look on the site above, it's vital you abide by the FC access agreement to avoid issues.

Mr Fish and the locals there will be happy to show you around.  But as you'll see from the site the public can't just rock up and ride, this might sound a bit onerous.. But that's the deal the lads there have cut

[Bubba]

Aye, that's the place bigphil - they've done a great job considering the flatness. Go take a look - if you aim for the mobile phone Ariel thingy at the highest point of the woods you'll find the start. From the obvious parking spot on the road out of Rasen, take the rightmost path - head straight for about 500m until you get to a junction. Turn right and follow the path up to the top of the hill. You'll see the wooden start tower.

As Fatdoc says though, please don't ride there without permission. The deal is you pay a £15 (assuming it's still the same) annual membership fee then you can ride there all you like. If you hurt yourself and are not a member of the club then the whole place could be jeapordised...also the locals won't take kindly if they find you riding there without permission. Pain the arse I know but if you're up there fairly regularly then it's worth making the effort.

I've got a helmet cam vid somewhere I could re-upload if I find it....

[fatdoc]

 
I emplore to adobe to the acccess agreement, the lads on trailblazerz will happily show you around, most live local, I know the lengths they went to get permission to build, it took years.

Btw, news soon to  come of a new DH course and 4 cross near to sheff I next 3 months...

[bigphil]

Cheers guys.  I won't be making a trip anytime soon but when I do then I will definitely get in touch with the builders to arrange a visit. 

Its funny, I grew up not 5 miles from there (and rode past on a christmas morning ride from Sheffield to my parents house) and it wouldn't have even crossed my mind that there would be north shore and other biking related stuff.  Having said that I know that there are some XC races going on there.  And you right, its much much flatter than Sherwood Pines.

If anyone is heading across there in the near future then let me know.  Phil

[Gee24]

"Btw, news soon to  come of a new DH course and 4 cross near to sheff I next 3 months..."

Let me guess, there's a dry ski slope there? There was a track there a few years back but the place got shut down and fenced off....

There should be more illegal trails being built, the best ones are illegal, north shore belongs in BC not the UK, when things get official the difficulty lowers, apart from a few exceptions, (Ae, Inners, various South Wales venues, Fort Bill). Granted, building/digging should be done discretely or at least on land where its not a ecological sensitive spot (like the SSSI parts of Blakka). There are a plenty of FC woodlands/plantations that should have trails in them, go look and go dig...the FC in this part of the UK is not forthcoming about riding, or last allowing difficulties of hard tracks to be developed, one responce by the FC recently was "...we've given you sherwood pines and wharnecliffe...". Sherwood Pines is ok if you want to DJ, it has no elevation and nothing steep that's worth mentioning, and Wharnecliffe is the stalwart, an ode to technicality, but it lacks hard fast corners, variable line choice, loose soil etc etc. But that's Wharnecliffe, its more the lie of the land that stops anymore types of track, thats why building your own in hard to find places is the way forward.

[fatdoc]

Go on then 

[Bubba]

Round here, It's actually really hard to find places to build where all the effort put in won't be quickly ruined by an angry landowner, everyone and their dog turning up, dicks on trials bikes/crossers and the FC themselves.

There are a plenty of FC woodlands/plantations that should have trails in them, go look and go dig...

If you're building on FC land then the FC will pull down anything they find. You might get away with it for a while but it won't last without a lot of luck. I've not found any FC woods around here that are remote/untrodden enough for anything significant to remain hidden.

I've spent hours looking at non-FC land and have found a few little sweet spots with some seriously good terrain but I suspect as soon as the landowners found the tracks they'd get ruined.

There should be more illegal trails being built, the best ones are illegal,

Best trails I've ridden in Britain are legal.

north shore belongs in BC not the UK,

Er, why? It's fun wherever it is.

when things get official the difficulty lowers

Well that's the reality of health and safety laws. It doesn't stop official trails being fun to ride if they're well built.

Most unofficial courses I've seen are badly built so don't last, are often dangerous, and are often built in stupid places in order to remain hidden.

[Gee24]

North Sore. It was originally built to link sections of trails to allow flow between the huge boulders of BC where short of being able to 'trails hop' up the side of them it was more feasible and more fun to build ladder bridges, drops, wall rides to connect them. The idea of them suits that sort of terrain, and accept a few bits and pieces through out the UK the majority os gash. We don't need skinnies, nor circus ride see-saws in the forests of the UK, they just make our riding look like a bunch of size 30 shoe wearing red nosed ejits. Look at Dalby, the NS there is useless, its just awful, it allows the FC to offer token gesture riding spots, to fill their quota. Wouldn't we want them spending money on building properly build corners, fade jumps, well linked sections, off camber rooty fun etc?

