Author Topic: Are Trail Centres FAULSE  (Read 5279 times)

recumbentim

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Are Trail Centres FAULSE
« on: 29 August, 2010, 07:37:36 pm »
For me a mountain bike is justs going out there  and expolring the hills.
Ok my 1st Mtb about 1980 was a 15 speed heavy thing and I took it thro the Lairig Ghru,
That was and is one third , cycling , pushing , carrying.
Then came accessing the hills for bagging and ski mountainering.
Then I had a Mtb Shop at Dunkeld and set up routes with the Forestry Comm, and gave out OS maps for my Hirers. So mabye I WAS A TRAIL CENTRE.???

But now back into it but feel no compulsion to visit a TRAIL CENTRE.
With set up banked corners set routes  , Graded , , jumps , vans or lifts that take one up hill.
By the way Did 4 Munros on Wed on MTB.
 
Discuss ???

andygates

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Re: Are Trail Centres FAULSE
« Reply #1 on: 29 August, 2010, 07:59:02 pm »
Different strokes for different folks.  Chill.
It takes blood and guts to be this cool but I'm still just a cliché.
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αdαmsκι

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Re: Are Trail Centres FAULSE
« Reply #2 on: 29 August, 2010, 07:59:53 pm »
I started MTB-ing in the early '90s cycling around The Lake District and I used it as a means to explore the area, including overnight trips staying in youth hostels. Bouncing down tracks was part of the enjoyment, but for me it was more about getting into the hills and slogging uphill. At a trail centre you'll never really get that sense of remoteness.

A lot of trail centres have opened up over the last 15 years and I guess it all started with Coed y Brenin, which I remember visiting in 1998 and enjoying. Some of the marked routes at these centres are very good; I remember following one near Betws y Coed last year that was the sort of route I'd put together myself if I had the local knowledge. Another centre I visited this year was more about the jumps / stunts aspect over a short (>3 km) loop, which I didn't really enjoy. However, some people do enjoy that aspect of MTB and if that gets more people cycling then great. Trail centres don't prevent the small number of people who want to MTB across the Scottish Highlands from doing so.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that trail centres are great for certain aspects of MTB-ing, such as hard technically riding. That isn't everyones cup of tea.

Which Munros did you do on bike?


[Edit]: Andy's post is a nice summary of my waffle!
What on earth am I doing here on this beautiful day?! This is the only life I've got!!

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Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Are Trail Centres FAULSE
« Reply #3 on: 29 August, 2010, 08:05:30 pm »
Erm... Initial gut feeling is to agree, but thinking about it, I'd say trail centres fuflill a specific purpose. They exist to give people an opportunity to practice those jumps etc, rather than to "go ride". They are perhaps as on-piste skiing/snowboarding is to cross-country skiing.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Zoidburg

Re: Are Trail Centres FAULSE
« Reply #4 on: 29 August, 2010, 08:10:29 pm »
I use the Chase a fair bit but we avoid the trail centre aspect like the plague.

The Dog is OK in places but we never do the whole route, we would certainly not go out on a saturday morning as it gets rammed and turns into the MTB version of a golf course = people queing and waiting to "play through", people on inadequate bikes for the trail clogging it up, people way out of their skill/comfort zone.

There are more technical bit's now with jumps and the like and a lot of time has gone into them but they still sit hidden away from the safer trails.

Pick your times, ignore set routes, look for new trails, piece together new rides to keep trail centre tedium at bay.


Re: Are Trail Centres FAULSE
« Reply #5 on: 29 August, 2010, 08:58:16 pm »
I sometimes get the same feeling of superiority when I ride past the top of the downhill course at Hamsterley and get overtaken by the tranny van which carries the downhillers to the top.  Not many of them ride back up.  They probably derive a different joy from blasting downhill at 50 mph, always a heartbeat away from disaster (at least that's what they tell me - and who am I to argue?), and there's no doubt that they do things I'd never be able to, but I can't help thinking that they're missing the moments which make cycling such a pleasure. 

