Coffee Talk Tuesday - How can MTB trails be more responsive to the community of riders?

Submitted by Kris Thompson on

How single track minded are you really? Conversations are moving about making trails more responsive to the riders demographics while still being friendly to Mother Nature. A friendlier trail is one that "flows" better or as alternative routes creating various trail "behaviors" that may be desired by some, like side jumps on a trail (as seen below). But can you still be friendly to Mother Nature when certain aspects of a trail are created? That can be very subjective to many. The photos below came from a discussion on Facebook. Another aspect is some managing bodies, even if they wanted to add jumps personally can not do so because that behavior does not support "passive recreation". Then on the flip side, sometimes tails get "dumbed down", which happens when riders ride around technical sections of a trail. Check out Don't SanitizeWalkerRanch on Facebook

All Photos are from Mike Rutter - Facebook

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9 Comments

Trails

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Personally i like the trails to be a little "smoother". I know we live in the ROCKY Mountains but I really dont enjoy getting bounced all over the place.

I do believe in keeping singletrack single. Bugs the crap out of me seeing people riding around (making the trail wider) more difficult parts of the trail. If you cant ride it get off your bike and walk.

even the rockiest front range

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

even the rockiest front range trails are tame compared to Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Neveda, and even Western CO and parts of CA. more obstacles help control speed and offer a Beyer experience for all trail users. don't sanitize our trails! if you can't ride it, go ride on of the myriad green trails in the area. it sucks having to fight just to try to keep a fun blue like walker ranch from being mutilated.

Seeing the cut corners in the

Submitted by BikeRiderT (not verified) on

Seeing the cut corners in the pics above bums me out. In the pic to the far right the cut corner doesn't make the trail any cooler, it's totally pointless.

To quote David Brower "Should we also flood the Sistine Chapel so tourists can get nearer the ceiling?". I think you know what I'm getting at; keep the hard trails hard, easy trails easy, and let's respect the single track and the people who volunteer their time to maintain it.

Even down in the

Submitted by Mike (not verified) on

Even down in the Golden/Lakewood/Morrison area there is trail sanitation going on. Don't smooth out trails by removing the rocks! It would seem removing the rocks allows the less experienced to ride at faster speeds causing even more problems on these multi use trails. If it's too rocky then ride the smooth trails like at BCLP.

Let nature do some natural selection rather than making everyone a winner...

Already the trail in the

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Already the trail in the middle picture, the jump line heading down the pipeline. someone has pulled a bunch of rocks and tree limbs into it. There's an alternate there already, why remove the actual technical feature that has always been there. Before the reroute and softening of the pipeline, you actually went to the right of that. Climbing the pipeline used to be a fair challenge, now that it's been 'sanitized' no longer nearly as fun. And why the santization? Most are heading up the 4 mile connector and all this does is make the downhill faster for the riders.

Thanks for the comments, but am I getting it?

Submitted by Kris Thompson on

I am surprised by the "don't sanitize trails" comments as it wasn't until I was posting this story that I even discovered this concept existed as I always thought if you didn't sanitize them they (the trails) would go extinct from the MTB community. It's those "unsanitized trails" I rarely ride these days like Walker, Hall and Heil. I don't complain because it is our love and high usage of those trails that have led them to be the way they are today. I just figured it was a sad evolution that would naturally happen over time on any semi technical trail but now I see this is not bad and some actually see this like vintage wine... keeps getting better. Or am I not quite getting it still?

Kris