Are the best trails you've ridden legal? I'm thinking that most of Wharnecliffe is actually illegal? Most of the DH trails are illegal, sans 'fast track' and maybe 'no human'. They are not rights of way nor consentual tracks.

"Most unofficial courses I've seen are badly built so don't last, are often dangerous, and are often built in stupid places in order to remain hidden."

Slightly arbitrary statement, you haven't really given me anything to prove to me that is the case. Perhaps there is good reason why they are badly built, lack of budget, people doing it because they want things to be better/more challenging/lack of anything official locally. They don't last because, if like me, building discretely or in your own time you don't have access to machines, gravel, hardcore, drains, stakes etc etc, but the more people involved with illegal trail building the more sustainable the tracks will be, there will be more 'man-hours' to commit to projects and not bumming off to tame and the somewhat prescribed feelings of trail centers such as llandegla, brenin, and dalby for example. Building takes time, it also takes a lot of trial and error, like the creation of breaking bumps, blown out corners can't really be foreseen until the track gets ridden, catch my drift? (pun intended).

"...well that's the reality of health and safety laws..."

The old giving into the status quo argument. You might aswell say something similar like "there will alaways be racism whilst there are black people living in America". Reality...hmmm.... I don't agree, I mean I agree that there is a reality, but I don't agree with you that this dictates the difficulty of legal mountain bike trails in the UK. I'm sure you wouldn't find a health and safety document which tells you how steep a slope you can build on, how high you can drop off, how fast you can hit a corner....that would just be a minefield of arbitrary statements (taking it to a logical conclusion, all health and safety and Law is arbitrary)....do you really think that Rowan Sorrell went to the HSE with his plans for Cwmcarn when it was built? We agree as mountain bikers to part take in an activity which has risk, how we deal with this risk is up to us, if there is something as a 'perceived' danger on a trail there is often a warning sign or a chicken run, its up to you if you want to take a look first, ignore the sign or get off and push.

And fatdoc...I often have a mattock/rake/spade in my hands when i get the chance....

[Bubba]

I know what you're saying about the birth and development of "Northshore" on the North Shore but even without the obstacles presented by BC terrain, it's still fun to ride well-developed NS in the UK. I've not seen Dalby, but places like Chicksands, Mabie, Hamilton Hill (Market Rasen), Chatel, Abbeyford are much fun if you're in the mood.

Wharncliffe is semi-legal now - the FC have allocated the area that contains virtually all the DH tracks as a build zone. Anyway, look at the plethora of illegally built stuff in Greno woods - most of it lasts a very short time before it gets taken down. The newest track i've seen there is built horribly, presumably because the builders know it will be temporary so why bother?

But back to the question, yes the best trails I've ridden are all legal - Innerleithen, Cwmcarn, Caersws, Bringewood, Morzine, Chicksands, Mabie, etc - all great and all totally legal.

If I ever find a location where I feel it is worth putting in the time and effort to build then I'll be there. I think the best idea is to contact a landowner and pay a fee to set up exclusive access to build a private track. I've found a hill that has amazing terrain but it's in the grounds of a stately home so i've never even bothered to make a start.

Your racism parallel isn't really necessary tbh - it's not a case of "giving in" it's just that many English FC woods won't allow anything that is overly large or risky to get built. The Scottish and Welsh FC are much more amenable to mountain bikers.

[Gee24]

I've got an episode of the wire to watch so i'll be brief for now.

Its not a question of things being 'massive' or 'risky' to be a difficult track, i've ridden a few world cup courses and european national courses (pila, maribor, schladming, verbier, bad wildbad)  and there isn't much that is massive or risky, look at schladming, where is the risky drop or massive gap? (go to freecaster.tv to have a look at the track to see what i mean). Last season in the world cup there wasn't many tracks with these things you refer to on the track, maybe bromont had some big stuff on it. but these don't really make a track difficult, its how well you ride the sections in between these that counts. basically, what i am saying is that the difficulty at trail centers isn't that hard, and the stuff they deem as difficult tends to be 'drops', 'rocks' and 'north shore'.