One ride I've never done, but hope to do, is High Street in the Lakes, making a loop from Pooley Bridge across the peaks to Troutbeck and back over the Kirkstone Pass.  But then, I've never seen the point of trail riding, and I haven't really enjoyed the riding I've done around Hamsterley and Chopwell (apart from the social aspect).  I prefer to make my own way.

Jaded

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Re: Are Trail Centres FAULSE
« Reply #6 on: 30 August, 2010, 02:08:46 am »
Munros on an MTB is proper mountain biking..
It is simpler than it looks.

Re: Are Trail Centres FAULSE
« Reply #7 on: 30 August, 2010, 08:31:26 am »
Horses for courses, as has already been said.

Steve Kish

  • World's No. 1 moaner about the weather.
Re: Are Trail Centres FAULSE
« Reply #8 on: 30 August, 2010, 08:15:23 pm »
MTB riding has changed since the early 1990s when I first started it.  In those days, anyone with suspension was considered an extremist and even my local bash Swinley Forest had very few purpose-built trails.

Whilst it's now very organised and all-laid-on, I do miss the days of 'hit the trail and see where we get to'.

And at the risk of pi55ing off a few, uplifts for DH bikes weighing half a ton and used like skateboards with handlebars isn't really cycling, in my book! 8)
Old enough to know better!

Re: Are Trail Centres FAULSE
« Reply #9 on: 30 August, 2010, 10:03:56 pm »
MTB riding has changed since the early 1990s when I first started it.

I never knew you were one of the Repackers. How's Gary Fisher doing these days?  ;)

Re: Are Trail Centres FAULSE
« Reply #10 on: 31 August, 2010, 12:11:04 pm »
MTB riding has changed since the early 1990s when I first started it.

I never knew you were one of the Repackers. How's Gary Fisher doing these days?  ;)

[reminisces]I remember being overtaken by GF at the Mountain Mayhem the last year it was at Sandwell Park. Very polite chap, I thought:

"Excuse me, sir? Do you mind if I just pass you on the right along here?"

Woosh!!

And he was gone. 14 hrs into his 50th birthday solo attempt, leaving me grovelling in his wake even though I was in a team. Some people make you sick!  ;) [/reminisces]

Meanwhile, back on topic...

As others have said, trail centres are not for everyone but they serve a purpose. I live 6 miles from Cwmcarn and ride a full circuit perhaps twice a year. The local bridleways are so much better... But they're also extremely quiet, because Cwmcarn and its illk attract most of the traffic. Long may they live, say I!  :thumbsup:
Life is too important to be taken seriously.

Re: Are Trail Centres FAULSE
« Reply #11 on: 31 August, 2010, 08:27:26 pm »
MTB riding has changed since the early 1990s when I first started it.

I never knew you were one of the Repackers. How's Gary Fisher doing these days?  ;)

[reminisces]I remember being overtaken by GF at the Mountain Mayhem the last year it was at Sandwell Park. Very polite chap, I thought:

"Excuse me, sir? Do you mind if I just pass you on the right along here?"

Woosh!!

And he was gone. 14 hrs into his 50th birthday solo attempt, leaving me grovelling in his wake even though I was in a team. Some people make you sick!  ;) [/reminisces]

Meanwhile, back on topic...

As others have said, trail centres are not for everyone but they serve a purpose. I live 6 miles from Cwmcarn and ride a full circuit perhaps twice a year. The local bridleways are so much better... But they're also extremely quiet, because Cwmcarn and its illk attract most of the traffic. Long may they live, say I!  :thumbsup:

I had a similar experience at Sandwell. I turned to see who was sitting on my wheel around the lake section and there was Gary Fisher. It must've been 2002 or 2003. "I'm enjoying a gooood draft" he said in a Californian drawl. Cool, I thought. Then I realised this would be the only chance I ever got to race him, so I shot off on the last section and dropped him.  ;D

bikenerd

Re: Are Trail Centres FAULSE
« Reply #12 on: 01 September, 2010, 09:41:25 am »
Lots of trail centres have been inspired by BMX tracks - especially the bermy ones like Brechfa, and also downhill mountain biking.  As suspension has got better and lighter people can ride stuff that only downhillers on downhill bikes could ride 20 years ago.