[Bubba]

I said "large" not "massive" but anyway, I thought we were talking about NorthShore - no, I wouldn't expect to see any NS on Alpine World Cup DH tracks, that's a completely different thing and they have amazing natural terrain to utilise. Many English FC woods have very little vertical drop so building some NS is a harmless way to introduce a bit of fun and technical challenge. I agree with you that in many places the stuff put up by the FC is a bit shit. I've not been to Dalby but watched vids and it does look crap. It doesn't have to be that way though.

We don't need skinnies, nor circus ride see-saws in the forests of the UK, they just make our riding look like a bunch of size 30 shoe wearing red nosed ejits.

It's called fun! They don't need skinnies or seesaws in BC either - so what?

do you really think that Rowan Sorrell went to the HSE with his plans for Cwmcarn when it was built?

Yes I do - I suspect everything was looked at in great detail or it would never have been built. Everything at Cwmcarn is rollable or has chicken runs.

basically, what i am saying is that the difficulty at trail centers isn't that hard, and the stuff they deem as difficult tends to be 'drops', 'rocks' and 'north shore'.

Well I guess it's personal - i find riding drops and rocks the most difficult thing about a hard course but anyway, are we talking about XC trail centres now? I think that's a different thing, aimed at a different level of rider. That said, the XC NS on Mabie Darkside is incredibly hard.

[Bubba]

Aaaanyway, back to the original post!

This is a little helmet cam video I did in '06 at the NS in Market Rasen - this was built by the same guy who's going building the stuff at Sherwood Pines stuff. I labelled the various bits in the vid so that they could use it as a video guide.

Nothing that nasty (biggest drop is about 6ft) but it flows really nicely, is a lot of fun to ride and shows what you can do with a hill that isn't really a hill. I would expect the stuff at Sherwood Pines to have one track easier than this and one bigger and harder. I would also expect them to be longer and steeper since although the Pines is flat too, it's a mountain compared to Rasen.

[fatdoc]

interesting discussion above.

I kinda agree with bubbs, try to keep FC sanctioned XC trail centres in a separate box with regard to discussions on difficulty / danger etc.. it's a million miles from wharncliffe, greno etc..

As for the Sherwood pines build... indeed as I understand it Bubbs you are correct... one line (both should be longer than the flow show) will be easier then the Flow show, though in reality I'm expecting the same but with no doubles / gaps... The other line will be the Flow Show but longer and bigger. having said that I've not spoken to the builder for over a year but as his skills are awesome and his patience to get this built astounding (3 years!) I'm sure it will all be worthwhile!!

[Norton Sharley]

I think mountain biking is no different to any other sport, your performance is dependant on many factors only one of which is how 'hard' the trail is and others include how much bottle you have, how much bottle you drank the night before, what bike you're riding etc.  Personally I find most xc trail centres fun but with little or no technical difficulty and I'd rather go and find some 'hard' natural stuff than spend my time building my own trail. 

I think we'll see more people riding 'harder' (bigger badder bolder drops / rocks) on illegal trails (footpaths) as the future which will obviously lead to access issues such as those on Snowdon.

Personally I want to build a big curved ramp at the bottom of the Devil's Slide on Lundy then ride down it and leap into the sea    Wen Slab would be for afters 

[fatdoc]

it's been a life long ambition to go to lundy, dunno why... cant climb hard trad well, dont like the sea,  ???
.

[slackline]

A jump at the bottom of the Devil's Slide would be absolutely mental....



Lundy is well worth a visit.  Had a great week there myself.

[Bubba]

Jeez, you'd probably be doing 100mph at the bottom of that - you could do a nose-bonk off the International Space Station.

I'd like to go to Lundy even if not climbing at all - it looks like a sweet island anyway.

[slackline]

Yeah its pretty long!  This is from near the bottom with some people in for scale

[Bubba]

Some progress pics from the pines

[fatdoc]

Is it open offically??

I seem to have lost my trailblazers log in...

I want to go...

[Norton Sharley]

Somehow missed the pics of the slide earlier, nice work.  Will upload pics of SamT on the same to flickR/Flickr/fLIcKr when I can remember the 10,000th password I have to maintain security at Shorley Castle.

Lundy is great, but expensive.  Us and some others stopped at the place under the lighthouse so used to sit at the top of that every night and indulge in a Lundy tradition.   

[Bubba]

Is it open offically??

Nah. Think it'll be a while yet.