Most of the MTBing I do is single track in the Chilterns, I grew up in Pendle and rode / pushed my bike up Pendle hill a few times.  But I still enjoy going to the odd trail centre, and home built trails like the Croft Trail in Swindon.  They're a bit like the good fun bits of a 40km ride condensed into 10km without having to do any of the country roads or boring double track fireroads to link the good bits up.

Trail centres - different, not worse, not better.

mattc

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Re: Are Trail Centres FAULSE
« Reply #13 on: 01 September, 2010, 10:16:21 am »
Lets cut to the chase here:

They're places with no chance of getting lost, good parking, a hosepipe and a cafe.
Has never ridden RAAM
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recumbentim

  • Only 6 SR,s No hyper yet
Re: Are Trail Centres FAULSE
« Reply #14 on: 01 September, 2010, 07:36:48 pm »
Loads of good points raised people , Thanks .
Makes me feel better and I like the golf course comparison.
Munros were in the Glenshee , Clova Hills , a lot of the new tracks are not on OS.

Euan Uzami

Re: Are Trail Centres FAULSE
« Reply #15 on: 01 September, 2010, 08:46:16 pm »
I like trail centres. You know what you're getting. They have also been specially built with drainage in mind. This adds to the reliability factor.
Natural stuff is great if you know the area, and as such for me the peaks is absolutely great once in a while when it's not mudded up.
With natural riding you have two main risks,
(1) is that you can use your OS map to plan what looks to be a great route round the countryside but when you go round it, it could quite easily turn out that you're hacking along a boring farm track for 90% of it, or having to do lots of road descending
and
(2) is that most, or part, of it will be absolutely mudded up. Some people like a bit of mud, I don't mind a little bit, but ploughing through a quagmire:  :hand: no thanks. This, thankfully, hasn't been quite so much of a problem recently though as it was in the years of freak rain of 2007 and 2008.

It's just the reliability aspect. For me I can drive over to the peaks but it takes best part of an hour and a half, but I can be at dalby in not much more than that, a lap of which is over 2  hours of solid riding with a much better ratio of riding to road work, and what fire road there is is up hill so you don't even mind that.

YMMV, but for me, MTBing is fun for largely different reasons to what road riding is and it isn't just about "getting out there and seeing the countryside".

Re: Are Trail Centres FAULSE
« Reply #16 on: 01 September, 2010, 10:01:51 pm »
I like the trail centres. They do feel false, but I don't care. I don't ride them much and I think I'd get bored going round and round the same course. But in small doses, I think they're great. No bog pits on any I've visited and they seem to be all year round routes. They're signposted, so I don't need to get the map out every few minutes as I often do when riding bridleways. I don't see the country as I do when I do my own thing on bridleways but there can be a good view sometimes. But they're good fun to ride and usualy have a cafe which is often excellent because of the view, food and atmosphere (A good cafe is a chief ingredient for a good day a-wheel for teethgrinder). Easily a good day out at a trail centre plus you can always ride to and from the centre from your  overnight digs to fortify your day out.
Not everyone's bag, not really mine TBH, but definitely good fun, worth having and very popular.
I've only ridden about 3 so far, but intend to ride many more.

MartinGT

Re: Are Trail Centres FAULSE
« Reply #17 on: 02 March, 2011, 01:47:32 pm »
Trail Centres - McDonalds, Fat, Fake but every now and then good
Natural Riding - Like a Sunday Roast - You Can have one every week and its always gooooooood :D